Wizzin’ All Over the Place

Thankfully for the Wizards there wasn’t much of a fan base to lose in the first place, but this year’s team may give DC’s bandwagon a reason to jump on board.

Out with the old, in with the new:

The Wizards have “purged” themselves of some of their older and less contributing players in Darius Songaila, Oleksiy Pecherov, and Etan Thomas for some new blood in Randy Foye, Mike Miller and Fabricio Oberto.  The upgrade here is more than substantial; the team pretty much dealt out some counterfeit bills and got some real ones in return.  The brightest bulb in this batch is of course Mike Miller.  While Miller is coming off one his worst season in the NBA, it is important to understand that last year he was traded from one of the worst teams in the league (Memphis) to an even worse one (Minnesota).  I think any player would play poorly in that situation.

In the 3 seasons previous to his time in Minnesota, Miller averaged 16.2 pts, 6.2 rebounds and 3.4 assists a game.  These statistics don’t even account for his most deadly weapon, his long range shooting.  During that time he averaged over 41% from beyond the arc while sinking an average of 2.3 3-pointers a game.  This guy is an absolutely deadly shooter and will make defenses pay as they leave him open to double team the likes of Arenas and Butler.

It seems the front office of the Wizards has finally matured and moved on from its horrendous Michael Jordan era (which was to blame for the Kwame Brown fiasco).  Amazingly, the franchise was able to hold onto its “Big Three” in Arenas, Butler and Jamison while still improving their roster.  In addition to the roster upgrades the Wizards made some major personnel changes with the hiring of head coach Flip Saunders.  After the unfortunate departure of head coach Eddie Jordan, the Wizards needed a veteran coach with some playoff experience.  Saunders has a win/loss record of .597 over his career and has lead his teams to 4 different Conference Finals.  With the Wizards looking to break back into the post-season race and conquer that first-round hump that they seem to stumble over each year, Saunders is an excellent choice.

Unlike previous years, I would expect the Wizards to be a pass first kind of team due to all of the talent on the court.  If Arenas is healthy, and I hope to God that he is, defenses will be all over him and he will have plenty of outlets to dish to on the perimeter.  Also, keep an eye on JaVale McGee to break out of his rookie shell a bit and start putting up some more consistent rebounding numbers with the departure of Etan Thomas.  The Wizards’ bench also looks to be pretty solid this year as Dominic McGurie returns to head up the B-squad with Randy Foye coming in as a solid back-up for Gilbert Arenas.