SB Nation DC: All Posts by Sean Fagan

Bullets Forever Consensus Player Evaluations: Trevor Booker

2012-06-19T16:53:31Z

The Community has spoken! Now that you all have had time to weigh in on our favorite miscreants, it is time for the editors of the site to reveal their ratings for each player. We used the same 1-10 scale and added some commentary for you your enjoyment. So without further preamble.....next up is Trevor Booker.

Community Rating: 7.5 out of 10 (almost a perfectly even split between 7 and 8).

THE EDITORS

Mike Prada: Trevor Booker got more burn this year, but really, he was the same player he was as a rookie. This is a good thing, mind you, because it can be harder to maintain production over the long haul with more responsibility. I just wouldn't say he broke out. Instead, I'd say he was given more of a chance to show what he could do.

The one difference was with his jump shot. Being a starter forced Booker to become a threat from the perimeter, and he responded by raising his shooting percentage on 16-23 foot jump shots from 18 percent to 34 percent. He also took far more shots from that range, which caused his true shooting percentage to drop, but it was a necessary adjustment. If Booker wants to be more than a part-time player, he has to be able to hit that shot to keep defenders honest and prevent them from helping off him to cut off John Wall's driving lanes.

Alas, while I enjoy rooting for Booker, I do think he has limitations that will be tough to overcome. He has good strength, but his lack of size hurts him when he defends the post. He's still not a great rebounder, though he made marginal improvements in that area. His pick and roll defense should be good considering his frame, but it was often erratic. Experience will improve the latter, but it's going to be hard to get any better at the other two faults.

All in all, it was a good season, and unless another power forward is added, he should be the incumbent starter next year. I just wouldn't consider him an untouchable. Rating: 7.

Sean Fagan: Is he a trade chip or the future at power forward? I never thought I would see the day where the Wizards had a logjam in the frontcourt, but that day is about to arrive. Booker gets an 8 because he improved on almost every facet of the game for which he was critiqued last year. The question now is one of minutes and whether he would be willing to go back to being the seventh man off the bench. Rating: 8.

Jake Whitacre: Would have given him a 9 if he hadn't taken Caron Butler's title as Wizards' most beloved oft-injured forward. Rating: 8.

Jeffrey Newman: A power forward with a guard's height and tight end's body, Booker is a fan favorite because of the hustle and ferocity with which he plays. While not a particularly skilled player, Booker might be the Wizards best athlete after John Wall and makes you ponder the possibilities were he another three inches taller. He's also built like a semi-truck and set more bone-crunching screens than the rest of the Wizards combined.

Booker became a more dependable option for interim coach Randy Wittman after displaying an improved midrange jump shot in his sophomore campaign, but he will need to work on being a more consistent rebounder and defender if he hopes to earn starter's minutes next season.

Theme song: Another One Bites the Dust, Queen (in honor of Cook Book's aforementioned lung-collapsing screens).

Rating: 7

Pantslessyoda1: Improved his jumper a little bit, but basically the same ol', same ol'. Rating: 5

JKhan15: I love that he rolls hard to the basket on pick-and-rolls, and he is an excellent finisher despite his size. He also showed that he might develop a jumper to compliment his inside game. On the negative side, he still has work to do on the defensive end. Booker also improved his defensive rebounding, but it was still below average for a power forward. The Wizards really could have used his help on the defensive boards this past year. Rating: 7.

CONSENSUS EDITOR'S RANKING: 7.

CONSENSUS BULLETS FOREVER RANKING*: 7.25.

PREVIOUSLY: Andray Blatche.

*: This is the average of the community ranking and the consensus editor ranking.

Bullets Forever Consensus Player Evaluations: Andray Blatche

2012-06-18T17:34:34Z

Community Rating: 0 (400 votes/63%)

Not much more to add to this rating. To put it mildly, you were all disappointed with how Mr. Blatche's season turned out..

Our ratings after the jump...

The Editors

Mike Prada: I still remember the first hunch I had that Andray Blatche's 2011-12 season would be a disaster. It was during a conversation with Joe Connelly, who eventually was hired by the Wizards as a player development coordinator. For a good part of our chat, Connelly was talking up his client, noting his desire to get serious this year after having such a poor season the year before. But he also noted the frustration dealing with someone like Blatche.

"He'll take two big steps up," Connelly said, and then ..." His voice trailed off as he jumped backwards.

That's really the story of Blatche's season and Wizards career. Even as we were being sold that this year was different, Blatche was dropping hints about his shoulder not being healed. It was the same kind of stuff we heard the summer before, except then, it was about his broken foot. In both instances, the lack of conditioning doomed his season.

This year was worse than last year, though. The Wizards tried to get him going by giving him more responsibility, naming him a captain in the hopes that he would be forced to step up. It was a disaster. From his first press conference, when he proclaimed that he was "willing to die for this," you could tell Blatche had no idea how to be a team leader. You could smell the desperation in his voice, as if he was trying to quench his own doubts about his qualifications for the role. Making Blatche a team leader was clearly a grave miscalculation on the Wizards' part.

We know what happened after that. Blatche played horrendously, was booed on his own home court and was eventually shut down for "conditioning." I'd be shocked if he was back next year. The Wizards will try to trade him, likely fail and be forced to use the Amnesty clause to get him off the team.

Hopefully, the team now knows that propping an unprepared player into a leadership role isn't going to suddenly make him more prepared to carry out the job. Rating: 1.

Jkhan15: I don't think a season could go much worse. Blatche was a failure on and off the court, and worked pretty hard to earn this zero rating. A 25-year old, 7-year veteran who has displayed NBA talent in the past really shouldn't be this terrible. A positive: According to Synergy's numbers, which can be misleading at times, he was a solid individual defender (in isolation and the post). Of course, he only had about 50 defensive possessions, so how much does this really mean? Rating: 0

Jake Whitacre: Three years ago, we would have been THRILLED at the idea of Andray demanding more post touches. Rating: 1

Pantslessyoda1:Are negative numbers possible? Two years ago he was borderline untradeable, now he's a case study in bad decision making. Rating: 1.

Sean Fagan: Sigh. I really was hoping I could talk myself into a 3. But Andray kept disappointing me as a fan and as a reporter. He is still a great quote and an enjoyable personality and I think in part that is where the problem lies. Rating: 1

The consensus editorial ranking of Andray Blatche: 1

Not really a surprise here. A tad more lenient than the community under the assumption that he at least attempted to suit up and didn't get into any real off court drama. Still, things do not good for Mr. 7-Day

2012 Wizards' Player Evaluations: Nick Young (BONUS EDITION)

2012-06-15T14:28:53Z

It is the end of the season, which marks the point where the Bullets Forever community get to weigh in on how well they think each Wizards player did over the course of the the abbreviated 2011-12 season. Each player is rated on the 1-10 scale. Finally: Nick Young

We have come to the end of the road of our 2012 Wizards' player evaluations and who more fitting to end it with than one of the frustrating and enjoyable talents to have walked through the doors of the Verizon center in the last several years.

The writing was on the wall in regards to Nick Young before the season began. Young valued himself as a player worth more than 10 million a year and the Wizards respectfully disagreed. Instead, Young and the team hammered out a deal for a one year contract, which all but ensured Young's exodus from the team at the end of the year. Despite the contract delay, Young vowed to take it out on the league and prove his value on the floor.

It didn't quite work out that way. It would be a major stretch to say that Nick Young regressed in 2012, because the stroke was still there and he still worked hard on the defensive end of the floor. What proved frustrating was that many of Nick Young's bad habits crept back into his game, as he put the ball on the floor on a more frequent rate (never a good thing), worked too much one on one and once again developed an allergy to passing the ball. The Nick Young of the previous season, the guy who would either catch and shoot and work off of screens or immediately give up the ball was gone, instead in his place the Wizards were left with a slightly more efficient version of Jordan Crawford.

This was the Wizards' problem in a nutshell. With two high use players who displayed frequently poor shot selection, there was neither carrot or stick for Flip Saunders to employ. You couldn't bench Crawford and state "look at how Nick does it" because Nick was just as liable to ill advisably put the ball on the floor and lose it when he realized he had no one to pass to. On the flip side, it must have grated on Young to watch Crawford shoot the ball with even less concience from distances that even Young would think twice about launching.

Everything worked out for the best, as Young was traded to Clippers and got to return home. It probably wasn't the homecoming he quite expected, as he was frequently outplayed by Randy Foye and had limited effectiveness during the playoffs. Going into the offseason as a UFA, Young's value took an obvious hit, but I still think he will find a home on a playoff contender such as Chicago who need a starting SG who hasn't started to fossilize.

In conclusion, it probably was never meant to be for Nick Young in DC. But for this year at least, we will always have the first Portland game and other previous occasions where he went completely bonkers from the field. I'll miss the most normal of the three burritos, as he was a incredibly charming young man without any of the baggage of his cohorts. I think Young will eventually find his place the league, it just won't be in the starring role many of us expected.

Next Week: The BF Editors reveal their ratings for the 2012 Wizards.

Poll

How would you rate Nick Young's 2012 season?

0

44 votes

1

11 votes

2

25 votes

3

37 votes

4

61 votes

5

61 votes

6

46 votes

7

25 votes

8

13 votes

9

6 votes

10

13 votes

342 votes | Poll has closed

2012 Wizards' Player Evaluations: John Wall

2012-06-14T17:00:25Z

If other players scores were easier to parse out during the course of this season (Andray Blatche bad, Nene good) that John Wall remains an enigma. The centerpiece of the franchise has to be held to higher expectations that the rest of the team and at several points during the season, I at the very least, was left to question whether we had more of a "Joe Johnson" quality superstar on our hands rather than a Wade or a James.

Several things helped clarify this perspective as the season wore on. The first was the introduction of Mike's "missed assist" stat tracker, which demonstrated that Wall was executing well, but his teammates were simply not finishing. The second was the introduction of Nene following the trade, which appeared to reinvigorate Wall's play and his overall demeanor. "Here at last," his play seemed to indicate, "I have a player I can finally trust."

So while none of us got the expected Derrick Rose "leap" that many of us (and several notable pundits) predicted at the beginning of the season, it is also obvious that Wall is a player of immense talents who had an incredibly poor (say it again with me) roster constructed around him. The acquisition of Nene and the reintroduction of solid vets like Cartier Martin and James Singleton did much to alleviate the questions regarding Wall's play, but still did not eliminate every lingering concern. When is his jump shot going to become more consistent? When will he commit on the defensive ends at all times? Why does he continually get lit up by opposing point guards?

The hope is that these questions will be answered after a regular summer league and preseason. Wall's barnstorming tour during the lockout certainly did not seem to help his play during the regular season and there is cause to believe that the bad habits he accumulated during those glorified scrimmages will be gone for good going into next season.

My hope is that John Wall turns out to be exactly what many of us think he is, a transcendent basketball talent who has the ability to lead a team to great things now that the more laissez-faire elements have been removed. It would be a shame if we were stuck with Joe Johnson, but I for one do not think that is what the future holds.

Poll

How would you rate John Wall's 2012 season?

0

5 votes

1

2 votes

2

4 votes

3

9 votes

4

10 votes

5

41 votes

6

111 votes

7

185 votes

8

92 votes

9

13 votes

10

16 votes

488 votes | Poll has closed

2012 Wizards' Player Evaluations: Jan Vesely

2012-06-13T17:00:39Z

Things we knew about Jan Vesely before the the 2011 season began:

He couldn't shoot.
His rebounding was somewhat suspect.
He had an incredible motor.
He had good to decent defensive awareness.

Now, did any of these things prove to be untrue.

Besides John Wall or JaVale McGee, Vesely was perhaps the most scrutinized of the Wizards during this shortened season. The knowledge was that Vesely was going to be something of a project, but there was hope that his boundless athleticism and his playing time with Partizan would deliver a more complete package than the one that arrived on the Wizards doorstep in December.

Instead, the Wizards got an intriguing piece that was clearly labeled "some assembly may be required." Early in the year, many of us gushed how Vesely did so many of the "little things" such as rotating to his man, quickly getting the ball out on the break and constantly working on the boards (though not necessarily securing them) to keep possessions alive. However, after the first 35 or so games, the little things stopped being so impressive. Everyone knew that Vesely was a hustle player and his time on the floor would see him constantly careening around an causing havoc. This in turn led to the trend of Vesely picking up a ton of cheap fouls as he would tend to be overaggressive in man defense or reach over the back of an opposing rebounder.

The question for the Wizards and Vesely next season is not whether he is going to play a large role on the team, but what area do they need him to focus on to benefit the team the most in the upcoming season. Do the Wizards bring someone in to fix the jumpshot or do they set to work on developing some sort of low post game.

Like Chris Singleton, Vesely's development was no doubt stunted by the lack of practice, summer league and training camp. I think there is every opportunity that Vesely has a Seraphin like leap next year, the more concerning question is whether the Wizards have a future starter on their hands or a more athletic Chris Andersen.

Poll

How would you rate Jan Vesely's 2012 season?

0

11 votes

1

10 votes

2

20 votes

3

45 votes

4

77 votes

5

114 votes

6

139 votes

7

67 votes

8

12 votes

9

1 votes

10

18 votes

514 votes | Poll has closed

2012 Wizards' Player Evaluation: Chris Singleton

2012-06-11T17:15:18Z

I don't think that was what we were expecting.....

When Chris Singleton was drafted by the Wizards in 2011, most were expecting a frenetic, tenacious defender who would serve as a capable sixth or seventh man off the bench. Ideally, Singleton was to develop into the "three and D" player that the Wizards had needed for years, maximizing his effort on the defensive end and creating havoc and then racing to the corner to drain a corner three in transition.

That isn't exactly what happened.

Singleton's first week demonstrated exactly what the Wizards expected to get out of the FSU player as he harassed his opponents, made some amazing defensive plays and worked as a sparkplug off the bench. Following that initial first week however, Singleton basically disappeared for much of the season. Much of this may have to due with referees not allowing Singleton to play with the same ferocity that he displayed at Florida State, but as the year progressed, some sort of of adjustment should have been made. Instead, Singleton became increasingly more passive and as a liability on the offensive end of the floor, he often left the Wizards playing four on five.

What the Wizards were then left with from their 2011 draft class were two small forwards who both proved need more player development than the organization possibly predicted. As such, Singleton may find himself as trade bait during this offseason, as the Wizards' glut of SF options and his lack of first year development may make him expendable.

Poll

How would you rate Chris Singleton's 2012 NBA season?

0

6 votes

1

7 votes

2

20 votes

3

82 votes

4

121 votes

5

140 votes

6

87 votes

7

34 votes

8

9 votes

9

1 votes

10

5 votes

512 votes | Poll has closed

2012 Wizards' Player Evaluation: James Singleton

2012-06-06T18:00:29Z

James Singleton. Alonzo Gee. Othyus Jeffers. All players who had a brief and positive impact on the Wizards and then left the team for a variety of reasons. During each of their brief tenures, each player endeared themselves to Wizards fans as hard workers who were willing to dive on the floor, put in the extra practice and push the starters to work harder.

This year, one of those players came back. James Singleton, who was not retained following the 2009-10 season took his talents to China ,and at the time many questioned why the gritty forward was not retained following the season. Instead, the Wizards decided to go for a bigger gamble and acquire the services of Yi Jianlian and Hilton Armstrong, both of whom had negligible positive effects through their contributions. Following Singleton's return, he picked up right where he left off with the Wizards by providing a spark off the bench and demonstrated and scoring ability which had previously been absent.

The question is now whether the Wizards make the same mistake that they did in 2009-10. Do you reward your 8th man with a decent two year contract and lock down a player who everyone in the locker room appears to like and works hard on the court? Or do you roll the dice and hope to pick up a player with more "upside" that can provide the same production as Singleton at a lesser price tag. My vote would be to retain Big Game James, but past history has taught me that lunch pail Wizards are not long for the team.

Poll

How would you rate James Singleton's 2012 season?

0

3 votes

1

3 votes

2

7 votes

3

7 votes

4

12 votes

5

34 votes

6

39 votes

7

102 votes

8

107 votes

9

47 votes

10

42 votes

403 votes | Poll has closed

2012 Washington Wizards' Player Evaluations: Kevin Seraphin

2012-06-05T17:06:52Z

Apologies for the brief break, as I had to move all my worldly possessions from one place to another.

Apologies, however, should not be made for Kevin Seraphin, who had one of the most intriguing breakout seasons we have witnessed out of a young Wizards player in recent years. As of this time last year, they were many wondering whether Ernie Grunfeld's trade to acquire the young South American was a reach ,as he failed to make any type of impact during his rookie campaign. More worryingly, he still seemed out of shape and lacking the vertical leaping ability to allow him to play above the rim and effectively challenge opposing players.

There we brief flashes during the early part of the season that Seraphin had vastly improved in the offseason, which earned him the moniker "Manbearpig" from the BF faithful. Unfortunately, his flashes of dominance were normally negated the following evening, as his propensity to pick up cheap fouls or failure to guard quicker post men left him glued to the bench.

Strangely, this all changed following the JaVale McGee trade and the subsequent injury to Nene, Seraphin stepped in and his play was a revelation. Suddenly the Wizards had not one but two centers who played more or less competent pick and roll defense. Making things even better was the fact that Seraphin had an incredibly deft touch around the rim, allowing him to score with either hand and roll off 15 straight double digit point games to close the season. The one remaining concern is his rebounding, as Seraphin only compiled three double-doubles over that same period.

Perhaps my favorite storyline that emerged with Kevin Seraphin this season is that he still has a little bit of "old" Wizard in him. Whether its his birds, "Snakey," or generally congenial demeanor, Seraphin helped remind me that the Wizards still had fun players on the team with a unique identity, they just hadn't had the opportunity to let it shine.

This season will be an interesting one for Seraphin, as he will be splitting time in the frontcourt with a healed Nene and Trevor Booker. In truth, he is Randy Wittman's success story, and I would not be surprised to see Seraphin get the lion's share of minutes at center with Nene at the power forward spot. Where this leaves Trevor Booker, I do not know. But the old adage is that you are only as good as your last performance, and Seraphin's string of excellent ones almost ensure him a large role next year.

Poll

How would you rate Kevin Seraphin's 2012 Season?

0

2 votes

1

2 votes

2

1 votes

3

1 votes

4

3 votes

5

5 votes

6

37 votes

7

132 votes

8

206 votes

9

111 votes

10

56 votes

Snakey

54 votes

610 votes | Poll has closed