There are some strong educated guesses as to why Antawn Jamison didn’t talk to reporters yesterday, but we won’t harp on them for now because he did make the reluctant trudge to get in front the cameras and microphones today, ahead of his season debut tomorrow vs. Cleveland.
“It’s been tough the first nine games, watching,” said Jamison. “I’ve been feeling pretty good for a while, and it’s finally good to get out and start practicing the last couple days.”
Who else was practicing? Randy Foye (right ankle) had full participation while Fabricio Oberto (left hamstring) didn’t. Both expect to be play tomorrow, giving the Wizards their strongest set of available players this season. Obviously, Javaris Crittenton (foot) and Mike James (hand) remain out.
“Ooh, it felt good,” said Foye. “You could see the bounce and the pep in everybody’s step, like here we go. Everybody’s healthy, let’s go now.”
Jamison will have to shake off the rust and probably needs some conditioning to get fully back into shape, especially after being sideswiped by illness last week: “I have no idea what it was. I got cleared to play on Wednesday, and Wednesday night something hit me. It wasn’t the flu. It wasn’t swine flu. It was something, but it felt like I wasn’t going to play basketball for a while.”
And so he’ll play his first regular season game against the same team he faced when he dislocated his left shoulder on Oct. 14.
Asked what he thought has been the problem since he’s been out, Jamison responded: “I don’t think it’s something a professor or anything needs to dissect. We just haven’t been playing particularly well, guys not moving the ball, guys making excuses. That’s not what we’re all about.”
Washington head coach Flip Saunders couldn’t help but be upbeat, too: “I’d be surprised if we didn’t play well tomorrow. I think that we’ve had a couple really good days of practice. Guys have been very spirited. We’re not a team that you could look at say they’ve lost six games in a row if you came in and watched.”
And, here’s your obligatory gushing over LeBron James, courtesy of Saunders: “He’s the most dominant player in the game because of his ability to score, his ability to pass, his ability to rebound. He’s probably the fastest guy in the league, and he’s 6-9, 265 pounds and plays like a guard so he’s very dominating. What you can do is you’ve got to try to put him in a situation where he’s got to be a volume scorer, not an efficient scorer, and you can’t let him make other guys on the team better players. That’s what he does so well… He’s like a Steve Nash, where his guys play above and beyond. They feel a comfort zone because they’ve got the bully there. That’s going to erase any mistakes they make.”
