It’s all about how you leave practice.
With the Wizards coming off consecutive blowout losses and cracks in the locker room unity starting to not only appear but grow bigger by the day, I’ll chronicle the way practice ended on Monday on the main court at Verizon Center.
First, Caron Butler – wearing flip-flops and a fully-bandaged right foot – left with his head down, avoiding eye contact with the gauntlet of media. “His ankle’s been bothering him the last five-six days, and so he decided go to a MRI to see where it’s at,” said Wizards head coach Flip Saunders a bit later. “It swelled up a little bit yesterday so we’ll know more this afternoon.”
Then, Brendan Haywood departed, grabbing a basketball and making a bee line for either the locker room or the practice court, couldn’t tell which. He certainly gave the appearance of being too busy to answer questions as he stared straight ahead and bolted away. Of course, he did say this on Saturday night.
Mike Miller, meanwhile, was on crutches after injuring his right calf against in San Antonio. Asked how he was doing, Miller said, “I’m playing tomorrow.” Given the way he’s battled through the left shoulder injury – one that he’ll finally get to heal now that he’s done his calf, too – I almost believed him. With Miller out and Butler questionable, Nick Young will make the jump from being inactive to being in the starting lineup tomorrow night against Philadelphia.
As for more post-practice, Andray Blatche had to pause and shake his head when asked what’s changed since the start of the season, when the Wizards all seemed to be on the same page: “We came out the first game against Dallas, and we played great together. I was thinking in my mind, we’re going to be a great team. We still are a great team. We’re just struggling right now.”
Antawn Jamison sort of smiled but didn’t want to talk about smashed fruit plates and loud postgame rants, such as what happened after the Wizards blew a game earlier at Indiana. “We vented out in San Antonio. We vented out in Oklahoma. It’s just different vents. Just because somebody writes somebody threw something on the floor, it doesn’t mean it’s a different frustration when you don’t see something on the floor. Anytime you lose, it’s tough. We’re not playing particularly well, and that’s the toughest thing. Whether you’re losing to a team you’re supposed to beat, or you lose two in a row, it’s all the same.”
And then Gilbert Arenas, who first had loitered around the media scrum while Jamison spoke, returned from the locker room to talk to the media for the first time on an off day this regular season, and he was asked about whether the players trust one another right now: “Most of us feel confident in each other on the floor, and there are a few that don’t.” Why is that? “I have no idea. But for the most part, we all get along. There are what, about 15 players on the team? 14 get along.”
That can’t be good. Who’s the other player? We’ll do the addition by subtraction: Arenas was also asked who bears the responsibility of righting the Wizards ship: “Me and Antawn. That’s our jobs. But at the end of the day, if 15 players don’t want to go and it’s only 14, you’ve seen Remember the Titans. It’s the same thing. We’ve just got to play.”
Just to be sure, there was a follow-up question regarding the team’s third tri-captain. Is Butler in that picture?
“Come again?” said Arenas. “Yeah.”
On a side note, Arenas also answered a question about his expectations matching what has happened. “It gets frustrating because when I originally did my schedule for the season, we were 13-2. It’s kinda frustrating because me and [assistant coach] Sam [Cassell] had a little bet thing going on. Now I’m kinda down in a hole, that’s the frustrating part. Every time we lose a game that we weren’t supposed to lose, I owe a hundred dollars to the team.”
While Arenas is worried about his side bets, Saunders appears to have a developing situation to manage.
“Here’s the thing, you gotta look at yourself in the mirror,” said Saunders. “I think you don’t look at anybody else. First, look at yourself, no matter who that is. When we struggle as a team, which we are, we all are bad, from the coaching staff on down to the players, and you can’t be satisfied. But don’t look for somebody else to make a change and things. You gotta change first within yourself. This league is all about egos. You have to have an ego to play in this league. But what you have to do is you have to understand that your ego is never more important than the team. There’s no one in that locker room who doesn’t want to win, that’s the bottom line.”
At this point, it doesn’t quite seem that this is case for all 15 players on the Wizards roster.
