Hard to find positives from dismal first half
When John Wall talks with his friend and former Kentucky teammate DeMarcus Cousins, he says the two are able to let their guards down. They speak freely about the difficulties both have endured so far in their NBA careers.
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“You can tell when you look at each other’s face when something ain’t going right,” Wall said. “We ask each other. We joke about it. Somebody say they not mad or they not upset, but we know the real side to the story.”
He will have plenty to get off his chest when he meets up with the Sacramento Kings forward in Orlando, Fla., for the Rising Stars Challenge during the All-Star Weekend, a needed break from a dismal second season with the Wizards (7-26). His sophomore campaign was supposed to be about rebuilding. Instead, it has been dominated by a coaching change, selfish and boneheaded plays and the second-most losses in the league.
“I think it’s tough on anybody that’s in this position, especially somebody like me that came from a winning program, a winning mindset,” said Wall, who has been Washington’s brightest star with midseason numbers — 16.8 points, 7.6 assists, 5.1 rebounds — comparable to those of his rookie season.
Fellow second-year forward Trevor Booker (7.3 ppg, 5.4 rpg) has turned into the Wizards’ toughest energy player, and rookie Jan Vesely has had moments of excitement, even if he needs to improve his strength and adjust from the European game.
“It’s pretty difficult,” Booker said. “I think the losing is the most difficult and with the coaching change, my first time experiencing that and a lot of other guys, too. But it’s all a learning experience.”
But there are few other tangible signs of improvement. Nick Young is averaging 17.2 points a game, nearly the same as last season. But his shooting percentage has dropped from 44 to 40 percent, and his player efficiency rating (14.49) is 26th among shooting guards and only three places in front of his backup, Jordan Crawford (12.4 ppg, 14.31 PER), according to ESPN.com. Rashard Lewis, a career 39 percent shooter from 3-point range, has hit just 24 percent from beyond the arc.
JaVale McGee is averaging a career-best 11.9 points, 8.8 rebounds and 2.7 blocks, but his most notable plays have been an ill-timed off-the-backboard dunk, a sprint down the court on defense after a miss even though the Wizards had the rebound and a volleyball-style goaltend Wednesday against Sacramento that sent Francisco Garcia’s floater into the eighth row when he should have prevented Garcia from driving into the lane.
“We’re still — I know the term has been used — style over substance,” said Wizards interim coach Randy Wittman, who is 5-11 since taking over for Flip Saunders on Jan. 24. No matter who is in charge, injured big men Andray Blatche and Ronny Turiaf have both been out longer than the team initially projected.
But neither has been missed as much as any hint of consistency.
“We have some bad habits as a team, and we’re trying to break them,” Wizards guard Roger Mason Jr. said. “When you have bad habits, sometimes you go back to those habits. The games that we’ve had success we’ve shared the ball, we’ve played team defense, we’ve been a team. The games where we struggled are when we try to do it on our own.”
