Just poking around ESPN, when I saw this one:

Ed Stefanski might consider making a run at the SuperSonics' Chris Wilcox. The 25-year-old Wilcox has good size (6-foot-10, 235 pounds), likes to play with his back to the basket -- the Sixers desperately need a low-post scorer -- and is heading into the final year of his contract (he'll earn $6.75 million).

Would Seattle be willing to take Utah's first-rounder for Wilcox?

I'm sorry, I know we've got a bunch of developing big men, but if we can get Wilcox for the 18th, I say do it.

Of course, this is counting on Sam Presti to be dumb enough to make that trade, so its probably not going to happen.

Take that KDP!

Lets face it, before losing his team this year Avery was a great coach for the Mavs (he has an insane winning percentage).  I'm actually not entirely sure either Avery or D'Antoni would be an ideal fit for the Wizards, but then again, who is?

Avery:

Pros: Inherited a good team and made them better, culminating in a trip to the NBA finals where he got killed by terrible officiating. Could do the same thing for us - we are an established team, while not as good as the Mavs under Nellie. Took an all-offense team and managed to make them play defense. Tough coach who wouldn't let Arenas run the show - a good thing, as I'm still not convinced EJ has any control over Agent Zero.

Cons: Completely lost his team this year, and that has to make you wonder. Two straight first round exits, we know what that feels like. Could completely clash with Arenas and ruin what is one of the better locker rooms in the league. Played with his lineups sometimes - would probably still play Songaila at center sometimes.

D'Antoni:

Pros: Nothing would make us more "Suns of the East" then getting the coach of the Suns. While EJ has the Princeton Offense, D'Antoni would make sure we played at an even faster pace and not get bogged down in the half court - which plays to our strengths. I think Blatche would really step up as an offensive force in his system.

Cons: More of the same - all offense, no defense. Doesn't play his bench at all, and we have some promising young players that need to be developed. Could be a lateral or even a backwards move - how would he fare without a PG like Nash? Would his system work with Arenas, who's more scorer than facilitator? Two words: Small Ball.

I'm not sure what the answer is here. If we do fire Eddie, we HAVE to look at these guys. (Assuming D'Antoni's gone.)

Ok, I know we're all feeling good about the Wiz right now, but I was thinking... what if the worst happens, and Gil leaves the Wizards as a free agent? What should our contingency plan be?

Remember, losing Gil does mean freeing up a lot of cap room - I think he's getting paid around $13 million this year.

My suggestion:
Resign Antawn Jamison. Ok, this is a gimme. Antawn has more than proved his worth this year, and he's coming off a max deal, so signing him for something like $8-10 a year works. With the money freed up from losing Gil, there is NO reason not to keep him. I'd try to sign him to one of those Ben Wallace-style front loaded contracts too, so he doesn't kill our cap if he breaks down when he gets older.

Sign Jose Calderon. He'll be in demand, but Toronto has money locked up in T.J. Ford, so we should be able to pry him away, even though he's a restricted free agent. He's only 26, he's effecient as hell and he'd be perfect in an up-tempo offense with two great scorers like Caron and Antawn.

What do you guys think? What would you do?

We had a great win over the Heat last night, looking good over a struggling division rival. Let's face it, that line they gave us was a joke.

While, it was a good win, something popped up in this game: Eddie Jordan's poor substitutions. Again. They're baaaaaaaaaack.

In the last two games we've seen a disturbing trend: Nick Young losing playing time to Roger Mason, Jr. Nick didn't get into the game at all last night, despite Mason going into full Jarvis Hayes-chuck-'em-mode.

Young being held out of the game wasn't the most disturbing part. What bothered me was that in crunch time, EJ left Mason in, over Stevenson when he was ON FIRE. DeShawn had a great scoring night and was playing good defense on Wade - who had 8 turnovers - but EJ left Mason in. Mason's poor defense on Wade in the beginning of the fourth was one of the reasons that the game was as close as it was.

I know we won the game, but I'm starting to think that Mason is becoming one of "Eddie's Players," a guy who gets PT for no reason besides the fact that Eddie likes him.

[Weekend Editor's Note: Because nothing replaces actually being at the game, here's mamemimo's thoughts from tonight's game. -Jake]

I actually had the chance to go to the Wizards' home opener tonight, and I did enjoy myself, despite the crappy seats and crappy Wizards. I had a couple of observations tonight:

1. The Wizards, especially Gilbert, have become very passive on offense. Now, I can chalk some of it up to rust - especially Gil, but we've been settling for jumpers way too much and not taking it to the hole. Gil did try to force things in the fourth, with disastrous results. I think its gonna take some time for him to come back to full speed - which should be expected after knee surgery. This does not excuse Butler or Jamison, who jacked up way too many shots. The bottom line is, we are a team that thrives at the free throw line - and we're not getting there.
2. Andray Blatche is not allowed to participate in the offense. He always spots up in the low post opposite of the ball carrier at the beginning of each play. He gets involved in setting screens and offensive rebounding, but that's it. His role appears to be exactly what Eddie had for him last year - and that's not good. He's got the best low post moves on the team (and that's not saying much) and we need to let him sniff the ball some.
3. Hedo Turkoglu ALWAYS fries us. See my sig. Thanks to sierradave for saying it first.
4. The Wizards ARE capable of playing good defense. Shocking, isn't it? While I do think they've been playing better D this year than last (although there's no real statistical proof) we were still not closing out on the three point shot and allowing too much penetration down the middle.  Tonight, however, the Wizards played (gasp!) lockdown defense from the beginning of the third quarter until about 10 minutes left in the fourth. We looked GOOD. We were closing out on threes, playing good one-on-one D, NOT switching on every screen, etc. If I was Randy Ayers, I would make the entire team watch a loop of the third quarter, while I screamed "THIS IS HOW YOU DO IT!" over and over again, for eight hours straight.
5. Brendan Haywood is having a career year (all three games of it), but his conditioning will not allow him to play all four quarters. Haywood played 32 minutes - which is not bad, but not great, but was still relieved by Songalia in the middle of the fourth. Why? Because he was tired. Haywood picked up two cheap fouls and his defense and rebounding really slacked in the fourth. Now he should be able to go 35 or so minutes without really getting tired if he wants to be a starter (especially on this team, which rides its starters hard), but (more importantly) Eddie needs to manage his minutes better so that Haywood can play in crunch time. There is no reason that we should have Songalia at the 5, on DWIGHT HOWARD with three minutes left.
6. Eddie Jordan always makes wholesale substitutions after we go on a run. This occurred in the second quarter - right after my friend Jake (not the snake) says to me "We're doing too well, Jordan's gonna pull all of them." Sure enough, we got a bizarre lineup of Daniels, Mason, Songalia, McGuire and Jamison, and the run promptly came to a halt. In the second half, Eddie broke what I believe is the Cardinal rule of Wizards substitutions - always have at least one member of the Big Three in. With this much offensive firepower, we should never put the big guns away.

I know this looks pretty negative, but it is hard to be positive after opening up 0-3. There are good things to note - we held a good offensive team to 43% shooting, and there is no way the Big Three will continue to shoot this poorly. Our defense is looking like it is improving - if not by the leaps and bounds that we hoped for. Let's hope we get settled and begin playing the way we know we can.