Washington

Stockton-Malone or Jordan-Pippen?


Philip Maymin
Basketball News Services 

The great Utah teams of the Stockton-Malone era featured a powerful 1-4 punch in terms of the positions the two Hall of Famers played. The Chicago championships featured a 2-3 tandem in Jordan and Pippen. The 80's Celtics were a 3-4-5 combo of Bird, McHale, and Parish while the 80's Lakers were a 1-4-5 combo of Magic, Worthy, and Kareem. But the Wizards are placing their bets on a 1-2 tweener in Gilbert Arenas and a 3-4 tweener in Antawn Jamison. Could this be the first dominant 1/2-3/4 package in history?

Detroit's Isiah Thomas did not have a tweener forward as versatile as Jamison, and neither did Philadelphia's Allen Iverson. Perhaps the closest comparison of a scoring point guard and a versatile forward is last year's championship team: Chauncey Billups and Rasheed Wallace. Now, Wallace plays mainly four, and Billups rarely played the off-guard spot, and only when Lindsey Hunter was brought in to ensure a defensive clamp down in the backcourt. Arenas can legitimately play either position, much as Jamison can play either forward spot.

Even Oscar Robertson, one of the most versatile guards in history, had Kareem at the five-spot.

The best way of thinking about this package is it could be a nightmare for other teams to adjust to and defend. The worst way of thinking about this package is that it is still missing a piece; the silver lining being that perhaps that piece is recovering from surgery and will finally become the dominant All-Star everyone thinks he is capable of becoming.

NEXT GAME
The Wizards are on the road to face the Indiana Pacers on Monday, October 11th in a 8:00 p.m. tip. There are no scheduled plans to broadcast this game at this time. Tickets are available for this game at Conseco Fieldhouse.

TEAM NOTES
See quotes and pics of the Wizards during training camp at nba.com/wizards.

The Washington Timesreports that former Bullet Bobby Dandridge visited with the team's training camp yesterday.

INJURY UPDATE
Kwame Brown(surgery to repair fracture in right foot)will miss the first month of the season. He is expected to be able to practice full-speed by the end of November.

NEWSLINES

John N. Mitchell ofThe Washington Timeswrites: Almost everyone in camp believes many of last season's turnovers stemmed from the team trying to learn coach Eddie Jordan's complex offense.This season, though, there seems to be a prevailing confidence the players have a better grasp of it. "They are so in tune with the offense it's like night and day," said Jordan, comparing the team's understanding of the offense this season to last.

John Markon ofThe Richmond Times-Dispatchwrites: For most of last season, the Wizards didn't just not know the way, they didn't have anyone who could find the map. Only five players on the Washington roster had so much as appeared in an NBA playoff game.Four of them - Jerry Stackhouse, Christian Laettner, Chris Whitney and Mitchell Butler (Larry Hughes is the other) - were cut loose in offseason roster maneuverings. 

Michael Lee ofThe Washington Postwrites: Hughes will become a free agent next summer but said that he would like to remain in Washington after this season."I like what the organization is doing. I like the team. I like the city. I like the relationship with the coach," Hughes said. "Everything is on the up and up."

Michael Wilbon ofThe Washington Postwrites: The Wizards should bear watching because Gilbert Arenas is an enormous talent with gym-rat dedication to be even better than he was last season. Okay, Arenas is a little, well, wacky. Maybe he's even downright strange. But with Jason Kidd injured and Baron Davis having departed for the Western Conference, Arenas could emerge right out of the gate as one of the top point guards in the East, up there with Steve Francis, Allen Iverson, Dwyane Wade, and a reborn Stephon Marbury."He's the guy," Eddie Jordan said of Arenas, "who stirs the drink. In some possessions, he'll be at the point, and in some he'll be the offensive-minded two-guard. It's a hard thing for him. He's a scorer by nature and by instinct, and yet he has to run the team. It's not easy [but] I expect him to run the offense and, yet, score when we need him."