| 23 November 2009
Trick to use when you are ignorant: let talk who knows more than you.
Approaching the Wizards game, I did this Q&A session with William from Agent Dagger, the Wizards blog from the Bloguin network. Of course he knows Eddie Jordan well.
I think his answers are interesting and also encoraging. There is still hope.
S4g - Do you miss Eddie Jordan? Sixers fans are starting to question his rotations and the fact that he called out his players after the loss vs Grizzlies without taking any responsability for the loss. Is this usual for him?
AD - Eddie Jordan was a great coach with us, who should not have gotten fired when he did from Washington. It was not his fault Arenas got injured, and considering what he had to work with he did an amazing job. We would definitely be missing Jordan if we had not gotten head coach Flip Saunders this offseason, who we believe is just as good, if not better than Jordan.
Jordan has called out his players in the past. He and Gilbert Arenas never got along, and often had arguments that would leak to the media. But in the end, the players trusted the coach, and the coach trusted the players.
S4g - how long would it reasonably take to learn the Princeton offense well? 13 games into the season and Sixers seem to have a long way to go, very few flashes of that offense.. do we have to be patient or are we allowed to start complaining?
AD - That is a hard question to gauge. Jordan's first year in Washington resulted in an ugly 27-57 record. That of course was before the Wizards had either Caron Butler or Antawn Jamison on the team. The next season they added Jamison and Larry Hughes and the club improved to 45-37 and made the playoffs. Their offense was stellar, ranking 6th in the league at 100.5 points per game. The next two seasons they ranked 3rd and 4rth in the league, as their team got better and better. So it's hard to tell whether it was time that made the offense better, or the fact that they had better players to implement it. The bottom line though is that it works.
Have patience. The Princeton offense involves lots of passing and teamwork, and that all takes at least some time. I'm just not so sure how well Elton Brand can fit into that system...
S4g - what's the current state of the Wizards and how they will approach the sorry ass Sixers ??? Is it a matchup between two mediocre teams, like the standings would suggest, or they will get better and fight for a playoffs spot??
AD - The Wizards are in a terrible tailspin right now. They've lost eight of their last nine games, and now despite being fully healthy, look as pathetic as ever. Word has broken that there is unrest in the locker room amongst the players, and it doesn't seem like this talented club can play on any consistent level. As a result, we're really not focusing much on the 76ers, as much as we are focusing on fixing ourselves.
Both the Wizards and the 76ers have talented clubs. I think they both have playoff potential if they get their acts together, however, if neither teams do it soon, they may both be battling each other for the 8th spot in the playoffs.
So "patience" is the key word with Eddie Jordan and the Princeton offense. I'll try to remember it.
Wait, "patience" + "Philadelphia" ??? Uhmmmm....
(Agent Dagger informs us that Nick Young will start for the Wizards tomorrow night)
