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Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that the team has waived guard Mike Wilks.
In four games with the Wizards, Wilks averaged 1.3 points and 1.5 rebounds in 11.0 minutes per contest. He originally signed with Washington on December 19.
With 27 points and 13 rebounds last night in New Jersey, Wizards forward Antawn Jamison increased his career totals to 13,010 career points and 5,180 career rebounds — becoming one of just 11 active players with 13,000+ points and 5,000+ rebounds in his career. Injured Heat players Shaquille O’Neal and Alonzo Mourning are two of the other 10 players. In fact, of the 11 active players with 13,000 career points and 5,000 career rebounds, six of them (Jamison, O’Neal, Mourning, Antoine Walker, Juwan Howard, Rasheed Wallace) played for either the Wizards or Heat at one point during their career. Kevin Garnett, Jason Kidd, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Tim Duncan and Dirk Nowitzki are the lone active players with 13,000+ points and 5,000+ rebounds that never played for Miami or Washington.
Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that the team has signed guard Mike Wilks. Per team policy, terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“Mike is a solid and dependable veteran,” said Grunfeld. “He will bring experience and steady play to our team.”
“I am very excited and thankful for this opportunity,” said Wilks. “The Wizards are playing great team ball, and I hope to contribute by providing defensive pressure and creating opportunities by getting the ball to our scorers.”
Wilks played collegiately at Rice, before spending time in the NBA Development League after college. He made his NBA debut with the Atlanta Hawks during the 2002-03 season, and has since played for Minnesota, Houston, San Antonio, Cleveland, Seattle and Denver. He played in a career-high 48 games with the NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs in 2004-05. This season, Wilks appeared in eight games for the Denver Nuggets, and averaged 3.0 points in 15.3 minutes per game.
Wilks will wear uniform #29.
Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that guard Antonio Daniels sustained a MCL sprain in his right knee in the second quarter of Washington’s 104-91 victory at Miami on Thursday, December 13th, and will miss 2-4 weeks.
“This is very disappointing as Antonio was doing an outstanding job as our starting point guard,” said Grunfeld. “We are confident Antonio will return to action within the next few weeks. Roger Mason Jr. and Nick Young have been very productive for us off the bench, and we feel they will make the most of this opportunity.”
In his 11th season in the NBA, Daniels has averaged 8.2 points, 5.1 assists and 1.1 steals per game in 22 contests. Daniels started Washington’s last 14 games in place of injured All-Star guard Gilbert Arenas, and has guided the Wizards to a 9-5 record over that stretch. Daniels has averaged 11.0 points, 6.6 assists, 4.4 rebounds and 1.4 steals per game as a starter this season.
FoxSports (Charley Rosen) reports: With his newfound freedom and responsibility, Brendan Haywood is finally playing with passion. Indeed, it’s no stretch to claim that Haywood outplayed Shaq — scoring 10 to Shaq’s six, and claiming 10 rebounds where Shaq had only seven. Haywood even managed to get a piece of one of Shaq’s jump hooks. But the one stat that indicates Haywood’s true domination was his corralling five offensive rebounds.
Here’s Washington Wizards forward Antawn Jamison:
Antawn Jamison on the challenge Phoenix presents: “You know what they do offensively. This is a team that has led the league in scoring for the last couple of years, has had the MVP (Steve Nash) for the last two out of three years, and has a great supporting cast. You can’t afford to take a night off when you’re playing this team. This team really plays great basketball at home, and they also try and have one of the best road records in the league as well.”
Antawn Jamison on the Phoenix Suns style of play: “They really like to set the tone from start to finish, so we can’t afford to have the start that we had last year. I think it really all boils down to trying to contain and maintain the pick-and-roll. You’re not going to be able to stop it for 48 minutes at all – you just have to do a good job as far as containing it.”
Antawn Jamison on their awareness in terms of field goal percentage: “With Gilbert (Arenas) gone, offensively you have to take quality shots and better shots – no first side shots, no quick shots – and defensively, you really have to key in. We can’t afford to neglect on the defensive end because we’re missing so much offensively with Gil gone. We need for (Antonio Daniels) to continue to stay in front of his man and help us out in that way. We need guys like Brendan (Haywood) to continue to control the paint, block and alter shots. If we continue to do those things and improve on both ends of the floor, especially defensively, it would really put us in a great situation to really be able to win a lot of games and get some distance from the other teams who are around us.”
Washington looks to snap a seven-game losing streak at San Antonio tonight. The last time Washington won in San Antonio was Dec. 11, 1999 — during the 1999-00 NBA season. San Antonio’s Tim Duncan is the lone holdover on either team’s roster from that game; a 99-89 Wizards’ win.
After averaging a combined 63.0 points per game in Washington’s last four games, Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison are now averaging a combined 45.9 points per game this season. Butler and Jamison currently rank as the NBA’s sixth highest scoring duo…behind Anthony-Iverson (DEN), McGrady-Ming (HOU), Davis-Jackson (GSW), James-Gooden (CLE) and James-Ilgauskas (CLE).
Antawn Jamison has averaged 29.0 points per game in Washington’s last six games, after averaging 17.8 points per game in the Wizards’ first eight. Jamison is not the only Wizard to have picked up his scoring in the last six games in the absence of Gilbert Arenas.
After connecting on a career-high five three-pointers in Washington’s last game, Caron Butler has now hit 14 three-pointers through 14 games this season. Last season, Butler connected on 18 three-pointers in 63 games. He hit a career-high 41 three-point field goals in 75 games in 2005-06.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports: Center Brendan Haywood is having a career year and is averaging career highs in points (9.5), rebounds (8.9) and blocks (1.8). In year’s past, Haywood’s biggest competition at center was Etan Thomas. Thomas recently had open-heart surgery and his career might be over. This has opened up more minutes for Haywood and he has responded accordingly. Behind Jamison and Butler, Thomas is the best player you’ll likely see on the floor tomorrow. Third-year power forward Andray Blatche has also been stepping up his game lately and is scoring and rebounding well. Point guard Antonio Daniels has also been filling in well with Arenas out and has averaged 11.6 points and 7.8 assists since Arenas played his last game.
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Washington Wizards President Ernie Grunfeld announced today that guard Gilbert Arenas underwent surgery on his left knee. The surgery was performed at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, DC by Wizards’ team physician Dr. Marc Connell.
“I repaired a partial tear of Gilbert’s left medial meniscus,” said Connell. “In addition, he had a nonweight-bearing articular surface defect in the trochlea treated by microfracture. We are optismitic that he will be able to return to action in three months.”
“Gilbert worked extremely hard this summer to be ready for the beginning of the season,” Grunfeld said. “This is very unfortunate because he was starting to play at high level prior to the injury. We expect Gilbert to make a full recovery, and are confident that our other players will step up and help our team win.”
Arenas underwent an MRI on Wednesday morning and then had surgery later this afternoon at Sibley Memorial Hospital. Arenas will begin rehabilitation next week, and is expected to make a full recovery.
Arenas played and started in eight games this season, averaging 22.4 points, 5.9 assists and 4.4 rebounds in 39.3 minutes per game. He scored 30 and 27 points in wins against Indiana and Minnesota, respectively, but experienced some soreness and swelling in his left knee after the game against the Timberwolves. Arenas missed Washington’s last two games against Portland and Philadelphia.
Wizards coach Eddie Jordan on the upcoming schedule: “Every opponent in the NBA is a quality opponent. We think that we’re coming around. We feel good about where we are and how we’re playing. If we play hard, share the ball, keep our composure, and stay organized, then we have a good shot and we’ll let the winning take care of itself.”
Eddie Jordan on the Wizards’ defensive effort: “We have spent a lot of time on defense. Randy Ayers has done a terrific job with our basic defensive principles, our practice plans and emphasis during the games. He’s been a real key for our defensive presence. Our guys have put in the effort. They have bought into the system. They listen to the principles and how important it is to be a better defensive team so that we can get to another level.”
Eddie Jordan on the offense: “I think we are moving the ball much better than we were last year at this point. The continuity is helping. We understand each other’s games and we understand that our chemistry is important. When you are 0-5, you see the tape. You see how the ball isn’t moved, you see the low assists, and you see the high turnovers. High assists, low turnovers, caring about defense, and moving the basketball – the formula is just right for us to win.”
Eddie Jordan on Nick Young: “You know the direction a roller coaster goes, right? That’s what most young guys go through. He had some tough moments early this season, and all of a sudden he’s at the top of his game. We hope he can stay up there for awhile. I think he understands how it came about. Through defensive effort, he got a few breakaways. He played within the offense and we stayed organized. We saw the match-up that he had, and that was good. We have to try to sustain some type of consistency.”
Eddie Jordan on the Philadelphia 76ers: “They’re a very athletic team. I think (Samuel) Dalembert may be back, and they are a better team with him. They always play hard, and (76ers Coach Maurice) Cheeks is always changing defenses, so we have to be ready to read the defense, stay organized, and do what we have to do.”
Eddie Jordan on Gilbert Arenas: “It seems like he’s going to play. Our policy is that whenever we can give him some time off, we will. I told him not to eat a lot of turkey on Thursday so he might stay a little lighter in the pants on Friday and Saturday.”