Expectations are rising for the Wizards after the addition of Dwight Howard, and team officials are happy to join in, writes Tyler Byrum of NBC Sports Washington. The Wizards were able to add Howard at a bargain price following his buyout with the Nets, giving him about $11MM over two years with a player option on the second season.
Howard joins a team that already has two All-Stars in John Wall and Bradley Beal, along with young talent in Otto Porter and Kelly Oubre. Washington fortified its bench, a weak spot in recent years, with offseason moves to pick up Austin Rivers, Jeff Green and Troy Brown.
“This is probably the deepest team that we’ve had and maybe the most talented,” said GM Ernie Grunfeld. “I think it is a very deep team with a lot of versatile players that could play multiple positions. We can put a lot of different lineups out there; we can go really big and we can go really small.”
There’s more from the Southeast Division:
- Dwyane Wade has a two- to three-day window to accept a three-year, $25MM offer in China, tweets Ira Winderman of The Sun-Sentinel. The Zhejiang Golden Bulls will start looking at other foreign players if Wade doesn’t respond in that time frame. Wade, meanwhile is considered a strong bet to return to the Heat if he continues his NBA career.
- Tonight’s agreements with Vince Carter and Daniel Hamilton will bring the Hawks to 15 guaranteed contracts once their signings become official, posts Bobby Marks on ESPN Now. Carter will receive a $2.4MM veteran’s minimum deal that will count $1.5MM toward the salary cap. Hamilton will receive a minimum contract worth $1.35MM. The Hawks used most of their $4.4MM room exception to sign Alex Len and have both two-way slots filled with Jaylen Adams and Alex Poythress.
- Hornets rookie Devonte’ Graham apparently won’t need surgery on his injured right knee, according to Rick Bonnell of The Charlotte Observer. A cartilage issue was discovered in the knee earlier this month, but specialists believe it will heal on its own. A team spokesman said Graham will resume basketball activity on a “conservative schedule.” He is expected to be ready for the start of training camp in September.
Gortat is good but the money mahinmi got was something he couldn’t shake, and after wall was critical of MG, and that’s after said Mahinmi solidified himself Mgs backup then got injured long term.. I’m glad Marcin got traded out, it’s a good trade on both ends, with rivers getting a chance to show he has skill without every move he makes being cuz of his dad. My point though is, they replace Gortat with Dwight Howard, who was a talented prick but proved he still had talent and changed his attitude like 3 years ago. Add the fact the wizards lost no one important but actually added good bench players in rivers, green and Bryant and they just may be the team Boston beats in the east final. I’d rather see boston/Toronto but wall/beal will edge LOWRY/Leonard
I’ wish I had an article space to talk ball.
If you’re willing to drop some coin I think word press is pretty cheap, like under $5 a month for a domain or something. If it’s solid and well done then you could prob even submit it to these guys for their blogger posts (the title of the posts alludes me I wanna say Hoops Rumors Originals but I don’t think thats it) and they might include it, which could get you going with a small following.
Of course if you’re willing to work for free there are prob a ton of sports blogs looking for writers but of course buying your own domain gives you the leeway to do whatever you want whenever you want.
You have to figure out what your target market is. Do you want to talk only about a specific team/teams or players? Or are you willing to talk about every team and multiple players (not just the big name guys or the names that most casual fans will know). If you’re going to talk about the league as a whole, including all the teams and players, you need to make sure you get rid of any bias talk when you do write articles (not saying you do, but just some advice). You yourself can have some bias feelings towards players/teams and maybe you can mildly express that feeling, but most readers won’t want to read stuff that is very biased material unless its a website/blog specifically for that team. Throwing in useful and relevant stats is always helpful and getting creative always helps too.
Sure Washington is much improved, DH12 will make a difference, they will be a top 4 in the east, behind Philly, Milwaukee & Boston. Ahead of Toronto or Indiana.
Mark my words, DH is going to to ruin the wizards this year. He is going to butt heads with John Wall and there whole chemistry is going to be ruined.