Could the Wizards and Bibby reach a buyout?

Mike Bibby isn't happy to be on the Wizards, and according to The Washington Post's Michael Lee, Ernie Grunfeld and David Falk, Bibby's agent, have had "preliminary discussions" on a potential buyout.

Here's more, via Lee:

. . . [N]o formal proposals have been made. Bibby makes $5.8 million this season and is on the books for $6.4 million next season. Bibby would have to sacrifice a lot of money and get waived by Tuesday in order to be eligible to join a playoff team this season.

Portland, Miami and Boston are reportedly interested in signing Bibby if he can reach an agreement. Grunfeld has said he wouldn't close the door on any situation as it relates to a buyout. According to a league source, the Wizards tried to move Bibby again, almost immediately after acquiring him from the Hawks, but were unable to get anything done before the trade deadline.

Really, most of the discussions are probably about that $6.4 million number Bibby is due next season. The Wizards are likely playing hardball on the matter -- which they should -- and if Bibby really does want to get out of Washington to play for a contender this season, he'll have to give back a decent chunk of change.

If the Wizards do reach a buyout agreement with Bibby, the team will have one problem, though it's a small one for a young, rebuilding team: There isn't another point guard on the current roster. The Wizards could bring back Mustafa Shakur, who signed two 10-day contracts earlier this season. Those deals have expired though, and he's not listed on the current Wizards roster. If the Wizards do choose that option, they'd have to sign Shakur for the remaining 20-plus games, since they can't offer him another 10-day contract. The Wizards could also choose to go in a different direction and bring in someone else, probably from the NBDL.

A few games ago, when Kirk Hinrich was still on the Wizards and injured, Josh Howard played point guard when John Wall was on the bench. I doubt the Wizards would want to play the rest of the season with Howard as the backup point guard, but I guess it's at least possible. I guess we'll find out on Tuesday.

Portis's days in D.C. appear to be numbered

On Friday, Mike Shanahan hinted that the Redskins would not be bringing Clinton Portis back at his current salary, adding that the team would only bring him back at a much lower price, if he doesn't find a better deal with another team.

Here's the story, via Mike Jones of Redskins Insider:

Redskins Coach Mike Shanahan said Friday evening at the NFL Combine that the team will allow Portis to shop himself to other teams and that they only would bring the 10-year veteran back at a significantly reduced figure.

"With a guy with a high salary cap, I've always dealt with it a little differently," Shanahan explained. "If we're not going to sign Clinton to that high salary, I'll let him test the market out. Not to say we don't want him, but for a lower price, and obviously we'll try to find the best deal. It could happen. I don't want to say right now. If I said that, usually I'm being pretty honest with you. Could be two days from now, could be three days from now."

Seems reasonable, right? It wouldn't make much sense to pay Portis the $8.3 million he's owed for the upcoming season. Depending on what the Redskins do in the draft and what type of deal Portis can find in free agency, he could still end up back in Washington. But Portis, who's 29 and has carried (at least part of) the load for the Redskins for seven seasons, can't seem to stay healthy now because of the toll all those carries and huge blocks have taken on his body.

If Portis has played his last down with the Redskins, he played honorably in D.C. and will be considered one of the best Redskins running backs in the franchise's history. Currently, he's the second all-time leading rusher for the Redskins with 6,824 yards, trailing John Riggins's franchise-best 7,472 rushing yards.

There's a plethora of other memories/moments of Portis to rehash, and there will be time for that on another day (when he's officially not on the Skins anymore).

Blatche continues to embarrass himself, Wizards

I'll admit it: I'm not Andray Blatche's biggest fan -- far from it. And I'm certainly not alone. Blatche, now in his sixth NBA season, has shown flashes of improved play at times in his career, but he hasn't progressed to the point where most Wizards fans hoped he would be. At 24, he's still a young guy. But he hasn't been able to stop creating controversy off the court. If he was making tremendous strides on the court, his whole act may be worth overlooking at times. Unfortunately, that's not the case. (More on that below.)

The latest distraction involves Blatche's misadventures on Twitter. Blatche apparently got into several recent arguments with fans on Twitter, including an offer to let his fists do the talking instead.

Here's the latest, according to Michael Lee of The Washington Post (first link above):

After making comments about being able to "buy and sell" someone and calling people who make threats on the Internet "punks," Blatche allegedly tweeted: "ok let's do this so everyone can see wat u bout let's meet n dc saturday after my game." Another tweet on his account read, "like I said I'm done with this fake internet thing if you wanna see meet me saturday after game I can throw these things homie"

Those tweets no longer appear on Blatche's Verified Account, but he wrote this morning that his account was hacked, "If anyone really thinks that was me responding yesterday is crazy I just heard of this this morning."

He later added, "i would like for everyone to use there brain for a moment im hardly on here why would i wanna be on twitter in miami i tweeted 33 things"

That's right, the old "someone hacked my account" excuse. It's not the first time someone's used that explanation, and it won't be the last. Lee also noted that the Wizards are siding with Blatche on the matter and won't take any disciplinary action. That's not shocking either.

What is shocking, though, is that Blatche keeps finding himself in the middle of foolish stories like these. Really, this is one of the more harmless things Blatche has done (and there have been plenty), but he never seems to be able to avoid getting involved in the first place. Blatche says that it wasn't him arguing with fans and challenging them to fight, but this is also the same guy who listens to sports talk radio and will actually call in when fans are criticizing his play. If Blatche is going to be passionate about his play off the court, then he should be the same guy on the court too. It would be nice if he worried more about defending the paint than defending his subpar play. I'm not suggesting that he doesn't give maximum effort during games, but it would be nice to see a steady progression in his game. And that hasn't occurred.

Right now, Blatche is averaging a career best 15.9 points and 7.9 rebounds per game. He's also doing that while playing the most minutes of his career, over 34 minutes per game (nearly seven more per game than last season). Unfortunately, Blatche is doing so while also taking more shots per game (14.7) and shooting a lower percentage from the field (43.1 percent). For a guy who's not a very good defender, that's just not going to get the job done.

For comparison's sake, Blatche is currently 14th among power forwards in terms of scoring. There are plenty of talented players above Blatche, obviously, such as Amare Stoudemire, Blake Griffin, Dirk Nowitzki, LaMarcus Aldridge, Kevin Love, etc.; you get the idea. As you'd expect, those guys are much more efficient than Blatche and make more of their shots. In fact, the only power forward above Blatche who shoots a lower percentage is, fittingly, Antawn Jamison (17.9 points, 42.7 percent shooting). That's not to say that Blatche doesn't have talent -- he does, but just not as much as most fans thought. (For what it's worth, Love takes nearly the same amount of shots per game (14.6) and averages 20.9 points. Just saying.)

It's one thing for a bad team to just be bad. And yes, the Wizards have that part covered. But it's a whole different level of embarrassment when players are mentioned in the news for off-the-court nonsense that is entirely avoidable. The disappointing aspect to all this, which I mentioned a few times, is that Blatche has the talent to be a solid player. He's not a total stiff. But he hasn't always seemed completely dedicated to his craft. It's sad that a guy with great physical gifts would be more worried about fans' criticisms and smack talk rather than putting in extra work and proving them wrong.

And it's not that this story makes me think any different of Blatche or paints him in a different light. I think most people who heard about what Blatche did (or may have done) didn't find it surprising at all and probably just nodded their collective heads. But incidents like these are just more of the same for Blatche, who keeps demonstrating that he is not a player who will be on this team when it starts winning again -- let alone be a guy who, along with John Wall, the Wizards can build the team around.

Considering that Blatche signed a five-year, $35 million extension before the season, that's a bit disconcerting. Scratch that, it's very disconcerting.

Randy Winn is not an 'intriguing option' for O's

I'm sure Randy Winn is a nice guy. But on what planet does he present an "intriguing option" for the Orioles?

Winn is 36 and is coming off arguably his worst season, one in which he started with the Yankees and finished with the Cardinals. He hit a combined .239/.307/.356, and according to FanGraphs, had a -0.4 WAR. Normally a solid outfielder, Winn also finished with a -6.6 UZR while splitting time between all three outfield positions.

Clearly, the linked piece above is supposed to be a nice write-up of a veteran trying to make the O's roster. And that's fine. But the O's already have Felix Pie and Nolan Reimold as potential fourth outfielder/bench options, and one of them is already facing the likelihood of not being on the team on opening day. Both players are younger and better than Winn, and there's no question that one of them (or both) should make the roster over him.

Winn may still have the ability to end up on an MLB roster. Players get injured all the time, and Winn wouldn't be the worst fill-in outfielder that's out there. But for now, there's no place on the O's roster for Winn, and it's really not that intriguing.

Balanced effort leads Maryland over Florida St.

It wasn't the prettiest performance -- especially with the way Maryland ended the first half -- but the Terps got a much-needed, 78-62 win over Florida St. With the win, the Terps improve to 7-6 in the ACC and 18-10 overall.

Five Terps -- Terrell Stoglin (17), Dino Gregory (14), Adrian Bowie (12), Jordan Williams (11), and Sean Mosley (10) -- scored in double figures, and Maryland shot over 52 percent from the field while holding the Seminoles to 43.4 percent shooting. Both teams turned the ball over a bunch (17 for Florida St., 16 for Maryland), but Maryland won the rebounding battle by a 29-26 margin, made 10 more free throws, and made two more three-pointers. Williams had another double-double, adding 11 rebounds to his 11 points. Gregory collected eight rebounds as well, but no other Terp grabbed more than three. Stoglin also dished out four assists, extending his streak of games with at least 14 points and four assists to five.

For Maryland, though, the story of the second half was defense. After getting complacent in its 1-2-2 (or 3-2) zone in the first half and letting Florida St. back in the game -- the Terps led 38-37 at halftime -- Maryland played hard-nosed, man-to-man defense in the second half and completely shut down Florida St.'s attack. The Seminoles aren't a great offensive team and obviously miss Chris Singleton, their best player, so the Terps tightened the screws in the second half and only allowed 25 points.

The Terps have three ACC games remaining, and they could really use wins in all three. Their next two games are on the road -- at North Carolina and Miami -- before coming home and ending the season against Virginia. Getting to 10 wins in the conference would be huge -- definitely difficult, but huge -- and it's probably something the Terps would need anyway as a starting point to build an NCAA Tournament resume. Anything less than that will likely mean an NIT Tournament invitation (barring an unforeseen run in the ACC Tournament).

(Quick note: Where were all the fans last night? I can't remember seeing a Maryland home ACC game with so many empty seats, and it looked like most of the empty seats were in the students' section (not completely sure though). I know this isn't the best Maryland team of all time, but they're still a pretty exciting team and deserve an amped-up crowd cheering them on.)

McGee finishes second in dunk contest, still wows fans

JaVale McGee may or may not be a player on the rise. He may never learn to play better defense or harness his freakish athleticism. And no, he didn't finish first in tonight's dunk contest because he didn't dunk over a Kia.

But for one night, McGee put on an impressive performance on a national stage, and even though he didn't win, he certainly did not fail to entertain. Just check out these two amazing dunks by McGee, the first of which (the two-basket dunk) may have been the best dunk of the entire competition.

Another close loss may signal youth movement for Terps

Watching the Terps this season has been difficult. They always play hard and rarely get blown out, but it's obvious that they're missing something -- maybe a scorer or a glue guy, but probably a dead-eye shooter or two.

After their most recent game, a 91-83 loss to Virginia Tech, the Terps dropped to 16-10 and 5-6 in the ACC. Tech's Erick Green hit a couple of key threes down the stretch to pull away, and Maryland struggled to answer back. Overall, the Terps shot over 49 percent from the field and made 21 of 24 free throws (a significant achievement for this group), but Virginia Tech hit more timely threes, grabbed 11 offensive rebounds (including several down the stretch), and forced 15 Maryland turnovers. Their zone also made Jordan Williams have to work extra hard to get the ball, and only a few of his points came easily. He didn't have one of his more efficient games, but he did still have 16 points and nine rebounds.

One odd thing about yesterday's game was how much Virginia Tech's starters played. Each was on the floor for more than 31 minutes, and their starters scored 88 of their 91 total points. Only three bench guys got on the floor, and none of them had a field goal.

Most of Maryland's losses this season mirror this one -- enough skills and heart to hang with a talented team, but just not enough to finish the job. Remember these?

L vs. Pittsburgh, 79-70
L vs. Illinois, 80-76
L vs. Temple, 64-61
L vs. Boston College, 79-75
L vs. Duke, 71-64
L vs. Villanova, 74-66
L vs. Virginia Tech, 74-57
L vs. Duke, 80-62
L vs. Boston College, 76-72

Only the two games in bold could be described as blowouts, and Maryland still had a chance at some point (small or not) in each of those games.

With Maryland's NCAA Tournament hopes fading with each loss, it's time to start Pe'Shon Howard and Terrell Stoglin. The most disappointing Terps this season have probably been Adrian Bowie and Cliff Tucker, so it's time for the freshmen to show what they can do in the last few games of the season (though they still play a lot of minutes regardless). Bowie and Tucker have been too inconsistent; maybe they're just not that good and never really should have been expected to provide much. Stoglin just had his best game of the season, scoring 25 points and dishing out six assists. He plays a little quicker -- and more out of control -- than Howard, but as he showed yesterday, when he pushes the ball he can make some things happen (both good and bad). Howard has also had a few solid games in a row and even hit four threes against Boston College.

More minutes for Howard and Stoglin (and probably Haukur Palsson and James Padgett) seems like a good idea to start laying the groundwork for next season's team. Not only that, though, but they (particularly Stoglin and Howard) may present the best chance for Maryland to win regardless. Gary Williams has likely recognized that already, though, and that's why the two have been getting more crunch-time minutes. Too bad neither guy is a sharpshooter -- at least not at the moment.

Wall not doing enough, according to LZ Granderson

In a recent ESPN article titled "NBA rookie class: Worst in a decade?" LZ Granderson praises Blake Griffin while criticizing many highly drafted rookies from the 2010 NBA Draft. Granderson even took a shot at John Wall:

Top pick Wall has all the talent to develop into the next great point guard and is in the top 10 in assists. But as of now he's a player averaging 14.8 ppg on 40 percent shooting on a sub-.300 team, and the Washington Wizards pretty much have the same record they had a year ago.

All of those things are true, and yet it just doesn't seem fair. First of all, Wall isn't just top 10 in assists -- he's sixth, with 8.9 assists per game. The next closest rookie is Eric Bledsoe, who's averaging 3.9 assists per game.

Granderson's point about shooting better is valid; everyone, including Wall himself, knows that he needs to be more efficient and make more of his shots. That was one of the main concerns about Wall when he left Kentucky -- he would need to improve his jumper. However, Granderson fails to mention that NBA rookies (primarily point guards) don't generally put up the kind of numbers that Wall is. In fact, only two other rookies have ever put up seasons with at least 14 points and 8.9 assists per game: Oscar Robertson and Damon Stoudamire. Wall still has part of the season to go, but I'd still say that that's rather impressive.

Is it a shame that the Wizards (14-38) aren't winning more games? Yes, definitely. But Wall doesn't exactly have a ton of talent around him, and it's hard to place a large share of the blame on the rookie's shoulders. He's still having a pretty excellent season, though apparently that's not good enough for Granderson.