Flip Saunders went to DeShawn Stevenson as his starting shooting guard five games ago because he thought the guard’s pass-first/defensive mentality would help spark better ball movement and balance among the Wizards’ starters.
But that experiment hasn’t exactly worked as the Wizards are 1-5 with Stevenson as a starter, and the guard has struggled mightily, averaging 2.5 points and 1.8 assists a game.
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In the last five games he is 2-for-16 from the field, and counting one additional start from earlier this season, Stevenson is shooting just 20.8 percent from the field.
It’s to the point where teams aren’t even seriously guarding him.
So Saunders will likely go with Foye because he feels that Young needs some stability, and that he doesn’t see the point of having him get used to starting again only to make way for Mike Miller in a week or two.
On what’s ailing Stevenson, Flip said: “I think it’s a combination of having the year off, and he couldn’t do much in the summer time because of the back, he just tried to get back in shape and get his weight down and so because he’s been off for so long, he just couldn’t get into a groove. I think he changed his shot a little bit with his back. Looking back at some film his shot’s a little different. So I told him we’ll just have to keep working on getting that thing back to what it was.”
On his move to Nick or Randy: “We’ll see where they’re going. If they go with Green we’ll go with Randy. I’d like to get Nick into a role where he’s going to be consistent. And we also have to look at Mike coming back in the next two weeks and suddenly he comes back into a starting situation, so it’s like what we did with Dray, get him comfortable in his role. I think Nick is what he is. As a coach you have to understand he’s a streak player where you put him in and if he’s hot you play him and if he’s not then you’ll have to sit him down. I don’t think he’s a guy that you can play 30, 35 minutes. He might be a guy that’s effective playing 20 that he is when you’re playing 32.”
In other guard news, Javaris Crittenton, whose left foot is bothering him again before he was even able to fully ramp up his activity after missing all 25 games of the regular season and all of the preseason, told me on his way out of Verizon Center today that he was on his way to getting a second opinion. Wizards doctors have told him that there is nothing other than a bone bruise and strained tendons. But with inactivity having not made things any better, he’s wondering if something else can be done to help his situation.
