R.I.P. 7-Day-Dray, we hardly knew ye

I was in D.C. and ventured by the intersection of 7th Street and Abe Pollin Way and tucked into a corner was a grave yard. Funny, I've basically lived at the Verizon Center since January of 2008, but never seemed to notice it.

There was a tombstone engraved "Here lie the Washington Bullets -- May 15, 1997," commemorating the death of the team, whose name Abe Pollin changed because of the negative connotation, and replaced it with the nickname Wizards. There was another stone that read "Here lies Michael Jordan's Pride -- May 6, 2003." I guess they set that one up the day Abe fired MJ and sent Jordan and his Mercedes convertible rolling away from MCI Center. I moseyed past a few others, but paused at a fresh stone which bore the inscription, "Here lies Agent Zero -- January 6, 2010." The giant banner bearing Gilbert Arenas' image and that Character, Commitment, Connection slogan was balled up and stashed behind the stone. No love for suicide victims.

And then there was an even fresher grave. In fact, workers were just throwing on the last layer of dirt and setting the stone in place. "Here lies 7-Day-Dray -- Sept. 28, 2009-Jan. 11, 2010." Tossed on top of the grave was a black sweatband. Dang, another suicide victim.

Good-bye 7-Day-Dray. We hardly knew ye. Welcome back Andray Blatche.

Flip Saunders sent the shell of 7-Day-Dray home from practice on Monday, but in reality, he left this world a lot sooner. He was conceived during the summer, when Andray Blatche replaced himself and his No. 32 jersey with a newly focused player with a professional work ethic and a new number '7' to back it up. His true arrival was Sept. 28 when the Wizards reported for training camp and during that week of two-a-day practices at VCU in Richmond, he often stood out as the best player on the court. His coming out party was the regular season opener at Dallas when he stepped in for an injured Antawn Jamison and posted 20 points and seven points in a 102-91 victory over the Mavericks. Two games later, 7-Day-Dray poured in 30 points and six rebounds off the bench as the Wizards pounded the New Jersey Nets. His production dipped a little bit, and Andray Blatche made a comeback in the Indiana embarrassment -- you remember, the tossed honeydew melon tray game -- mustering only one point and three turnovers. But 7-Day-Dray soon returned, and despite fluctuating minutes, he continued to show flashes. He even prompted Flip Saunders on Dec. 11 to offer this description of him:

"He's probably been - if you look at both offense and defense and everything - he's probably been our most consistent guy," Saunders said. "I think when you have a guy that's playing that well, you've got to find minutes for him, whether it's at the center spot or wherever. But we're going to have to play him more because he's being consistent and he's playing well."

Saunders shortly thereafter added that there was one fault with 7-Day-Dray, "the problem is I talk to you guys about him and then he comes out and [craps] the bed, so I don't know if, as far as, he's reading his headlines or what, but we just have to stay on him."

At that point, 7-Day-Dray was averaging career-best numbers of 10.8 points and 5.4 rebounds. He didn't care that he didn't have a starting role, he just described himself as "an opportunist," and recognized that he was playing behind an All-Star in Antawn Jamison and another seasoned veteran in Brendan Haywood.

At the time, the Wizards were 7-13, but as their season has slowly slipped away (they've gone 5-10 since) so too has 7-Day-Dray. Basically he died and has been on life support since just after Saunders called him the Wizards' most consistent player. Talk about crapping the bed. He has made a few cameo appearances, but Andray Blatche has basically filled in for him the last 15 games. 7-Day-Dray officially died on Sunday. Angered by not getting any shot selections in the Wizards' loss to the New Orleans Hornets, he decided to off himself by committing what Saunders on Monday described as "conduct detrimental to the team." Blatche followed that up by writing on his Facebook page "Never have I played a game and had no shot attempts, they got me all f---ed up." That definitely wasn't 7-Day-Dray, the player who said his mama told him not to be so lackadaisical on the court, and the player who said whatever way he could help his team he would do it.

Apparently Blatche was still stinking up the joint with his attitude and actions on Monday that Saunders sent him home from practice and suspended him a game for Tuesday's game against Detroit.

Blatche followed up all that with a real winning response, posting on his Facebook status that he was headed to Atlantic City.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, your Washington Wizards. Could it get much uglier? Andray Blatche's patterns reflect everything that is wrong with the Wizards this season. A sense of entitlement. It's not everyone on the team, but there's a lot of it that has been going around. Players feel like they deserve something, and when they don't produce, their minutes get cut, and instead of it motivating them, they sulk. And losing hasn't helped. Saunders has said players feel like, Why am I not playing, I could do better if I was playing. But because they're moping on the bench, when their numbers are called, they aren't focused and instead stumble on the the court and lay an egg.

The death of 7-Day-Dray is sad because it just proves that this dude, as nice as he is, is never going to get it. Early on it seemed like ah, ok this is his fifth year, the light's finally clicked on for him. But as the Wizards have continued to lose, and his minutes have gone up and down, he has slipped back into his old lackadaisical ways. His body language screams, Oh, go into the game? So NOW you want to use me? Instead, he should have the mindset of OK, I don't know how long I'll be in here, so let me try to do something good. Flip Saunders is seeing the problems Eddie Jordan and Ed Tapscott had with Blatche. If he's not scoring, Blatche becomes disinterested. If he doesn't get the minutes he thinks he deserves, he won't bring it. Blatche just doesn't get it. He believes he can be Kevin Garnett, but doesn't have the consistent work ethic or steely do-whatever-it-takes-to-win mindset. Someone needs to remind Blatche that outside of his height and complexion, he is nothing close to Garnett. Someone needs to remind him that he was the 49th pick in the draft, not a lottery pick.

A few weeks ago, Brendan Haywood said the Wizards' problem was that instead of getting upset when their man scored on them, they were all bent out of shape because they didn't get the ball. Blatche got his panties up in a bunch because he didn't get any shot attempts, but whose fault is that? OK, so maybe there are no plays called for you, or maybe something forces the play to be changed, but you can score in other ways than set plays. As a fifth-year veteran, Blatche should know that if you crash the boards, you'll get putbacks. If you run the floor as a big man, you'll get lobs. You get a thunderous dunk, and next time down the court, a teammate will look for you.

It's easy to say, oh if this team was winning, they would have these types of problems, and Blatche wouldn't be sulking. But mindsets like his are the reason why this team is 10-23 rather than 23-10. Gilbert Arenas going into games with a "I've got to get 20 points and 10 assists" mindset rather than "let me do whatever it takes to win" mindset is what kept Washington from settling into Saunders system. Players thinking, Man, I've got to get my minutes, get my touches kept them from swinging the ball rather than trying to score in a 1-on-3 situation. A "I should have been in the game before now" mindset causes sloppy bench play. And "Never have I played a game and not had a shot attempt, they've got me all f---ed up," translates into lack of focus, poor execution in games and practices and more losing ways. And instead of thinking Man, I got suspended?! I can't ever let that happen again, let me get in some work, Blatche went to Atlantic City.

Yeah, that's going to give him an extra charge when he gets back to work when the Wizards take on the Atlanta Hawks on Wednesday.

{Image: via Bullets Forever Facebook page / Haraz N. Ghanbari, AP}