Check out John Wall and his improve game along with Sacramento Kings JJ Hickson, doing damage in Las Vegas. Video courtesy of Slam Online @SlamOnline (on twitter)

 

Talk about being ready for the season. This has to excite every Wizards fan out there. 

Can David Stern/NBAPA please hurry up and just move forward with this process because there is some good basketball coming this fall. 

It seems the Mystics have picked up exactly where they left off before the all-star break by opening up the second half of their season with another loss. This time to the visiting San Antonio Silver Stars 73-67. Despite an overall sloppy performance, the Silver Stars made just enough plays (and of course the Mystics made just enough bad ones) to pull away with the victory. Silver Stars point guard Becky Hammon lead all scorers with 22, while our all-star Crystal Langford lead the way for the Mystics with 19.

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I just received word from Mac Williams of the Goodman League/Inside Da Gates: 

"We have been inodated with so many request, we have to move to a new venue, the Goodman League v.s Drew League game is now taking place at Coolidge High School at 6315 5th Northwest Washington DC at 6:30."

Looks like it's bigger than we all thought anticipated. 

Owner of the Washington Wizards and like 100 other ventures, Ted Leonsis, posted on his latest blog over at TedsTake.com (check out the site, he's a genius and my daddy). By the way, it's an inside joke when I call him Daddy.  I don't call him Ted, I call him dad (or daddy). Reason why I call him Dad or Daddy? Because he reminds me of my father and when speaking to him, he's really laid back like my father. It's only fitting.

Anyways, Dad posted about how the Verizon Center is being worked on from the "To Do List" in the next couple of weeks.

"Also the Verizon Center has installed and will continue to refine during the next few weeks an upgraded sound system and we are also hard at work on modernizing a bunch of suites in the building.Scratch some more To Do’s off our list. Thanks for the support!"

Look forward for a fun ride under this ownership Wizards fans!

Courtesy of Mac Williams/Miles Rawls (head man and chief of the mic), released the roster for the BIG game August 20th at Georgetown at McDonough Arena on the campus of Georgetown University and will be streaming LIVE on TheBasketballChannel.net.

According to Mac Williams, the PR/Manager of Inside The Gates/Goodman League stated, Tickets are $25 dollars for General Admission, $60 dollars for Limited Floor Seats. 

These tickets will be going on sale July 29th at Selective Downtown Locker Room Stores.

These will be the hottest ticket in town.

Now to the rosters:

Mystics forward Crystal Langhorne has been selected as a reserve for the Eastern Conference in this years WNBA All-Star game. Langhorne, who has been a bright spot for the Mystics this year despite their terrible start, has been averaging a career high 17.3 points per game as well as nearly 8 rebounds per game.

In the midst of the current NBA work stoppage, it seems at least one guy, Matt Winick, the NBA's VP of Scheduling and Gaming Operations still has a job. While most NBA players are either filing into unemployment lines or catching up on General Hospital, the schedule for the currently nonexisting 2011-2012 season was released this morning for all 30 teams.

Unlike the release of the Redskins schedule where we look to see how bad we got screwed over with 5 away games against division winners, the NBA schedule release is more like pre-vacation planning with fans skimming through all 82 games looking to see what night the home games against the Lakers and Heat land on. Here are some of the key matchups for this forthcoming season..

Ok, well its not the NBA's Summer League, but we promised to keep you updated anytime we see videos of your favorite Wizards players playing in Summer leagues. This time around it's at Jamal Crawford's Summer League at Rainer Vista in Seattle Wa.

It's a few days old but who cares, its basketball and it's John Wall doing some pretty cool things on the court.

Also in attendance according to the video owner were, Tony Wroten Jr, Nate Robinson , Isaiah Thomas and Terrance Williams.

Disclaimer: If you are looking to critique defense from these videos, close the browser and go watch highlights of the Pistons championship run.

Now enjoy some Summer League basketball...

Anybody who is a fan of basketball is obviously not happy that the NBA is locked out right now. So far though, the only things we've missed out on as fans are free agency and the Summer League.

From a Wizards fan perspective and speaking on behalf of my colleagues at Wizards Extreme, the latter is much more of a let down than the former, if only because me and the New King of Social Media, Asad Naqvi would have been in Vegas to witness Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton and Shelvin Mack doing their thing while wearing the new Wizards colors. 

Luckily enough though, this new breed of young talent, mixed in with some old vets and even retired players love to play basketball and they don't care if it's outdoors or indoors, they just want to ball. The saying typically is one man's trash is another man's treasure. In this case, the NBA may not want their players to use their facilites but Summer Leagues like the Goodman League and the Drew League are taking advantage of the lockout and are hosting a slew of current and former NBA'ers.

We are roughly 13 days into this lockout but already in DC alone we have seen the likes of Kevin Durant, John Wall, Brandon Jennings, Ty Lawson, DeMarcus Cousins, and Shelvin Mack just to name a few. These players have attended indoor sessions (Goodman Coalition) and outdoor sessions (Barry Farms, Goodman League). We have even seen the likes of ex-players such as Chris Whitney, Lawrence Moten, and Sam Cassell.

Last night Wizards fans in North Carolina had a chance to see John Wall put on a dribble and drive show at the Greater NC Pro Am aka "The Rucker of the South". Wall dazzled the crowd with his speed, passing and finishing at the rim for Team Triangle Gastroenterology (no thats not a joke). Coached by former Wizard Jerry Stackhouse, the team also featured John Henson (UNC), and top returning player for the Tar Heels, Harrison Barnes.

Wall will be in Los Angeles tonight for the ESPY's of which if you haven't seen the commercial yet, here you go:

For highlights of Wall's Goodman League Coalition debut and his promise to play at Barry Farms / Inside the Gates click below:

For a recap from Wall's NC Pro Am performance here are a couple more videos from Hoopmixtape Blog, Comcast SportsNet, :

Moral to the story: Don't worry about the lockout.....yet. There is a whole summer worth of basketball in leagues all across the US. Those might just be your best chances to not only catch a game for free but to get those autographs that are just too damn hard to get at an NBA game.

Stay tuned to Wizards Extreme for more on your favorite players participating in leagues throughout the summer. 

Follow us on twitter: @JoeGlo1 @AsadNaqviDMV @Abdu11ah @BBallWiz330 @ShaunAhmad @AjayWJFK

Alright guys judging by all the nasty emails and twitter mentions I've been getting about the Mystics midseason report not being posted, I know that you all have been anxiously waiting and I'm SORRY. You can all exhale now because here it is.

I finally decided to use my down time in the office a little differently this morning. Usually when things are slow at work, people will know. Well at least on Facebook they'll know. I mean I'm talking about an Abdullah Sharif newsfeed takeover. I'm liking at least 1 out of 3 statuses, commenting on peoples stupid posts with witty one liners and of course utilizing my key expertise of clowning fellow colleague Asad Naqvi in any which way I can. And if I'm still bored then I'll most likely either be stalking Lindsay Lohan's twitter, trying to squeeze my head into my mini-Dolphins helmet, or just zoning out to my coworker's computer screen as he shops online for weird stuff like replacement switches for ceiling fans (yeah, they have them at Lowes.com - not available in stores).

Anyways, so here I am now behind my desk somehow trying to put this dreadful start to the Mystics season in perspective.

All I can think about are the poor DC basketball fans who have acknowledged and accepted that their Wizards won't be around for a while, and are left with no choice but to resort to women's basketball.

Not that its any different from men's basketball right? Just like those PSA's we've seen on NBA TV with Dwight Howard vouching for WNBA credibility by stating that "basketball is basketball". Well, that may be true..I guess.. but for the few percentage that actually believes in that statement, the Mystics so far seem to be doing everything to make them lose interest.