Many people surely miss the blogging exploits of Gilbert Arenas, who's presumably still retired.
But not to worry Wizards fans, there's a new player blogger in the 'sphere, and he's better. Brendan Haywood is only about six posts into his blogging career on YardBarker, but he's already proved to be refreshingly insightful, intelligent, and entertaining -- perhaps even more than Agent Zero.
To start, Haywood seems to actually pen (or key) his own posts, something that Gil left to a desk-jockey to transcribe. This is supported by the fact that Haywood often responds to comments left on his blog, following standard blogger etiquette. In the rare time he would address the multitudes of comments on his blog, Arenas' response would come en masse in the form of another 8,000-word post.
Haywood, on the other hand, keeps his posts relatively brief (in tune with the nature of blogging), and is interacting directly with those who comment. Haywood even goes back and forth with a critic in his latest post, 'LBJ, You're Better Than That'. Here's a couple excerpts:
I_Bleed_Green: "I'm not even a Cavs fan, but the Wizards will never go anywhere as long as Lebron James is in the league. He eats guys like Haywood for breakfast. Oh wait, Haywoods never on the floor for him to do so. My bad."
Haywood: "I_bleed_green must be lebron's caddy no wonder he took the comments so personal"
I_Bleed_Green: "Lebrons caddy makes more money than haywood does lol"
Haywood: "Thats one very highly paid caddy then! LOL! stop posting and go wash lebron's car or something"
Haywood: "I_bleed _green why are you hating so bad? Your girl must have my name tattooed somewhere on her body! lol"
While the focus of Haywood's latest post disapproves of LeBron's recent 'exit stage baby' after losing to the Orlando Magic, Brendan himself coming clean and admitting that he once did the same thing, and how it was wrong, the Wizards center also addresses some other issues of his past.
"I wouldn't mind playing for eddie [Jordan] again. we got off to a ruff start but in the end we had a pretty good relationship. philly wouldn't be a bad spot for me, and my contract is up in 2010 anyways so you never know what might happen," said Haywood in the comments section.
Sports
Don't fret Wizards fans, Haywood still needs to play his way to a nice, new contract in '10, building on his stellar '07-08 season -- not to mention that Philly has centers Elton Brand and Samuel Dalembert signed through 2012-13 and 2010-11 respectively.
But if Haywood keeps working, maintaining his status as one of the top five centers in the East, Ernie Grunfeld and Abe Pollin surely won't have a problem keeping Brendan's pockets straight. Besides, as the DC Sports Bog's Dan Steinberg points out, if Haywood keeps criticizing LeBron (as he's done time and time before) Wiz faithful in the DMV won't want him to ever leave.
Kyle Weidie is a D.C. resident who writes Truth About It and contributes to Bullets Forever, both Washington Wizards blogs.
