Doing Lines: Wizards' Big Three Go Missing

Every now and again there are some stupendous, silly, stupid, or downright outlandish individual lines from around the L. Doing Lines lets you know which one tops the list.

Washington's not-so-secret weapon was supposed to be their all-around depth and versatility: even if you contain one of their Big Three, there's no way you can stop the other two, right? Meh. On Monday, Gilbert Arenas (7 points, 2-for-10 shooting), Caron Butler (12 points, 4-for-13) and Antawn Jamison (9 points, 4-for-13) combined for 28 points, or roughly a third of what they're supposed to be putting up.

At least Arenas has some kind of excuse: he's still a bit rusty coming back from knee surgery, and he was playing Monday on a sprained wrist. He's also still coming off the bench, but with the Wizards returning to D.C. for Games 3 and 4 with down 0-2 with their tails between their legs, I wouldn't be surprised if he returns to the starting lineup. Antonio Daniels may have been a respectable fill-in starter while Arenas was hurt, but he's done jack lately, combining to score just eight points with two assists in the first two games.

Also Receiving Votes:
There's so much more to life than getting out of the first round, although I'm not sure Tracy McGrady realizes that right now. Like B.Shoals at Free Darko, I'm feeling McGrady's pain, but you have to wonder if maybe the cosmos are doing this to him on purpose, like, maybe he's being forced to learn how to persevere so that when he does someday retire from the NBA he can go on and do great things, such as use his fame and influence to go solve that thing in Darfur, and when he's done he'll give his speech in Stockholm and tell all of us that he realizes it was all part of the plan and that no one should ever feel sorry for him because, hey, there's more to life than the first round. Or, maybe I'm being melodramatic. In any case, he had a hell of a game (23 points, 13 boards and nine assists) but couldn't keep the Rockets from falling 0-2 to the Jazz.

Oh yeah, I suppose this LeBron James character deserves a mention: he scored 30 points with 12 assists and nine boards, if you're into that kind of thing.