Julian Wright and Why Changing Scenery Matters

Twitter is like an ocean. Sometimes, it spits forth great, speckled beasts. Just as often, you make due with used trash bags and dry mud. There's no denying this fact, though: It cannot be ignored, or else the whole thing becomes an exercise in absurdity and "watching to watch something" pessimism.

That's why, as inconsequential as some athlete tweets may be, I think it's worth entertaining them as ideas. They deserve a life of their own away from their attention-addled beginnings, even if not taken literally. I am talking around Brandon Jennings, if you can't tell.

However, what I want to consider here is Julian Wright's recent outburst, or more accurately, plaint, on the subject of his future in New Orleans. Yesterday on Pro Basketball Talk, we got a summary of several days worth of Wright's trade deadline hopes and fears:

Off to practice, thinking bout how I'm jealous of all these players that managed to get traded before Thursday ... Just saying, might need a change of scenery, of course I love New Orleans! Bought a house here ... Not bout blaming anyone. Just thinkin bout the C. Fryes, S. Browns, and the G. Wallaces, of the league who just needed a change of scenery.

Ungrateful punk thug, right? Wright, who came out of the 2007 draft as an intriguing, athletic swingman with energy and versatility to burn, just hasn't found a niche for himself in the NBA. Part of this could be attributed to playing for Byron Scott, who since J.R. Smith found success out of high school has refused to give rookies any attention. The man valued vets, and the possibility of such a young, an brash, kid making an impact did not compute. That's why we had to wait until his ouster to learn that Marcus Thornton and Darren Collison could do great things for NOLA with Chris Paul on the bench.

Wright had some good games under Scott when he got minutes. There just wasn't another rangy, quick-start presence like him in the line-up, and he at least seemed to aspire to basketball IQ most deep. But alas, his minutes never improved after these few brief showcases, and under Jeff Bower -- the man who would play rookies -- he's playing even less. Wright's commonly labeled a "bust," but if Kelly Dwyer can argue that Darko Milicic should have had a more prosperous NBA career, can't I do the same for Julian Wright?

All this might sound like the whining of an under-achieving punk, and the writer irrationally supportive of him. Except Wright's smarter than the average jock, and has a good point about Channing Frye, Shannon Brown and Gerald Wallace. To varying degrees, their teams tried to get them minutes, or fit them into the program.

They made some cursory effort to bring along a talent whose value may not have been readily apparent. In the end, though, they either didn't put their best foot forward in that environment, needed a different system/coach, or, to invoke the cliche in its most pure form, needed a near-mystical "change of scenery" for the heck of it. I'm not saying the league owes this to Wright, but some other team would do well to try and pounce on this type of player. That is, a team smart enough to decipher which guys were really one trade away from relevance.

Maybe Brown should have kept his mouth shut, at least according to the "fall in line this is a military operation for you underlings" view of sports. He's certainly trying his best to backtrack in actual media outlets, as seen in this Times-Picayune piece. Still, just because it happened on Twitter, doesn't mean there's not a grain of truth to it. Especially when the man on the other side does seem to have a modicum of intelligence to go with his basketball skill.

Wright's outburst also seems especially relevant in light of the recent trade of Travis Outlaw to the Clippers. I couldn't tell you who was on that roster right now. As I understand it, they now want to go after LeBron, which is like something that would have come true before the housing bubble burst. But lost in all the hub-bub over the Blazers nabbing Marcus Camby -- why does this veteran big man keep getting jerked around like this?-- was the throw-in of Travis Outlaw.

Outlaw's time in Portland was, to say the least, confusing for all sides. A 2003 preps-to-pro gamble, outlaw rose from a scaldingly raw jumper to a versatile defender, unpredictable scorer, and surprisingly money shooter late in games. But although Outlaw could line up at the 3 or the 4, he found himself squeezed out of the rotation just as he hit his stride.

Blame it on the very special Rudy Fernandez, the calm and constant Nicolas Batum, or Outlaw's trouble with Nate McMillan's militaristic system. He's spent the last year and a half as an afterthought, or at best, a "we can count on Travis" stand-by -- when in fact, some team should be trying to turn the 26 year-old Outlaw into a more deadly, less orderly Shawn Marion.

Unfortunately, I don't see that happening on the Clippers. That's not a team looking to bring along young talent, with the exception of Blake Griffin's debut next season -- which, in their mind, will be the equivalent of unveiling an All-Star fresh off the lot. He expires this summer, which offers hope. But at the same time, it might be too late. Circumstance has dictated the way Outlaw's seen around the league, much as it freed Brown, Frye and Wallace -- and could still do the same for him. Pardon my low spirits. Bring up me, Father.

As a post-script, there have been some mentions that Tyrus Thomas could get out of Chicago. Already, way too much of the Internet is taken up by TT-related griping, from both sides. His potential still causes jaws to slacken. His attitude is horrendous. He performs when given minutes. He's not consistently engaged on the floor. He's been manipulated into the ground by coaches. He doesn't respect authority. He's an athlete without a position. He can rebound, block shots insistently, energize the break, and even hit a jumper now and then.

These aren't even oppositions at this point, it's the composite picture of a player whose career has reached a breaking point.

A lot has been tried in Chicago, sort of. Some good, some bad. I am not even sure what good and bad mean any more in reference to Tyrus Thomas. When a player of such obvious talent has become shorthand for "career at an impasse", there's only one remedy possible: a change of scenery, as long as he's not thrown into a Clippers-style purgatory.

As cliched, empty, and even New Age-y as it might sound, it's a valid response in Jeopardy! Thomas to the Knicks would be fantastic, PG or no PG; even Larry Brown and the Bobcats would offer a chance to start again. Because once you see that light of day, you never look back again.