Wizards in October: Preseason preview

October 5, 5:44 PMWashington Wizards ExaminerGeorge Panagakos

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The Washington Wizards will begin their preseason this Tuesday when they visit the Dallas Mavericks, take a brief tour of Europe while they face the New Orleans Hornets, and then finish up their seven-game exhibition run against their archrivals, the Cleveland Cavaliers.

As a recap, the Wizards' matches against Dallas, San Antonio, and Cleveland will air on Comcast SportsNet, and their match-up against Cleveland will also air nationally on ESPN.  No word on the other preseason match-ups thus far.  Check out Comcast SportsNet for more information.

Dallas, Detroit, New Orleans, and San Antonio feature high energy and IQ at the point guard, specifically New Orleans' Chris Paul and San Antonio's Tony Parker.  It will be interesting to see if Coach Eddie Jordan will employ Dee Brown for the majority of these match-ups to see how well Brown can stay with the fastest and craftiest PGs in the league, or if Jordan will go with experience in Juan Dixon or Antonio Daniels.  Memphis is in the process of rebuilding, after pretty much giving up their team last year, and Cleveland of course has LeBron James and Daniel "Boobie" Gibson to contend with.

The Dallas Mavericks are getting to be a fairly old team, with such veterans as Jason Kidd, Jerry Stackhouse, and Eddie Jones.  But they can all still ball.  Dallas also has some young talent of whom we will probably see more on Tuesday, including Gerald Green, Brandon Bass, and Jose Barea, the hard-nosed point guard out of Northeastern now in his third year. 

The Mavs should give a good indicator on where the Wizards are defensively, especially if Kidd starts at point.  Another concern will be Brendan Haywood, and whether he will be able to play.  If not, Etan Thomas will likely start at center with Antawn Jamison (if he feels healthy) and Caron Butler filling out the forwards.  If Haywood is unable to play, the match-up will be a perfect opportunity for Thomas to prove he is a capable offensive center, and perhaps the start of a fourth fight for position between Haywood and him.

*The Wizards two preseason match-ups against the New Orleans Hornets will occur in Germany and Spain respectively, as part of the NBA Europe Live 2008 Tour, a sponsorship between the NBA and EA Sports.