More stat-padding shenanigans from the Wiz

The Point Forward is a bit of a stat-padding watchdog, I realize. This season alone, I’ve taken issue with Rajon Rondo’s blatant pursuit of assists at the expense of easy shots; examined the legitimacy of Dwyane Wade’s (totally legit) monster rebound game; and examined who does and should get credit for steals.

The latest instance worth examining comes from the Wizards, a hopeless team that went out of its way to get JaVale McGee a rare points/rebounds/blocks triple-double late in a hopeless game Tuesday night in Chicago.

McGee could have ended the suspense at the 3:43 mark of the fourth quarter, when he dunked and drew a foul to give himself nine total points. But McGee is a career 63 percent free-throw shooter, and this is the Wizards, so McGee of course missed the free throw, leaving himself a point short of the triple-double.

What ensued was some combination of embarrassing, fun and in keeping with the history of so-so NBA players — including members of this very Wizards team — pursuing minor statistical accomplishments. The Wizards as a team were in on this, so don’t go lashing out at McGee. The Wiz called play after play for their center, resulting in two badly missed jump shots (including one air ball from the left baseline) and a turnover before McGee finally slammed home his 10th and 11th point with 18 seconds left. Hooray. He then pulled himself up on the rim and screamed in celebration, drawing a technical foul.

Sigh. This stat-grubbing, in isolation, isn’t so bad. McGee isn’t freelancing or breaking plays to get his final bucket. The Wizards appear to be calling plays for McGee, and can you blame this sad-sack team — the league’s most miserable watch on a nightly basis — for trying to find one small fun thing during the latter stages of a dismal season? I can’t. But what gets me is that the team put McGee in position to embarrass himself. This is a guy who scores nearly all of his points near the rim. To give him the ball at the top of the key or the elbow and ask him to work from there is inviting failure and drawing attention to your own desperation.

And for McGee to crow about a triple-double, with the Wizards down by 18 points, is unseemly. It’s a bit more unseemly given the context, and that’s why we cannot really look at this instance in isolation. This isn’t McGee’s first piece of dubious late-game behavior this season. In early December, he tried a foul-line dunk with 20 seconds left in a game the Wizards trailed by 25 points. To me, hot-dogging late in an early-season loss is a far worse sin than going for a mid-March triple-double with the support of your teammates. But the two incidents combined are rightfully going to color the perception folks have of McGee and the Wizards — especially given Andray Blatche’s even more embarrassing pursuit of a triple-double last April:

Blatche’s hunger for that final board approaches Anthony Bowie/Ricky Davis territory. He goes after it with a passion he seldom shows during minutes that actually matter; he gets on Cartier Martin for having the nerve to catch a rebound that flies right to him; he may or may not ask Yi Jianlian, then a Net, to intentionally blow a free-throw box-out so Blatche could grab a rebound; and he rushes up the court with four seconds left and the game decided in an attempt to intentionally miss his own shot and snag the board.

Maybe only NBA die-hards put all of these incidents together, but the Wizards could stand to be a bit more self-aware. They have to know how the NBA community looks at them, and they have to know TV crews are going to have a wonderful time mocking them over stuff like this.

To repeat: I have little issue with McGee’s play late Tuesday on its own. Players obviously care very much about notching a triple-double, especially when (as is the case with big men or reserves) they will seldom have another chance to do it. Even Shaquille O’Neal expressed support for Bowie’s infamous move to call a timeout and design a last-second play to net himself the assist he needed to secure a triple-double. That doesn’t make Bowie’s move — or Davis’ decision to shoot at his own basket — right or sportsmanlike, but it does show NBA players have long been willing to go to great lengths to nab personal milestones.

But the Wiz might want to institute a temporary ban on late-game shenanigans, because we’ve all seen enough from this bunch.