Towel Wavers Recap of the Day 12/25/08

Welcome to the first ever Towel Wavers Recap of the Day. Here we do a rundown of the best and the worst of each gameday. The Towel Waver of the Day is the end-of-the-bench player that stepped up the best during the day and the Towel Waver Wannabe is the highly-regarded player that played like he deserved to be buried in the back of the rotation the most. Yep, this is Towel Wavers, where we honor the meek and mock the mighty. So without further ado, the Towel Wavers Recap of the Day.

Towel Waver of the Day



Mike James
PG
Washington Wizards
26 pts
10-14 FG, 5-8 3pt
4 reb, 3 ast

Our first ever Towel Waver of the Day is Wizards PG Mike James. Though James is technically a starting guard in Washington, it's probably the only place he'd be a starting guard in. Before he was traded by New Orleans, he had appeared in only 8 of the team's 17 games, where he averaged 2.5 points and 1 assist per game. He hadn't played in the last 6 games, and had given his team no points in the last 10 games (9 of which he sat out). He actually played quite decently in his first seven games in Washington, where he was putting up 10.8 points per game (and 14.5 points in the last four games). None of them were wins.

Today, he gave the Wizards a fighting chance in a near upset of the unbeaten-at-home Cleveland Cavaliers. He shot about 70% from the field and over 60% from three point range as he dropped 5 threes on the Cavs. LeBron, who had 18 points on 6 of 13 shooting, and the Cavs pulled off the 93-89 squeaker, but Mike just may have been the better James out on the floor tonight.

Towel Waver Wannabe



Greg Oden
C
Portland Trailblazers
4 pts, 5 reb
2-6 FG
0-3 FT
3 TO

It's never a good thing when you have more missed shots (4 from the field and 3 from the charity stripe) and turnovers than you have points and rebounds. Even more when you're a former number 1 overall draft pick facing insurmountable expectations from the entire basketball universe (save the front office of the Blazers, they want to be patient with you). Oden also committed 4 fouls and wasn't even on the floor for the final minutes of the 102-94 loss to the Dallas Mavericks.