Alternate Unis

For the first time since the team's colors were re-branded in 2011, the Washington Wizards will finally have an alternate third uniform which will be introduced during the 2014-2015 NBA season. How and when these alternate uniforms will be worn is still to be revealed, but there's no doubt there will be a third uniform for this coming season. And you know what? I'm not really happy about the design at all.

When I first became a Wizards season ticket holder, our uniforms sucked. Like really badly. I've offered the opinion before that the Wizards and Golden State Warriors got a package deal on their uniform rebrands in the late 1990s and that the resultant almost identical terribly designed uniforms were way less valuable than the discounted two for one pricing that the teams got on their new duds. Whether or not the two teams colluded on their rebrands about 15 years ago, the fact of the matter is that both team emerged with awful uniforms. Since then, both franchises have seen the error of their ways and redesigned their uniforms to critical and fan acclaim.

For me, the Wizards' 2011 redesigned uniforms were a positive sign that the franchise was abandoning the poor decision to rebrand the Bullets name into something waaaaay different and go back to the color scheme from the team's glory years, namely red, white and blue.  Our new uniforms are gorgeous. They harken back to the past with horizontal stripes like the championship team wore during the 1977-1978 season which cannot be anything but positive. They also included a home "Wizards" jersey and an away "Washington" jersey which in the world of professional sports uniform design is absolutely the correct way to go. And they included a spiffy new "Washington" and "Wizards" wordmark with a Washington monument themed motif. Very successful; very nice redesign. Two enthusiastic thumbs up!!

Just one stripe…Please add it back in!

I think our home white uniforms are hands down the best uniforms in the NBA: the colors are reflective of our nation and our nation's capital, the design simultaneously reflects the franchise's past and looks to future glory; and the Wizards name is perfectly proportioned with the horizontal stripes and uniform number.  Our road uniforms are almost as impressive, although fitting "Washington" across the front of the chest becomes a little much and the predominant color is red, which I don't really like much at all. I know Ted Leonsis loves the color red and wants all of his teams to wear that color, but I don't like it much at all.

So for the past couple of years, I've been longing for an alternate uniform. For the past three years, I've been wearing road Chris Singleton and Martell Webster jerseys to home games and every time I pull on my red uniform with pride, I secretly wished the Wizards would decide to create an alternate uniform that flipped the red and blue colors, creating an amazing alternate road jersey to match their home whites. I hate to write this, but I was looking for something the Cleveland Cavaliers did during the LeBron James (part one) years, adding a blue jersey to complement their wine and gold primary uniform.

Today, I almost got my way. A couple of weeks ago, someone got a hold of the upcoming 2014-2015 Adidas catalog which showed, among the gimmicky Christmas Day uniforms and the new gold patch on the back of the collar to signify franchises that have won an NBA title, a blank TBD spot for the new Wizards alternate uniform. This afternoon, the Wizards finally released some images.

Sure enough, the new uniform is predominantly blue. But it's also missing one key element that makes the 2011 rebranded uniforms so amazing. It sounds so trivial, but the white stripe across the chest makes all the difference. Without the horizontal stripe, the uniform loses critical visual interest and makes the finished product look like some kind of practice jersey, a cheap knockoff from the original if you will.

Now don't get me wrong, I may actually purchase one of these on October 1, the first day they are available, and it's likely to be a Marcin Gortat jersey. But make no mistake, I think the Wizards made a critical mistake with this alternate jersey rollout. Maybe the team will add the stripe on the front back to the uniform, much like they deleted the stripe on the back two seasons ago so the numbers can be better read.  Regardless of what happens from here on out, I think the Wizards dumbed down our uniforms for the current season. Maybe it will get a few poor saps (like me) to pony up some dough for the new design but I'm still not happy. Brick back the stripe!!!!

Summer League 2014

As of this posting, the Washington Wizards are undefeated in the 2014 Las Vegas Summer League, a perfect 3-0 in their first three games. While winning at Summer League doesn't mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things (it's not like they are going to hang a banner in Verizon Center if we win the whole thing), it's nice to be winning instead of perpetually losing. As I have done every year since 2008, I made my way out to Vegas this past weekend to see the Wizards play in the middle of July. This was my sixth trip to Summer League; at this point I have been going to Vegas for basketball longer than some NBA teams have been. Sort of crazy.

For the second year in a row, the Las Vegas Summer League is a tournament style format. I guess this sort of event appeals to the public in that one team actually wins it all, but for me it limits my ability to see the maximum amount of Wizards basketball. The tournament format actually spreads the games out. Back in the day (two years ago), a typical schedule for a team would be to play three days in a row, followed by two days off and then games on two consecutive days before heading back out of town. Any sort of supremacy bragging rights a few years ago consisted of finishing first with a perfect 5-0 record, likely the same record as four or so other teams. There was no definitive winner, which I guess in the United States just won't fly.

While I'm all for winning it all (even though my teams don't), the old format was nice because I could find the three days in a row that the Wizards were playing and just go out  to the desert for those days. I've spent more than a month and a half of my life in Las Vegas but I've only ever stayed in town for more than three nights once and I can't see myself doing it again. It's just too much for that long. With the tournament format, no team will ever play three consecutive days unless it's in the elimination portion of the tournament and let's face it, there's way too much risk of me not seeing my team at all when the words "elimination" is in play.

So instead of seeing three games in Vegas this year, I only got to see two. I hopped on a plane first thing Saturday morning at National Airport to arrive in time for game one's 1:30 pm tipoff and took in game two the next day. The third and final game of the preliminary stage of the tournament was going on while I flew home, a way too long one stop journey that the weather in the D.C. area turned into a two stopper with a semi-emergency landing in Pittsburgh. Nothing like sitting in coach for a couple of hours on a runway in western Pennsylvania.

Summer League this year is all about Rice and Porter.

With the Wizards having no first round draft pick this year and having sold its second round pick to the Lakers for a couple of million bucks or so, this year's Summer League was all about our two draft picks from the 2013 draft, Otto Porter and Glen Rice, Jr. Both of these guys had disappointing to so-so Summer League debuts last year followed up by a rookie year that saw neither on the court in much meaningful game time so this year's Summer League was a chance for redemption and to show the NBA that they had actually progressed in their first year in the league.

If Vegas was a coming out party for Otto and Glen, I'll be very pleased with their contributions this year. In both game one against the Atlanta Hawks and game two against the Minnesota Timberwolves, these two for me were clearly the best two players on the court. The Wizards offense and defense excelled while the two were in the game and it definitely suffered when they were on the bench. It started right off the opening tip of game one against the Hawks, with Otto scoring the first basket and assisting on the next two. The Wizards rolled to a 16 point victory behind a game high 25 from Otto. He shot at a high percentage, hit one from beyond the arc and recorded seven rebounds and three assists. 

Overall in both games Otto's game looked under control. His jump shot fell nicely in both games I saw, including off glass, although his field goal percentage dipped in game two when he scored just 13. He ran the offense when he had to, played good defense and only turned the ball over once in each contest. For a guy who was advertised as the complete package who might take a while to develop, this might be an important step forward. Franchises don't draft players with the number three overall selection to sit on the bench; Otto needs way more time on the floor and needs to contribute to the cause when he's in the game. He's still thin, but has obviously benefited from some time in the weight room with Marcin Gortat.

Otto Porter: Year Two.

Glen Rice was similarly impressive. He scored 22 points in both games behind a mostly effective jump shot and a ton of time at the line. He managed to drive into the lane repeatedly and get fouled in both games, shooting an astonishing 16 free throws in the game against the Timberwolves. He showed a lot of aggressiveness and a pretty good stroke from the three point line just above the left elbow. His aggressiveness was almost out of control in both games; he hit some lucky off balance buckets in game one and took some bad leaning forward shots in game two where he wasn't so lucky. I'm not sure what was going on in game two but Glen was clearly upset in the second quarter which affected his game. I'm not sure if Alexey Shved hit one too many threes on him or if his teammates weren't getting the ball to him when he wanted but Al Harrington was clearly trying to calm him down at the end of the first half. I know Summer League can be a far cry from the NBA season but I couldn't really be any more encouraged by the first two games.

Other than Porter and Rice, there were a couple of other guys on our team that I thought would be worth writing a word or two about. The first is Daniel Orton, who spent the 2009-2010 collegiate basketball season as a teammate of John Wall at the University of Kentucky. I saw Orton play for the Maine Red Claws in Portland, Maine on my D-League trip this past spring. When I saw Orton in Maine he looked massive, clearly one of the largest players on the court. He seemed to be a skilled big man but he wore down that day playing on a team with only eight players; he just didn't seem to be in good shape. Four months later, I left the first game in Vegas thinking the same thing, although he looked a lot smaller next to players from the big leagues. Orton made some gorgeous passes in traffic and his bulk allowed him to rebound well. But he is clearly not in good shape; guys with guts don't last in the NBA. He's going to have to lose that if he wants to make it.

The second guy was Khem Birch, an undrafted UNLV prospect who showed some good defensive skills, especially in the shot blocking department. Sam Cassell indicated he wouldn't mind taking a change on Birch in training camp if he was still available. Birch to me seems like at worst a D-League call up this year and I expect that's where he'll land if he doesn't stick in the NBA.

Summer League is one of my favorite times of year. I can get way closer to the pulse of the NBA when I'm in Vegas for a couple of days than I can during an entire year at home during the regular season. The establishment surrounds you completely. I can't say hi to coach Randy Wittman during the regular season or listen in on conversations with former players or talk to broadcasters about the latest gossip flying around on Twitter. I can do all of that at Summer League. I managed to congratulate Ernie Grunfeld on the Paul Pierce signing and was rewarded with a pat on the shoulder. I also managed to offer my thoughts on video about the the Summer League experience. I love this stuff.

Getting big time! The Panini autograph pavilion with fans waiting for Julius Randle.

A lot happened off the court this year while I was at Summer League. Trevor Ariza bailed on the Wizards during Saturday's thrashing of the Hawks to sign (again) with the Houston Rockets. Ariza's a loss for us, especially on the defensive end, but I think Trevor is not going to be the same on offense without John Wall; I'm not sure the league appreciates how good John makes other people quite yet. The Ariza defection was followed by surprising news about the Wizards signing Paul Pierce and news of a potential sign and trade with Dallas for DeJuan Blair (who the Wizards famously passed on in the 2009 NBA Draft) the next night. By the time I got home on Tuesday night, the Wizards had added former Kardashian Kris Humphries and re-upped with Drew Gooden. The roster definitely filled out while I was gone.

Because it's Summer League, I got a chance to chat with CSN Washington's beat reporter J. Michael before the Timberwolves game just outside the arena. He claimed to have been all over the Paul Pierce news (not sure I'm believing that because it came out of nowhere); offered the opinion that Trevor Booker would not be back with the Wizards (he signed with the Utah Jazz yesterday); and let us know that the Wizards were capped out on Trevor Ariza at $8 million per year for four years or $9 million for three (Ariza took $8 million for four years with Houston). But the biggest surprise is that he seemed absolutely convinced of the possibility that the Wizards could land Kevin Durant in 2016 and that the organization was gearing everything financially towards that possibility. If LeBron James can go home, why not KD? I'll believe it when I see it.

While it's great to rub elbows with general managers and coaches and reporters that I follow on Twitter, I really look forward to talking with some of our current players in Las Vegas. Last year John Wall, Bradley Beal and Martell Webster sat courtside right in front of us. The year before I managed to talk with Chris Singleton for five minutes and shake hands with newly acquired Emeka Okafor. This year…nothing! That's right, for the two days I spent at UNLV watching basketball, the only Wizard I saw other than Porter and Rice was Al Harrington, and that was because he was working as a coach. Former Wizards Tracy Murray, Antawn Jamison, Roger Mason, Jr. and Michael Ruffin were there but none of our current guys were out there. Admittedly John Wall, Bradley Beal, Trevor Booker (not a Wizard any more, I realize) and Kris Humphries have been spotted since I left but not while I was there. I should have gone and sat next to Michael Ruffin and reminisced about the good days. Well, except for that one game against Toronto.

Two final thoughts about Summer League this year. First, Summer League games are played at two sides of the same arena: the Thomas and Mack Center (where the UNLV men's basketball team plays) and the Cox Pavilion (where the UNLV women's volleyball team play). Of the two, the Cox Pavilion is by far the smaller venue. The place is barely longer than a 94' long basketball court and the crowd sits right on top of the court, benches and announcers' table. You can walk within three feet of our current players or players-turned-announcer like Chris Webber or Walt Frazier. That closeness builds an intimacy you can't find in an NBA arena and makes Summer League that much more special. You can see everything on and off the court from no matter where you are sitting. 

The Thomas and Mack side of the arena is still smaller than an NBA arena by far, but the way you can experience a basketball game is just way different. Unfortunately, all the Wizards' games this year were over at the Thomas and Mack so I felt a little cheated out of an experience I have come to love so much. I still loved Summer League, but it's just not the same on the other side of the building as it is in the Cox Pavilion. I had some crazy notion about them putting the Wizards in the larger side of the building based on a growing fan base but the Wizards faithful seemed less visible this year than I have seen in years. I'm hoping we'll be back at Cox next time I come out.

The beloved Cox Pavilion.

The Thomas and Mack Center. NOT the Cox Pavilion.

Lastly, Summer League is now HUGE! As recently as two years ago, you would have to educate cab drivers that the event was even taking place. Now they have a corporate sponsor (it's now the Samsung Summer League), an autograph pavilion sponsored by Panini (rather than a cheap folding table), advertising on twenty foot high billboards on the strip and there are no shortage of cabs clustered outside the arena. Admittedly, I went on the first Saturday and Sunday; I'm assuming weekday attendance might be a bit lower. But the event has exploded and that's both a good thing and a bad thing. Gone are the days when the place is half empty and you can sit where you want but I want this thing to stick around and succeed and the folks that have put a ton of work into this event deserve it. I'm thinking it won't be long until we see all 30 NBA teams out here and I'll have to buy tickets in advance. I'm hoping for weekday games next year, I guess.

Oh…the odds of the Wizards winning the NBA title next year is 33-1. If it had been the Eastern Conference, I'd have laid some money down. Our first elimination game is tomorrow against the Clippers/Heat winner today. I'll try to watch on NBA TV. Until then, I'm looking forward to next year.

Season Tickets Or StubHub?

A couple of years ago, I read an article on Dan Steinberg's DC Sports Bog about some dude in Frederick who bought Wizards tickets on the secondary market (in this case, StubHub) for 30 cents per ticket. That was not the first time or the last time that I have read something on the internet either implying or outright stating how foolish it is for Wizards season ticket holders to invest in a full season package. I love Dan Steinberg's work; I think his account of the Wizards-Cavaliers game from November 18, 2009 is still one of the finest pieces of journalism I have ever read. Having said that, I do think there is little room for the type of cynicism expressed or implied in his 30 cent ticket article. I hope I can explain.

As a Wizards season ticket holder who has been paying for full season tickets for the last 14 years, I bristle at these sorts of articles. I realize that probably wasn't Steinberg's intent here but it still rubbed me the wrong way, much like the apparently incredulous fan post on Bullets Forever this past season when season ticket renewal notices were mailed. Like we didn't know ticket prices were going to go up in a year the Wizards made the playoffs after a five season absence behind the All-Star emergence of John Wall? Come on, get real folks!

One of the things that gets me fired up about these sorts of one-sided arguments is that the same people who point out the availability of cheap secondary market tickets for a Tuesday night game against the Milwaukee Bucks are never on their blogs or whatever other outlet they have when the Miami Heat or the Oklahoma City Thunder or whatever other team is in vogue right now visit Verizon Center. In those cases, the cost of tickets on the secondary market is double, triple or quadruple what we as season ticket holders paid for our seats. In those weeks, the mockery of the season ticket holder is mysteriously absent.

So I started wondering…are Wizards season tickets a good deal from a strictly economic going-to-games perspective? Throw out all the other variables like access to exclusive events and other sorts of perks and just focus on the cost of tickets game by game over a 41 game home slate. Would I be better off just picking up some tickets for every game on StubHub or nbatickets.com? Before I continue to be incensed by cynical rhetoric, I thought I should know if my gut was right on this one. The temptation to check this out was just too great. So I didn't resist. This past season, I tracked the relative cost of Wizards season tickets vs. comparable seats on StubHub. Now that the Wizards season is over, I think what I found out is worth sharing.

In the last 10 years or so, the rise of the internet and I suppose relaxation of ticket re-sale laws (although I haven't checked this out at all) have revolutionized the ticket resale industry. I have both sold and bought tickets on both StubHub and nbatickets.com; these sites allow me to sell some of my unused Wizards season tickets and buy tickets of more or less my choice when traveling to Wizards road games. StubHub is sort of self insured so to speak and offers purchasers their money back should tickets sold on their site be counterfeit; they hold the seller's credit card number and charge the seller (assuming the credit card is still good, I guess) if there is any issue with entry into the arena from the purchaser. nbatickets.com is even more secure; that site is owned by Ticketmaster and tickets are re-issued to the buyer which are unique from the original tickets. There's no risk to either the buyer or seller in this scenario. Other than the risk of horrendous Ticketmaster fees I guess.

Before I get too far into the details, I should lay out the controls I've used to conduct this study. All good experiments need controls after all. I centered this experiment around the seats that I own, meaning when I was tracking prices, I was tracking prices for seats which I considered roughly equivalent to the seats I own as a season ticket holder. Just to be clear, I hold two pairs of seats for Wizards games at Verizon Center: one in the fifth row of Section 109 on the aisle and one in the third row of Seciton 415, also on the aisle. I love both these sets of seats; I've moved seat locations three times each in the upper deck and lower deck to get these seats and I'm not giving them up easily.

So for the purposes of this exercise, I considered equivalent seats in the lower level to be any seat in the center five sections in rows A through J and I considered equivalent seats in the upper level to be any seat in the center five sections in rows A through G. My logic here is any seat in the center five sections twice as far back in those sections and my seat could be considered roughly equivalent. I did not get hung up on fine points like aisle seating or the fact that I can hear stuff on the court from my lower level seats that I might not hear five rows further back.

The other control I placed on this experiment was timing of data collection. Ticket prices fluctuate with time. I believed that prices generally stay higher than they need to be until very close to the date of the game. Therefore, collecting data weeks in advance of the event would yield artificially high numbers and collecting data the day of the game would result in artificially low numbers. My experiment ended with slightly different outcomes but I'll get to that. I tried to pick two data points: the first set of data I intended to collect would be one week before the day of the game and the second set the morning of the game. I managed to do the first for all 41 games. That data is solid.

 

I didn't do so well on my day of game data gathering. I tripped up on six or seven games in that category just due to life getting in the way. I forgot to check StubHub the day I traveled back from Iceland for the Clippers game in December and there were a few more along the way where I just flaked out. My initial impulse here was to artificially substitute what could be considered representative data from other similar games but that felt too much like the Jurassic Park scientists filling in the missing dinosaur DNA with frog DNA and we all know how THAT worked out. As such, I'm relying on my week ahead data only. The day of game data is useful to discuss overall trends but not to talk specifics.

 

Two final points. First, I chose StubHub for this experiment and not nbatickets.com because my perception at the beginning of this past NBA season was that there were more tickets available on StubHub and more ticket buyers used StubHub than nbatickets.com. The prices posted on StubHub are also the final price to the buyer, so it was way easier to track pricing on StubHub. We can debate whether my perception was true or not but it doesn't really matter. I only tracked prices on StubHub. For what it's worth, my belief is the gap has closed over the course of this season. Secondly, I did not track prices for preseason games although I included the price in the season ticket holder cost. I consider preseason games, which are half price for season ticket holders but mostly worthless, completely valueless.

 

So after tracking the price of 41 Wizards home games over the course of a five and a half month NBA season, here is the short answer:

• Purchasing Section 109, row E season tickets for the entire season (including preseason) cost me $2,100. Purchasing equivalent seats on StubHub for each and every game one week ahead of the event (not including preseason) would have cost me $2,965. Season tickets are 30% cheaper.
• Purchasing Section 415, row C season tickets for the entire season (including preseason) cost me $672. Purchasing equivalent seats on StubHub for each and every game one week ahead of the event (not including preseason) would have cost me $899. Season tickets are 25% cheaper.

 

Now, the short answer above assumes you want to go to all 41 home games. I do want to do this every year but I realize not everyone does. There are some finer points to the study, some of which show some real benefits of purchasing on the secondary market. Let's look at five other scenarios, some reasonable and some pretty far fetched, all using pricing information from one week ahead of the event:

• Maybe you like but don't love (I know...it's hard to imagine) the Wizards and just want to go to about half the games but only the most popular (i.e. most expensive on StubHub for the purposes of this post) visiting teams. For the price of season tickets, you could have attended 18 lower level games or 19 upper level games without exceeding the price of an entire season (which is 41 games), which pretty much says you should just go ahead and bite the bullet for an entire season, unless you like sitting in a different seat each time you head to Verizon Center.
• On the other hand, maybe you really don't care about the Wizards and just want to see games against the four conference finalists and nobody else. Of course you would need some sort of crystal ball to know who were the conference finalists in that same year, but attending every Wizards game last year against the San Antonio Spurs, Miami Heat, Oklahoma City Thunder, and Indiana Pacers (total of five home games) would have cost you $864 for lower level seats and $284 for upper level seats on StubHub. That's about 3.5 times this price of the season ticket price for those games but of course you then don't have to purchase the other 36 regular season games. Definitely better buying a la carte if you just want to attend five games but the price per seat is steep.
• Let's say you work downtown and only want to go to games on non-weekend workdays (suspend belief for a minute please that there is actually someone who thinks this way). Buying tickets for all Monday through Thursday games on StubHub would cost you $1,130 for lower level seats and $321 for upper level seats for 19 games. That's an average price of $59.50 in the lower bowl and just less than $17 in the upper deck, pretty comparable to season tickets but still slightly more. If this is what you want, buying game by game is probably the way to go.
• The counterpoint to my last bullet above is fans that want to attend only Friday and Saturday games because they don't want to have to get up to go to work the next day. There were actually more home games on Friday and Saturday this past year than there were on weekdays. For those 20 games, you'd pay almost as much in both upper and lower levels than you would by buying season tickets for a whole season: $1,669 downstairs (vs. $2,100 for season tickets) and $544 upstairs (vs. $672). Probably should buy a whole season if you are looking for weekend only games; you could probably get the rest of your investment by selling weekday games on StubHub.
• Finally, let's say you have limited funds (who doesn't, right?) and want to stretch your dollars as far as possible. Here buying on StubHub makes a ton of sense. You could attend seven games in the lower level for less than $200 total (rather than $350 at season ticket holder price). That same total expenditure in the upper level would be stretched out to 20 games, which amounts to less than $10 per game (vs. $16 for a season ticket holder). If you are looking for midweek games against Orlando, Boston or Charlotte, this is definitely the way to go.

In the regular season based on the data presented above, there are definitely advantages to buying individual games on StubHub and to buying an entire season, even when you don't consider the added benefits of being a season ticket holder, which I think are considerable. However, when you get to the playoffs, there's no comparison whatsoever. The five home playoff games this year cost me $355 for lower level seats and $114 for upper level seats. The cheapest I could have bought playoff tickets a week ahead of time on StubHub was $1,213 for all five games in the lower level and $643 upstairs. Those prices are about 3.5 times greater downstairs and over six times as expensive in the upper deck. Even with the prices dropping precipitously (by over $60 per ticket according to my data) for games four and six against Indiana in the second round after all the bandwagonners jumped off, the season ticket holder prices cannot be beaten here.

 

Finally a word about buying a week ahead of time as opposed to waiting the day of the game to buy. My numbers showed only five games dropped in price significantly in the regular season as the day of the game approached. The two largest drops were for the Lakers game in November (presumably consumers knew Kobe wasn't playing and just waited for prices to drop) and for the Pacers game late in the season when the bottom fell out of Indiana's game. In some cases, it actually would pay to buy earlier, especially for games against popular teams.

 

I think the prices of Wizards season tickets are insanely low and I am sure ownership knows it. Next year, the price of a full season in the lower level has increased to $55 per game and the price of upper level seats has gone up by $4 a game to $20, the highest those seats have been priced since I've been a season ticket holder these past 14 years. Buying a full season on StubHub this year in the upper deck would have cost a little less than $22 per game; buying downstairs would cost about $72 a contest. In a couple of years, assuming secondary market demand stays the same (it won't, but likely to a point), we may see these prices cross and StubHub buying become less expensive. Until then, I think my season tickets are a great investment, even though that investment sometimes does not pay off at all. You can bet I'll be tracking this next year.

The spreadsheet I used to keep track of all this stuff.

I Stayed Up For THAT?!?!

Last night the Barclays Center in Brooklyn hosted the 2014 NBA Draft, the annual event that gives hope to fans of underperforming franchises everywhere that their team might just get lucky and snag a future superstar who will take them to the promised land of the NBA playoffs or, maybe just maybe, a NBA title. The Washington Wizards at the beginning of the night held just one pick, the 16th selection in the second round or 46th overall, whichever way you prefer to look at it. Their first round pick this year was in possession of the Phoenix Suns who received it from Washington just before the start of last season in exchange for Marcin Gortat. If we can manage to keep Marcin with the team this year and beyond, that trade was probably totally worth it. But the second round has yielded some gems for other teams. Why not us?

Last night was the third time in my 14 years of being a Wizards season ticket holder that the Wizards were without a first round draft pick. In 2005, the Orlando Magic had our selection as a result of a 2001 trade featuring a protected draft pick in exchange for Brendan Haywood. In 2009, we traded the number five overall pick to Minnesota for one year of Mike Miller and Randy Foye, one of the worst mistakes this franchise has made in the last decade and a half.

Unless I'm on a plane flying to Germany like last year, I watch the draft religiously until the Wizards' picks are complete and then hit the sack. Since we were sitting at 46, I knew last night would be a long one. Despite the maximum five minutes per selection allotted in the first round, the draft never manages to pack 12 picks in an hour. Even though each team pretty much knows exactly who they are going to take, the possibility of some other team calling and making an offer too good to be true forces each pick to last the maximum amount of time. Then there's a minute or two extra while the Commissioner announces the pick and the clock re-sets.

I know next to absolutely nothing about college and international basketball so I generally have no educated opinion about who the franchise should draft. For me, the draft is all about rumored blockbuster trades that rarely happen and learning a little something about the player or players my team manages to trade for or draft. In terms of excitement, 2010 was perhaps the best Wizards draft ever, with the team holding the number one overall pick (John Wall) at the beginning of the night and pulling off two draft day trades to acquire the 17th (Kevin Seraphin) and 23rd (Trevor Booker) picks. The worst year for me was 2005, when I waited all the way to the 49th pick to hear Andray Blatche's name called and the announcers proceeded to say absolutely nothing about Andray, presumably because they had no idea who he was.

So last night I set my expectations bar at the 2005 draft level, knowing I'd have to stay up late but hoping that the folks at ESPN knew something more than nothing about whoever the Wizards would end up drafting at number 46. That moment came at about 11:35, way past my bedtime, when the Wizards selected Jordan Clarkson out of the University of Missouri. OK, so he's a point guard. That's cool, we drafted one two years ago who we can't get to come over from Europe and play for us and we have Andre Miller who's almost 40 as our backup. Makes sense. What did ESPN tell me about him? His father battled cancer. That's it.

Then about two minutes later came word on Twitter that we sold the pick to the Los Angeles Lakers for some cash (about $2 million). Draft over. I stayed up until 11:40ish for that? Very disappointed. I was tired this morning and the team has no more players than it did last night before the draft started.

I'm not really that upset, but I should be. The reason I'm not that upset is that the team's track record of drafting and developing talent quite honestly is not that good so I had really very little confidence that we would have made anything out of the pick unless we just got super super lucky. I should be upset not about trading the pick necessarily but that I have no confidence we could have done anything with the player in that slot once he arrived in Washington. I'm jaded I guess.

In the 14 years I've been a season ticket holder, I've never seen a second round pick pan out. Well, not with our franchise anyway; Shelvin Mack played pretty well with Atlanta this year. I've seen a number of other teams make something of a second rounder or draft an international player and bring him over a couple of years later with some success. The Wizards have drafted three international players in the second round (Juan Carlos Navarro, Vladamir Veremeenko and Tomas Satoransky) since I've been with the team and I've yet to see any of them take the court in a Wizards uniform. I'm adding this to my concerns list about this team, right behind the fact that we do not have a single affiliation with a D-League franchise.

Best draft in 9 years and the Wizards emerge with a couple of bucks. On to Summer League. Two weeks! Can't wait!

Not One, Not Two, Not Three, Not Four...

I know this is hating. I don't care.

The 2013-2014 NBA season is over. Last night the San Antonio Spurs clinched their fifth title in franchise history by defeating the Miami Heat at home in game five for a 4-1 series win. The Spurs are still the only former ABA franchise to win an NBA title and their victory ends the two year title run of the Heat in spectacularly dominant fashion. The Spurs victory not only returns the Larry O'Brien Trophy to San Antonio for the first time in nine years, it also marks the first time since 2010 that no former Washington Wizard won an NBA Championship. The past three years have seen former Wizards Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood, Juwan Howard, Rashard Lewis, Mike Miller and DeShawn Stevenson capture titles post-Wizards.

Within 30 minutes of arriving at work this morning, I was congratulated by two people on the Spurs' victory. These were not passing comments. The first thing said to me by these two people was something along the lines of "Congratulations on the win last night." Now I have never been, am not now and likely will never be a San Antonio Spurs fan. But as a die-hard Wizards fan who suffered through back to back to back playoff exits at the hands of LeBron James when he played for the Cleveland Cavaliers, I guess I am known around my workplace as a guy with an axe to grind about King James. What can I say, I guess I wear my heart on my sleeve when it comes to my team (as if writing my own blog wasn't proof enough).

I've written this before but it's not losing to the Cavs all those years ago that gets me riled up; it's the way they did it with LeBron. Instead of a humble, we haven't accomplished anything approach that the Spurs take year after year, there was whining, crying and complaining by LeBron in each of those three series. From engineering the ejections of Brendan Haywood and Darius Songaila by crying to the officials or the commissioner to non-called but later assessed flagrant 2 fouls on Andray Blatche to whispering in Gilbert Arenas' ear when he was about to shoot all important end of game free throws (now an automatic technical), LeBron never beat us with class. And I guess that's why I got some dap this morning when I started my workday.

I don't know what it is about LeBron that gets to me. Despite all the PR errors he's made over the years, there's always something with this guy and this year's finals were no exception. It's like he's always looking for some sort of excuse and it started in game one with the leg cramps. The AT&T Center that night had inoperable air conditioning and temperatures on the court were 90 degrees or above. There's no doubt that the players were feeling it more and more as the game went on. Tiago Splitter looked like he was about having a heart attack his face was so red. The Spurs won game one handily but LeBron wasn't on the court to see it. Of all the players in the building, only he cramped up to a degree that forced him to sit out the end of the game. There's no shame in sitting out the end of a game one blowout. Sit down, regroup and come back stronger in game two, which the Heat did. But don't make up some excuse for not re-entering the game. Please!

Game two in San Antonio was taken by the Heat and the series went to Miami tied up at one game each. But home court advantage was not kind to the Heat. Two games, two blowouts. Their D looked awful and Dwayne Wade in particular, all of 32 years old, looked way past his prime. There was no competition offered by the Heat in these two games and so no excuse was really offered for the losses. They were so completely destroyed by the Spurs that LeBron and Wade didn't even make fun of any of the Spurs' players like they did in 2011 with Dirk Nowitzski.

But before game five, it seemed like the swagger was back. LeBron talked about the fact that his team had "championship DNA" and that they play best when their backs are against the wall. I have news for you, LeBron: players that have lost three of five NBA Finals cannot use "championship DNA" as an inspiration. You may have two more championships than a lot of other players, but you don't have an exclusive license on them. If anyone has that sort of DNA, I think it should be the Spurs. You really only won two titles because you colluded with two fellow All-Stars to buck the system and tip the competitive balance in your favor. Ever since that night in Miami almost four years ago when the Heat held a party to introduce the signings of you, Chris Bosh and Wade, your backs have never been against the wall. You stacked the deck in your favor. You should really have won all four years. But you didn't.

By the middle of the fourth quarter of game five, it appeared the Heat had been beaten back almost completely. The Spurs held an almost 20 point lead and it seemed that it wouldn't be too much longer before the Heat would cry uncle and fold. But the game wasn't over. It is technically possible to come back from that lead. I've seen plenty of leads blown by the home team at Verizon Center over the last 14 years in the fourth quarter. But it seemed like LeBron wasn't interested; he sat out the last six minutes. I don't get it. There's no regrouping and fighting in game six. The season's over if you don't play. I guess he wasn't all that interested. Winners like LeBron I guess don't like losing. If he's not on the court, I guess he can claim he could have prevented the loss if only...

LeBron was the first Miami Heat player to reach the locker room last night. I'm not surprised. At least he learned to shake hands after the game since he refused to do so against the Orlando Magic in 2009. Now the question is, what do the Heat do next? There is speculation that LeBron, Wade and Bosh will all opt out of their contracts and restructure their deals to try to conspire again to tip the competitive balance in their favor even more next year by recruiting Carmelo Anthony. There is also speculation that LeBron will move on to another team with a better chance of winning. For my part, I don't much care what he does. I believe there is value in staying someplace and making it better. I've been at my job almost 15 years now through thick and some pretty thin years. It would have been much easier to bail and start over somewhere easier. But I'm proud of what I've accomplished by staying. I don't imagine LeBron will ever feel that way.

No matter where he lands next year, I'll be rooting against LeBron (please, Wizards, don't let LeBron decide to sign with us). If he leaves Miami, he leaves with unfulfilled promises. While I can't imagine the Heat fans that actually stick with the team care much since he already delivered two titles, LeBron actually promised them at least eight. Doesn't look like that's coming true any time soon. If he leaves, it never will. He even said it would be easy. Guess not. 

It's 32-0 now!

2014 Off Season Priorities

The NBA Finals started tonight, a re-match of last year's seven game Miami Heat - San Antonio Spurs series which the Heat stole after the Spurs absolutely blew it in game six on their home floor. Just like last year, I'll be rooting as hard as I possibly can against the Heat, hoping they have just worn their roster just too thin after last off season's roster cuts, particularly (and I hate to say this based on his time in Washington) Mike Miller. Miami may come to regret that move.

The fact that it's NBA Finals time and I haven't written about the Wizards' off season priorities also means that I am behind in my blogging, so far in fact that one of my priorities or the team has already been resolved. What can I say? I have a full time job and I took vacation the last week or so during the Conference Finals. I'd be right on time if I could just write this blog full time. I'd also be a lot poorer.

The state of the Wizards seems to look a lot brighter this off season than it did last year. Instead of heading back to the Draft Lottery for the sixth consecutive year, the team is coming off its second most regular season victories and its most successful playoff run in the last 35 years. The starting five produced pretty well this year and the bench certainly improved in the second half of the season. Last year I thought a couple of tweaks could get us the seventh or eighth seed in the playoffs. Turns out I shot too low. Yet, as with any team that finished in the five spot in the Eastern Conference in recent years, questions remain and there's a long way to go before the Wizards can be considered a legitimate contender.

This year's off season will look a whole lot different than last year for a number of reasons. Unlike last year when the team held the number three pick in the Draft, this year our only selection comes in the second round, meaning the chance of us snagging a contributor on June 26 seems pretty remote, especially considering our recent track record in the Draft. The Wizards also face two of their five starters (Trevor Ariza and Marcin Gortat) being unrestricted free agents, as opposed to last year's one (Martell Webster). Fortunately the team possesses a good amount of salary cap space to sign free agents and last year's off season signing of Al Harrington, who presumably had other options available to him, is likely a good indicator that free agents might actually want to come play in Washington.

So with all that in mind, here's what I'd do if I were running the show at Verizon Center. I'm not, for which most fans should be eternally grateful.

1. Re-Sign Randy Wittman

I realize this has already happened. The Wizards signed Randy to a new three year deal at a rumored $3 million per year this past Tuesday. The third year is a team option, so it's really just a two year deal guaranteed. I've written a couple of times in this blog that I thought Randy was a key in turning the culture of the franchise from a group of irresponsible knuckleheads to (dare I say it) a model of professionalism. While the Wizards had some significant concentration lapses during the regular season which led to some bad losses, overall the team took their performance seriously and the playoffs were a totally different story. Randy clearly had the team's attention.

The knock on Randy seems to be his past coaching record. Local media seems to delight in trotting out Randy's "worst winning percentage in NBA history of all coaches with a minimum 400 games coached." I think it's safe to say this current year's team is likely the only one other coaches would actually envy, so it's no surprise that the results this year were far better than all his other years as a head coach in the NBA when he was working with rebuilding teams with little talent.

I'm not sure what a realistically better option there is for this team at this time. We have a coach who clearly has the commitment of the entire roster who just led the team to it's most successful season since 1979. I'm not sure what more we could want. Certainly bringing in a rookie coach (which happened a lot this past off season) doesn't seem to make sense. The only other option would be to get a proven winning coach who wants to come to D.C. to coach. George Karl seemed to be the popular choice of some local writers. But there are no guarantees in going that route. I think the players' support for Randy and the job that he has done so far makes him the logical and best choice. Way to go, coach. Well deserved!

2. Maintain the Starting Five…Or Close To It

The Wizards face an offseason where two of their most productive starters are unrestricted free agents, meaning the team has absolutely no control over re-signing Marcin Gortat or Trevor Ariza. Both will likely command large salaries on the open market and I'm sure their agents are salivating over the deals other teams will put in front of these two guys.

For me, the biggest challenge for the Wizards this off season is at the starting center spot. Marcin Gortat is a legitimate NBA starting center. Nobody else on the team is, even if Kevin Seraphin stays with the squad. With the Wizards expected to have more than $15 million in salary cap space there's certainly a lot of cash to hand out this off season. Will Gortat be the team's top priority? What about Ariza? Ariza is clearly the team's best defender and had perhaps the most productive offensive year of his career. He was absolutely deadly from three point range.

For me, the priority is Gortat. There are so few true centers in the NBA these days and I think Gortat values playing in Washington with John Wall with Randy Wittman as coach. The sort of chemistry he has and could have with Wall is difficult to find. I'm hoping there's a hometown discount in there somewhere. After all, what's one or two million dollars less per year? One year of his next contract is going to get him more money than I will make in my lifetime. It's for sure enough to keep him comfortable.

I would also love to see Ariza back next year, but at a sensible price, which in my mind may be the same as he made this year. I love Trevor Ariza's play. If it weren't for Martell Webster on the team, I'd be wearing a number 1 jersey to Verizon Center every game. I love Trevor's ability to shut down opponents and I love his ability to score the three. But I also believe John Wall has something to do with his offensive output. I thought it was a mistake to start Ariza over Webster this year since Martell performed so well last year. But Ariza at the starting three spot worked exceptionally well this year, whereas Martell's production fell off significantly. If we can't retain Trevor next year, I believe Martell will fill in adequately until Otto Porter is ready. And I believe Otto is the real deal.

I'd try to get both Ariza and Gortat back in the fold. But if negotiations proved too difficult, I'd wrap up Marcin first. He's just way tougher to replace.

3. Shop Frugally

The Wizards end of season salary cap number was $70,204,382. Of that about $70 million, $9,140,915 (or so) was spent on four guys in the last year of their rookie deals, specifically Kevin Seraphin, Trevor Booker, Jan Vesely (I prorated his salary at 54 of 82 games) and Chris Singleton. Rookie contracts are typically the best bargain going in the NBA, a chance to get relatively high production out of guys whose costs are kept low by the rookie salary scale. John Wall, for example, played a little more than 15% of the team's total minutes and made slightly more than 10% of the team's payroll. Next year John's salary will almost double. His minutes won't.

Seraphin, Booker, Vesely and Singleton occupied about 13% of the team's payroll (again, prorating Vesely's number) but only played 14.5% of the team's minutes. Booker was by far the best bargain here, costing about 3.3% of the salary number and playing about 7.9% of the minutes. The other three actually cost more than they produced, even at the relative bargain that is a rookie contract. Next year we are not going to be able to afford that kind of waste if we want to challenge teams like Miami and Indiana, especially with John Wall's salary increase and potential sizeable contracts for Gortat and Ariza, if the team opts to go that route.

I think it's safe to say Chris Singleton will not be back in Washington next year and I suspect neither will Kevin Seraphin, unless we really can't find anyone else to back up the center spot. I think Booker stands a pretty good shot at getting a multi-year deal at or about his current salary (just less than $2.5 million) and I think if the Wizards can wrap him up at that number, they should. The real trick will be to maximize the value with the money that last year went to Seraphin, Vesely and Booker. Drew Gooden and Al Harrington proved to be great value for veteran minimum deals. I'd love to see Gooden back with the team at a similar price point in addition to some other free agent vets that can still contribute. A couple of former Wizards in Emeka Okafor (assuming his back isn't forcing him into retirement) and Caron Butler seem like guys we should at least take a look at.

4. Improve Free Throw Shooting

I can't tell you how many games the Wizards blew this year because of their free throw shooting but there were a number, enough that some serious thought needs to be given to how the team as a whole improves their performance from the charity stripe. The Wizards shot just 13 of 26 from the free throw line in an overtime loss at Oklahoma City in November and faced similar difficulties (11 for 18) in a home loss to Atlanta the next month. One more free throw in regulation in either of those games would have wiped out the extra session and given the Wizards a regulation victory.

Overall, the Wizards finished 25th out of 30 teams in free throw percentage during the regular season. Jan Vesely was the worst of all the Wizards shooting a pitiful 33.9% from the line, good for 450th in the league (there were 463 players who shot a free throw in the regular season this year). And just in case you believe shipping Ves to Denver cured the team of its free throw woes, the team actually shot worse in the post season. Collectively, the Wizards managed to hit only 69.6% of their free throws in the playoffs, good for dead last among the 16 teams who played beyond the regular season this year.

During the 2007-2008 season, the Wizards hired Dave Hopla to help with free throw troubles they were experiencing during the previous season. Dave managed to get the team's free throw percentage up from 76.5% to 78.2%. That may not seem like a lot of improvement; it represented only about 34 points over the course of the 2007-2008 season. But trust me when I say I'd love to have had a few extra points in some of our games this year.

Over and above the 34 extra points, the biggest difference Hopla made that year was with center Brendan Haywood, whose free throw percentage jumped from 54.8% during the 2006-2007 season to 73.5% one season later. Instead of being a free throw liability at the end of games, Brendan became an asset, allowing him more time on the floor to coordinate the Wizards' defense (the Wiz were pretty much hopeless on D without B Wood those years). That change doesn't show up on the free throw statistics but it made a difference. Unfortunately, the next year Dave was gone and so was Brendan's free throw prowess. He shot 47.6% the following year.

If there's a guy out there who can help Nenê raise his 58.3% free throw shooting mark, I'd sign him up. The difference in that one player alone would be worth a lot of money. Remember, there's no salary cap on the coaching staff.

5. Develop a Developmental League Strategy

The National Basketball Development League started the 2013-2014 season with 17 teams. Of those 17 teams, 14 were in an exclusive relationship with a single NBA franchise. For NBA teams affiliated with a single D-League franchise, this allowed the NBA team to have their personnel run basketball operations, appoint the coaching staff and run the exact same offensive and defensive schemes in the NBDL. This arrangement provides a huge benefit for players that are assigned to the D-League by the NBA team. The value in this type of relationship has been cited as critical to player development by a number of NBA teams.

The other 16 teams without a single D-League affiliation do not have the same benefit. Instead, those 16 teams share the remaining three NBDL franchises but have no control over playing time or playbooks, meaning the development component of D-League assignments is basically a crap shoot. The Wizards, not surprisingly to this fan, are one of the 16 teams without an exclusive relationship.

The 2014-2015 NBDL schedule will feature 18 teams, the highest total in league history, after the New York Knicks established a new franchise in White Plains. The Knicks were single affiliated with the Erie Bayhawks last year; the Orlando Magic have managed to snag the Bayhawks as their D-League team next year. Of the 18 teams which will participate next year, all but one have an exclusive relationship with an NBA team. Over the past year, the Memphis Grizzlies have secured the Iowa Energy as their exclusive partner and the Phoenix Suns did likewise with the Bakersfield Jam. For the other 13 NBA teams, that means all 13 share a single NBDL franchise, the Fort Wayne Mad Ants. Fort Wayne is about 550 miles from Washington.

So what exactly is the Wizards' plan in relation to the D-League. If there's one area this franchise has struggled with, it's player development. Are the Wizards actively resisting, slow to react, or just executing some other strategy that is just not apparent? It is not unreasonable to envision a D-League with 30 franchises, one per NBA franchise, in the near future. But what happens until that day for the Wizards? Is sharing a Development League franchise with 12 other teams really useful? I'd love to know.

Draft Lottery? Who Cares!

If you are a conspiracy theorist (and those of you who are know who I am talking about), the Los Angeles Lakers will win tonight's NBA Draft Lottery. The Draft Lottery, the results of which will be broadcast this evening at 8 p.m. on ESPN, is the annual event that determines which of the biggest losers in the NBA gets to pick first, second and third in this June's NBA Draft.

Conspiracy and NBA Draft Lottery is nothing new. Claims of the NBA rigging the event to meet its own needs go back all the way to the first Lottery in 1985, when then commissioner David Stern felt around for the envelope with the bent corner or the hot envelope (microwaved before the event, maybe?) and plucked the New York Knicks card out of the bin and awarded them the right to pick Patrick Ewing first in that year's draft, thus restoring basketball glory to the city of New York. Wow, that sentence was long. I think it worked, though.

More recently, folks have decried the Lottery as fixed almost annually. In 2011, the Washington Wizards won to compensate the franchise for their owner dying. The next year, the Cleveland Cavalier snagged the top spot so owner Dan Gilbert would feel better about losing LeBron to the Miami Heat. And two years ago, the New Orleans Pelicans getting the right to select Anthony Davis first overall was seen as a reward for Tom Benson taking the Pels (then the Hornets) off the NBA's hands for a tidy $338 million the previous year.

There's always someone there to see the dark side of every event. So tonight, there's no more obvious team to be awarded the number one overall pick on June 26 than the Lakers. The most popular team in the NBA has had a miserable last 15 months. Two leg injuries to top star Kobe Bryant sandwiched around a first round playoff sweep last year and a franchise record for losses this past season. Surely, this can't go on and new commissioner Adam Silver is just the guy to fix it by granting the Lakers, who have nobody but themselves to blame for their current woes, the number one pick. Perfect, right? Never mind the Milwaukee Bucks, who lost more than any other team this year, or the Philadelphia 76ers, who lost 26 in a row this year. The Lakers fix has to be in, right? At least a top three pick, right?

You know what? If the Lakers win it, I don't care. I don't care who wins. I've sat on the edge of my Eames Chair ottoman for the last several years begging the basketball gods to give the first overall pick (or at least a top three pick) to the Wizards. But tonight I just don't care because for the first time since 2008, the Washington Wizards have no chance of winning the NBA Draft Lottery. Zero. None. Zilch. Not a chance at all.

Last year the Wizards were the biggest lottery winner out there, moving up from eighth to third to ultimately snag Otto Porter with the number three pick on draft night. But this year, there’s no shot at all. And that’s because we mercifully are no longer involved in this desperation exercise as a playoff team. And it feels really good.

Sure, it won’t feel good on draft night, when future stars (or busts) are being picked by the lottery teams and we're sitting idly by waiting our turn.  In fact it won’t feel good on draft night when we get out of the lottery (or top 14) picks because the Wizards don’t own a single first round pick at all, having traded our pick this year to acquire Marcin Gortat before the start of the 2013-2014 season, a move that will either lock up a quality starting center for years to come or amount to a one year rental. Ball’s in Ernie Grunfeld’s court on that one.

But tonight, when the results of the lottery are announced on ESPN, there will be no anguish or joy for me at all and honestly, I’m perfectly fine with that. I’m actually perfectly fine never sitting through this process again. I’d love to just keep making the playoffs every year. Although I do think it would be funny if the Lakers win. We'll know in about two hours.