Hopwood Out

In the fall of 2000, I made the decision to buy Washington Wizards season tickets. It was perhaps a little impulsive. I was new to the DMV and not fully invested in the Wizards, but at $410 for an entire season, there was pretty much no way to say no. As a transplanted New York Knicks fan (the Patrick Ewing-John Starks-Charles Oakley-Marcus Camby-Latrell Sprewell-Larry Johnson Knicks, that is...) who stood almost no chance to ever get some decent tickets to games at Madison Square Garden, the opportunity to go to a game anytime I wanted for a mere $10 per was too much to pass up.

About 12 years after I made that decision to buy season tickets, I'd become entirely consumed as a Washington Wizards fan, despite there being no realistic chance to that point (or since) that the team even stood a remote chance of competing for an NBA title. I never missed a game unless it really couldn't be avoided and my passion was all year round. Season. Postseason. Draft. Summer League. Free Agency. Preseason. Repeat. So I decided to start writing some of my thoughts as a Wizards fan down and post them on the internet. Why not? Seemed like a natural way to extend my love of this team to others.

It has never been easy being a Washington Wizards fan. Losing sucks. And there's been lots of it since 2000. But over the last few years, I've become convinced that this team is never going anywhere near the NBA Finals for one pretty significant reason: ownership. And so 20 years into being a season ticket holder and 366 posts (including this one) into this blog, I think I'm done with both. I'm out.

Clinching the only Division title in 20 years.

So far be it from me to drop an accusation like I did in the previous paragraph without backing it up so here goes. I used to love how I was embraced as a season ticket holder. There seemed to be so few of us at times. I literally didn't know anyone else who would even consider such an apparent waste of money. But the situation was great. Tickets were heavily discounted and the perks were great. 

But those perks started disappearing. Access to special experiences started to dry up. Tickets got more expensive to the point where it was clearly cheaper to buy them on the secondary market. Eventually, it seemed like I was paying more than I should to remain a part of a club which had no real benefit.

And honestly, all of that would have been OK if there had been on court success these past 20 years. I'm OK even paying for season tickets with no discount if there were a chance at a title. But this organization is clearly not run with the goal of winning, unless it can somehow be done under the luxury tax threshold. Spoiler alert: it pretty much probably definitely for sure cannot be done under the luxury tax. The repeated decisions that have led to failure are baffling: conducting coaching searches with just one candidate in mind; trading first round draft picks for a get-in-the-playoffs-and-maybe-make-the-second-round-now reward; insisting on building through the draft and only through the draft (hey, it worked for the Caps!); and trading away mistaken signings at a cost or for nothing. None of that is going to add up to winning, especially when you hang on to coaches who clearly aren't right for this team (or the NBA) just so you can avoid eating a $7 million salary. 

Fewer perks, an increased cost that's more expensive than secondary market value, management and ownership decisions that lead to repeated on-court failures. Why should I stay? So I can get my 21st season mark after the team failed to deliver on my 20th anniversary reward? No thanks. I'm done. I love the Wizards but it makes no economic or emotional sense to stay in. John Wall was the last emotional reason to hang on. That trade was just the catalyst for me to end it.

All-Star weekend 2015. Meeting Earl Monroe.

So don't get me wrong here. I'm still a Wizards fan. I want this team to win more than practically any other team out there (the New York Jets after 42 seasons are still the one I want to win most). But this ownership and these past few seasons have taken the passion out of the whole thing for me. I don't feel important as a season ticket holder and I'm not excited about either the team's current prospects for winning something (in 20 years as a season ticketholder the team won one division title and nothing else) or even one player on the current roster.

I will also continue to go to Wizards games. I'm actually looking forward to the time when we can go again and I can actually buy tickets for way cheaper than I would have been paying as a season ticket holder. Unless that is the current team (which is 0-4 as of this writing) actually turns into a contender. My money's on that not happening.

I'd like to think that I've made a difference in my 20 years as a Wizards fan. I've certainly been there for the Wizards in a number of ways. I've done two perfect seasons; seen the team on the road in 17 different NBA arenas (against 18 teams); attended every home playoff game in the last 20 years; been to the NBA Draft; been to Summer League seven years in a row in Las Vegas (2008-2015; there was no Summer League in 2011); been to the All-Star Game in New York when John Wall started the game; and was even there when the team clinched their one and only Southeast Division title in March of 2017. And yes, I know that last game was on the road in Los Angeles. I just happened to be there.

A very young John Wall signing at an Obama fundraiser in New York, 2012.

There are still some things I want to do, Wizards-wise. I likely won't ever make it to all 29 (I'm projecting forward to the Clippers having their own pad) other arenas to see the Wizards play on the road. But I'd love to one day watch a Wizards game courtside (yes, I know all I need to do is cough up about $1,000 per seat to do that); I'd love to see the Wizards play in the NBA Finals (absolutely no control over that); and I'd love to see a Wizards player enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. And I don't mean like Mitch Richmond or Paul Pierce or someone like that. I mean someone who you could legitimately think of first and foremost as a Wizard. I guess John Wall has the best shot, although that may be a super long shot. Might be waiting a while on that last one just like that Finals appearance.

I've had a great time writing this blog. Most of the stuff I've written on here has been stupid, silly stuff like ranking team logos and critiquing bobbleheads but I believe in everything I've written on this thing no matter how or when I've written it. It's been a labor of love and I've really enjoyed it. It's also connected me to a larger basketball community in D.C. in a way that I wouldn't have been if I hadn't ever written a single post on this thing. I've also met some people (some of whom have contributed to this blog) that I wouldn't have otherwise met.

Eight and a half years is a long time to write about a basketball team that has accomplished almost nothing and is owned and managed by people who have proved that they don't really know what they are doing. 366 posts (a leap year's days worth of posts, if you will), seems like a good number to end on.

I've dug up some of my favorite Wizards pictures over the years and included them in this post but the one below is still my favorite. I have no idea what's going on in the game but my friend Mike and I are clearly celebrating something good that the Wizards have done on court when nobody else (and I really mean nobody else) is paying the slightest attention or exhibiting any sort of excitement about what the Wizards are doing. It perfectly sums up my experience as a Wizards fan. It's even perfect that it's blurry.

It's been real. Go Wizards. Always.

2020

So two things right off the bat here: (1) I've been silent for way too long on this blog and (2) yeah, I know everyone thinks 2020 sucked pretty much as badly as anything as long as a year ever has. It's wrecked my year, it's wrecked my spirit, it's wrecked this blog and there's less than a month left so we don't really have to put up with this very much longer. On to 2021. And hopefully a return to normal.

Before I continue, this post is not supposed to be tone deaf but I realize it could come off that way. My year has been frustrating but I'm still alive and healthy and employed. There are more than 300,000 people who contracted COVID-19 who can't say that and millions more that have lost friends, relatives and jobs or have aftereffects of an illness that will never be cured. Compared to all those people, my year has been a breeze. I wouldn't wish 2020 on anyone but my heart goes out to those that have come through this thing way worse off than they started through no fault of their own.

Now back to that wrecking this blog thing...it's true. Since I started writing this thing in 2012, I published 51 posts every full year from 2013 to 2017 and then decided to take the summers off in 2018 and 2019 and dropped my output to 36. There's nothing magical about those numbers (no it's not for Michael Ruffin and Etan Thomas although it would be awesome if that were the case) it's just the way it worked out. This year? 9 posts through the middle of December (meaning before this post). Nine!!! Pathetic.

Speaking of pathetic, that's about how the Wizards' year has been don't you think? Let's recap, shall we? And yes, there's plenty of self pity here.

January

Do you know what it's like for your team to have no shot at winning anything before the season even started? I do. I'm a Wizards fan AND a New York Jets fan. There has been plenty of that hopelessness before anything started over the 20 years I've been a Wiz season ticket holder and the more than 40 years I've been a Jets fan. The 2019-2020 season was about as miserable as I have felt before the beginning of a campaign. The Wizards started 2020 with a New Year's Day loss to the Orlando Magic which dropped them to 10-23. I'd pretty much lost interest at this point. There was just no conceivable way that this team turned things around.

February

The All-Star Game is held in February without Bradley Beal. Why? Because Beal wasn't selected by the coaches to be an Eastern Conference reserve. Considering the success of the teams from which every other All-Star reserve was selected, it's difficult for me to argue with Beal's omission. Team success affects All-Star voting, at least among coaches. It just does. Deal with it!

March

After waiting through the first four months my 20th season as a Wizards season ticket holder, I finally get the information about my 20th anniversary reward, transportation to and from a regular season game with dinner pre-game. I select the March 15 game against the Thunder as my game. Then four days before that game, the NBA shuts down, dooming my reward that I've waiting 20 years to get. It's not the first time the Wizards have skipped a significant milestone. My five year reward was supposed to be a reception with a player but Agent Zero skipped out alleging a flat tire and the team never felt like that was important enough to reschedule. I got a signed basketball instead. It's not the same.

April

The season is still shut down. But...

So not only did the NBA shutdown affect my 20 year reward celebration, it locked Wizards fans out of the biggest bobblehead bonanza in more than a decade. Finally after single bobblehead seasons the Wizards low low low attendance forces the team to hand out more swag. April was supposed to be Bradley Beal Black Panther and Thomas Bryant bobblehead month. Never happened. Same for Rui Hachimura bobblehead night in late March. The Wizards probably have upwards of 9,000 or so of these things in some closet at Cap One. They could mail them to season ticket holders, but don't.

In typical fashion, there are clearly some of these things out there and on eBay. The Wizards have given away some of these to fans here and there and there was a promotional special for season ticketholders who visited the team store at Cap One a couple of weeks ago and dropped a minimum spend. It also appears that the team mailed out a special package to some fans with the Rui and Beal bobbles and some other swag. Some dude in Canada has one for sale. The picture is above. Have at it, fans!!

June

The NBA finalizes plans for The Bubble, a way for teams to finish out the 2019-2020 season. Not every team is a part of this thing but the Wizards are because they are close enough to the playoffs to be deemed competitive. There are going to be eight seeding games to allow teams on the outside of the playoffs looking in to catch the teams above them. If a team is within four games of the eighth place team there will be a series of play-in games. 

The NBA is wrong to deem the Wizards competitive here.

August

By the time the eighth month of 2020 starts, the Wizards have already seen Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans opt out of The Bubble and the team has already dropped their first of eight seeding games. It will get worse. It will take the Wizards until their eighth game to win one by which time they are long out of any sort of postseason scenario. The Bubble is a wasted experience.

The NBA came up with a way to get fans of the home teams engaged by having them attend games virtually having their likenesses pasted into seats on video boards. True to form, the Wizards "arena" under this scenario is more than half empty.

After their seeding games, the Wizards have the eighth worst winning percentage in the NBA for the 2019-2020 season. They entered The Bubble with the ninth worst winning percentage so by going 1-7 in July and August, they actually slid below the Charlotte Hornets in the standings, which last season were determined by winning percentage because not every team played the same number of games. In the annual NBA Draft Lottery, the eighth worst team moved up to the number three spot. But...the rules don't allow Bubble teams to slide below non-Bubble teams for the purposes of the Draft Lottery. The Hornets move up and the Wiz stay at nine. Figures! Push the knife deeper, why don't you?

December

The Wizards trade John Wall to the Houston Rockets along with a future conditional first round draft pick for Russell Westbrook. 

I'm crushed. I still haven't recovered emotionally. I can get my head wrapped around the idea that Russell Westbrook is going to hold the entire Wizards team accountable in a way that John Wall or Bradley Beal or Scott Brooks never have been able to but I'm still crushed.

In my 20 years of season ticket holder-dom, there have been only two players on this team that I have truly loved. They are (and there's probably no surprise here) Gilbert Arenas and John Wall. There's nobody else that's come close. Micheal Jordan, Antawn Jamison, Caron Butler and Bradley Beal have all been All-Stars in Washington over that time and Brendan Haywood and Martell Webster have been favorite players of mine at one time or another. But none of those guys have offered me hope of achieving something more than just mediocrity as a Wizards fan. Gil and John did that. Nobody else. 

The Wizards traded Gilbert Arenas because he ripped his knee up in a game against the Bobcats and did something immeasurably stupid by bringing a firearm into the locker room. The team apparently traded John Wall because someone in John's inner circle leaked a video of him flashing some gang signs at a party this summer. Not a smart thing to do, I get it, but the franchise has been talking about just wait until John Wall gets healthy for more than a year and right when he is they go and trade him. Makes no sense. That's all I'm going to say about that. Words can't express how faithless and utterly lacking in loyalty I think that trade is. I know...it's a business. John Wall offered me hope. The Wizards have taken that away.

Is that enough for this year? It is for me. The NBA season starts tomorrow. The Wizards open Wednesday at Philadelphia in front of no fans. I feel the same way I felt last October. The Wizards have no shot here at winning anything. Maybe they make the playoffs. Maybe they don't. If they make the playoffs this year then they get a mid-first round pick who likely won't make a difference to the team's future success in any real way and maybe they stay a playoff team the next season and then give up their 2023 first round pick as part of the Wall trade.

Maybe Russell Westbrook makes the Wizards better. Maybe Davis Bertans is worth the investment and maybe a draft pick pans out. What then? I get that it's unfair to say this but the guy who's supposed to be calling the shots for the Wizards was the team's third choice. Are we happy there? I know, the book's still out. But he did back a coach who's shown little ability to get the most out of his teams. Maybe Ted Leonsis called the shot on that one, not willing to part with $7 million for nothing, just like Ted called the Wall trade too. And refuses to exceed the luxury tax to take a shot at winning. Tell me where my hope is.