First Round Exit

This Wizards team had me there for a week or so with their 3-0 start to December and their next game against the miserable Cleveland Cavaliers. It looked like they would pull to within two games of .500 heading into the middle of the month. Two games later and two losses later including one to the aforementioned miserable Cavs, John Wall's out with a bone spur, the team's back at 11-16 and sitting in fourth place. In the division!!! 

With all that happening in the last five days, about the last thing I want to do right now is write about this year's lackadaisical, mail-the-game-in Wizards team. So I'm not going to. Instead I'm going to write about last year's lackadaisical, mail-the-game-in Wizards team. I know, I know; it's a marathon, not a sprint and there's a long way to go. Still...

For the last five years, Panini America has added a special insert set into their annual Hoops basketball cards release detailing the path each team took in the previous year's playoffs. There's a single card for each game of the postseason which are issued in progressively smaller numbers as the playoffs march to the NBA Finals. These Road To The Finals cards have been a way for me to celebrate the prior year's playoff success (yes, I'm defining reaching the second round of the playoffs as a success for the Wizards) in this blog.

In 2014, 2015 and 2017, I've posted the Wizards games in this insert set on this blog and reminisced about beating the Bulls, Raptors and Hawks before bowing out to the Pacers, Hawks and Celtics in each of those years. 2016 is missing because, well, the Wizards just decided not to try so much that year and just plain missed the playoffs (bye, bye Randy Wittman!).

There are some good memories in these cards I've collected over the years and there is some agony. That first round sweep of the Raps in 2015 still stands out as one of the nicer surprises I've had as a Wizards fan and the first round ouster of the heavily favored (by like every supposedly knowledgeable media figure) Bulls was pretty special too. I can still remember Ted Leonsis in his  Nenê jersey courtside while the big Brazilian was suspended for getting into it with Jimmy Butler in the prior contest. The Celtics game seven loss still kills me, especially since right now, it looks like that was the pinnacle of success for this current Wizards team. The home loss to the Hawks on Paul Pierce's disallowed three was pretty painful too (bye, bye The Truth).

Last year's season sucked but I couldn't break tradition and not buy these cards so here we are. An eight seed after barely losing to the Celtics in the second round the prior year was about as disappointed as I've been as a Wizards fan (and that's saying something). Still the team was brimming with playoff confidence before their first round matchup with Toronto  last season only to get blown out in games one and two. If there's one thing the Wiz weren't short of last year, it was false confidence. And it was on full display in Toronto in the first two playoff games. Serge Ibaka was the top performer in game one with 23 points and 12 boards; DeMar DeRozan poured in 37 in game two. The score of both of these games was not as close as the games themselves.

Home cooking worked in games three and four for the Wiz. John Wall and Bradley Beal make appearances on the cards for these two game by virtue of 28 points, 14 assists and four steals (for Wall in a game three blowout) and 31 points including 12 in the fourth (for Beal in a tighter game four). Unfortunately, that's all the Wiz could muster, letting DeMar DeRozan and Kyle Lowry out perform the House of Guards the rest of the series and close the Wizards out at home. 

Series over. Playoffs over. Season over. Just six cards to collect this year. They are on display for your enjoyment or misery here.  Right now, it doesn't look like there will be a post like this next year. We'll see how it goes the rest of the way. Go Wizards. Sort your issues out, please.

Road To The Finals 2017

Three years ago, Panini America introduced a new insert series into their annual NBA Hoops basketball card release which chronicled the prior year's NBA playoffs. They issued a unique card, serial numbered to a decreasing number as the playoffs progressed, for every single NBA playoff game of the prior year. They have continued to do that every year since that time.

I love these cards. It's a way for me to look back on each game my beloved Washington Wizards played last postseason. The only bad thing is the story ultimately ends in heartbreak.

Four years into this thing, I've collected one card from every playoff game the Wizards have played in the past four years. Of course, I only had to buy them three of the four years because, well (ahem!) they didn't make the playoffs in 2016. Here's this year's batch which represents the Wizards best playoff run in my first 17 years as a season ticket holder. In case you care, I also wrote about the 2014 and 2015 issues.

For the first time in 38 years, the Wizards (I'm including Bullets years in this calculation) finished the regular season with home court advantage in round one of the postseason. Their opponent? The Atlanta Hawks, the same team the Wizards lost to in the second round of their prior playoff appearance in 2015. The result? Much different. Two years ago, the Wizards lost at home in game six on a Paul Pierce buzzer beater that wasn't. This year? Well, let's say turnabout is fair play.

I have a couple of fond memories of this series. First I remember how whiny Paul Millsap was in the first two games in Washington as Markieff Morris absolutely stuffed him in game one. And I don't just mean on the court; I mean off the court too. A little physical play from Kieff turned Millsap into a no contact player. What's up with that? 

The Wizards did a great job holding serve in this one but after five games it really did look like a series that would go every game to the team on their home floor. Until John Wall's sublime 42 points in the Wizards 16 point in game six in Atlanta. The only thing better than Wall's performance was his press conference after the game. 

Sitting next to Bradley Beal at the post-game press conference, a grinning smiling John explained his back and forth with the Atlanta Falcons' Julio Jones, hip-hop artist Quavo and rapper Gucci Mane towards the end of the game when John was just unstoppable. When asked by a reporter what was "going on", John responded with a perfect "What was going on? I told 'em I was going to get 35 or more and we was going to win. And we did that." Best postgame press conference ever from the Wizards.

John gets two appearances on the first round Road to the Finals cards. Joining him are Bradley Beal and Otto Porter on the other two. On to Boston.

The Wizards and Boston Celtics spent the regular season last year beating each other at home. The Cs played two games in Washington and got beat both times. The Wiz went up to Beantown twice and came back with losses. In between the start and end of the last regular season, there was a poke in the nose, some bad blood and a game where the Wizards dressed in all black for the Celtics' funeral and beat the stuffing out of them at Verizon Center. 

Based on that season head-to-head history, all the Wizards needed was a single win up in Boston and they had the series. I thought they had it in the very first game. 16-0 Wizards. Then 22-5 Wizards. Man, this series was going to be fun! A game one upset and three Ws at home and we got the Eastern Conference Finals. At halftime it was just a five point game in the Wizards' favor. At the end of three it was a 15 point game the other way. Game one lost.

Maybe game two? Another strong first quarter had the Wizards up 13. Surely they learned from game one right? Maybe. Despite letting the Celtics to within one point in the second quarter, they carried a five point bulge into the fourth and were up five with three minutes to go before the game got tied up in the fourth. The Wizards were done in overtime, losing by ten in just five minutes of action.

The Wizards got back into it with home wins in games three and four despite the Celtics dressing in all black (not able to pull it off) but also lost Kelly Oubre, Jr. to a suspension in game five back in Boston for being sick and tired of taking elbows from Kelly Olynyk and not getting foul calls. Game five in Boston was no contest. Avery Bradley killed the Wiz. John Wall's game six dagger at the end of regulation followed by a leap up onto the scorers' table that I completely missed because I was celebrating tied it up at three apiece.

So after a six game back and forth series despite losing every game in Boston I had to think the Wizards had a chance on the road in game seven. If there were two games the road team might have won, the Wiz were the visitor in both in games one and two.

Wasn't to be. Know why? Kelly Olynyk.

Let me say that Kelly Olynyk has absolutely no business being on one of these cards. But he is because the Wizards, as they have often done with this guy, refused to take him seriously as a scoring threat. In each of Olynyk's first four seasons in the league, he's scored at least 19 once in a game against the Wizards. His best scoring game of those four years? Game 7 when he went for 26 points. This game was close...until it wasn't. The Wiz were down three with less than a minute to go in the third. Then Olynyk hit five field goals and two free throws in the fourth. How the Wiz let this guy do this is beyond me. Playoffs over. Better luck next year. Or maybe not. I'm just hoping for three rounds of cards next year.

Happier Times

My beloved Washington Wizards are on a disastrous four game losing streak in one single week, three by blowout and one by heartbreak to the Toronto Raptors on a last second game winning shot this past Saturday. I said it two days ago and I'm saying it again: it wasn't supposed to be like this. Now Marcin Gortat is complaining about locker room negativity and pining for Nenê to spend more time on the court with him. I like Marcin a lot but if there's one thing I don't agree with about him, it's how he airs the team's dirty laundry to the press. I get that he's in some respects Randy Wittman's new whipping boy (with Seraphin leaving) and who wouldn't want to play more with Nenê (I mean he only makes everyone better…) but some stuff needs to stay behind closed doors.

It's times like these that I need some perspective and some reminders of better times. The Wizards started the season two years ago 14-14 before turning things on and making the playoffs, including a second round appearance. And just last year the Wiz were trounced by the Raptors in the regular season only to sweep them 4-0 in the first round of the playoffs at the end of the season. And here's where my self-indulgent basketball card collecting hobby helps me out this year.

Last year, Panini America, the official basketball card partner of the NBA, produced an insert set with their Hoops line of cards tracing the playoff journey of each team all the way to the NBA Finals. I loved it! Issuing an individual card for each game of the playoffs seemed like an awesome idea to me. It created a point in time souvenir for the memories of the last postseason which I could pull out and remember any time I wanted. And after Saturday's loss to the Raptors, I really needed to review these cards.

The 4-0 sweep of Toronto features two John Wall cards, a Paul Pierce card and a Marcin Gortat card, highlighting the contributions those three players made to put a quick four nails in the Raptors' coffin. Just like last year, the first round playoff card set is numbered to the year so each card is sequenced 1 through 2015. These cards take me back to everything from the game one upset, where I sat in the back of a church during a wedding getting text updates on the score from my friend Mike, to the closing 31 point blowout at Verizon Center. I love the back of the fourth card: Wizards win series 4-0!!!!! The exclamation points are mine.

Unfortunately, the Wizards did not win the NBA title last year. Spoiler alert, I know. So just like I own four cards to celebrate the first round series victory by the Wizards, I also own six cards (just like last year numbered to 999) documenting the six game second round loss to the Atlanta Hawks, the second year in a row the Wiz lost to the one seed in the Eastern Conference.

Win. Loss. Win. Looking good!

This set of cards is especially painful. There's a lot of ups and downs in here worth remembering and never forgetting: the joyous game one upset behind Bradley Beal; John Wall breaking his wrist in game two; the Wizards winning without him in game three behind Paul Pierce's game three "I called game!" shot at  the buzzer; game five's winning shot by Al Horford, whom the Wizards failed to account for (and after Paul Pierce erroneously called "series" to the Hawks' bench); and the heartbreak in game six when Pierce's game  tying three point shot was ruled too late, ending our season. That last game was a killer; I actually went to the bathroom as that shot fell so I'd be ready for overtime only to find out when I got back that the season was over.

Despite the bad stuff in there, I hope Panini America continues to issue these kinds of cards each year. I can think of no better way to remember the postseason each year. For your viewing pleasure, I'm including the fronts of all ten postseason Wizards related cards. I hope there will be some cards for the Wiz next year. Cleveland tomorrow. It doesn't get any better, folks.

Loss. Loss. Loss. Season over!

$34.07

This post probably gets filed in the "less sense than money" category.

Randy Wittman has been head coach of the Washington Wizards for just a little bit less than four seasons. He was elevated to that position after the Wizards got tired of the lack of results under Flip Saunders and decided to kick Flip to the curb just 17 games into the 2011-2012 NBA season. Since his appointment as head coach, Randy's record is not stellar, posting a 46.4 winning percentage, although he did manage to get the Wizards into the second round of the NBA playoffs each of the last two years, something that hadn't happened in 36 years.

Sad though it may seem (because it's easy to achieve given my favorite team's historical performance), Randy is already becoming one of the most accomplished coaches in Wizards / Bullets team history. Despite his below even winning percentage, he's eighth all time in that category among the 23 head men in franchise history. I expect as his teams continue to win, he'll bring his winning percentage higher and higher. A 21-0 start at the beginning of next season would bring him to .500 instantly.

Randy fares better in some other franchise coaching categories. In total games coached, he's fifth. If he lasts to the end of next season he'll pass Dick Motta, who won the 1977-1978 NBA Championship with the Bullets. In playoff wins, Randy ranks fourth with 12 in just two playoff appearances. Maybe if John Wall hadn't hurt his wrist, the Wizards would still be playing and he'd be adding to that total.

In playoff winning percentage, Randy is first in team history with a 57.1 winning percentage. First!!! Granted there have been only two Wizards / Bullets head coaches who have an above .500 winning rate (the other being Dick Motta) but still…Randy deserves some credit here I think. If he wins three more playoff games next year, he'll be in second place on the all time team playoff wins list; If he gets the Wizards an NBA title, he'll be first. By one game.

If you read this blog regularly or know me personally, you'll know I'm a big Randy Wittman fan. He stresses the less glamorous parts of the game (fundamentals and defense) that are generally more difficult to be good at and he holds people accountable for performance. Those two things have been instrumental in turning the culture of the Wizards team over the last three plus seasons. So in honor of Randy being the winningest coach in Wizards / Bullets playoff history, I thought I'd see if I could buy all of Randy's basketball cards from his days as a player. I think I did that (and more) all for the low low price of $34.07. Here's what my money got me.

1983-1988: The Atlanta Hawks Years

Randy was drafted in the first round of the 1983 NBA Draft by the Washington Bullets as the 22nd overall pick. He never played in Washington as the Bullets traded his rights to the Atlanta Hawks for Tom McMillen, who apparently asked then Hawks owner Ted Turner for a trade to Washington so he could start working on his post-NBA career as a politician. Turner obliged and Randy ended up in Atlanta.

Randy ended up spending five seasons down south and got a basketball card of himself each of those five years. Basketball cards back in the 1980s weren't like basketball cards today. There was generally only one series of cards manufactured and not everyone got a card. There were no alternate series of cards, autographed cards or pieces of jersey or sneaker embedded in the cards. There were just plain old thin cardboard cards with an image on the front and some statistics on the back. These days there are what I refer to as liner notes about each player on the backs of the many many cards that players get today. A couple of years ago, I found some fairly amusing words on the backs of some of my Wizards cards which I wrote about in this blog.

I invested anywhere from $1.25 to $3.00 for each of my Randy Wittman cards but I sprung for a whole $5.00 plus $2.99 shipping for his rookie card, which came in a special plastic case with a grading number of 10 which I assume is the best grade a card can receive since it's noted as "Mint or Better." I'm not sure how anything can be better than mint but whatever. The image on the card is awesome, showing a wide eyed rookie in the horrendous mid-1980s Atlanta warmups. Is this the best picture they could find? The card is shown above, still in it's special plastic case because I haven't figured out how to remove it yet.

Randy's 1984-1985 through 1986-1987 cards are shown above in order from left to right. His second year card again shows him in his warmups, this time with the short sleeved shooting shirt removed and displaying his Hawks uni with the diagonal team name and numbers. I don't know what someone was thinking when they designed those things. I like the Hawks logo on the cards produced by Star; when Fleer got the contract they decided to remove the logo and not even mention the city where the Hawks are located. I'm not such a big fan of the Fleer cards.

Randy's third and fourth year cards use the exact same picture of him dribbling the ball up the court in front of a typically empty Hawks arena. Maybe there were a lot fewer pictures taken at basketball games in the 1980s so the same image got used two years in a row, with a little color contrast adjustment to confuse people a bit. I'm guessing the card companies figured nobody would ever assemble a collection of Randy Wittman cards so they could probably get away with the exact same pic. Little did they know…

Randy's final Hawks card is awesome. I love the maniacal look on Randy's face as he's (and I'm presuming here) launching one of the midrange jumpers he was famous for during his career in front of a watching Magic Johnson. I'm guessing the shot went down. Randy shot over 50% from the field during his career, which is pretty impressive at the guard position.

1988-1989: The Sacramento Kings (Half) Year

After the 1987-1988 NBA season, one in which the Atlanta Hawks would lose in game seven of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against a Larry Bird-led Boston Celtics team, Randy was traded to the Sacramento Kings for Reggie Theus. Just like his five years in Atlanta, Randy managed to get a basketball card for his time in Sacramento.

Randy's not wearing a Kings uniform on his 1988-1989 card, presumably because the cards were printed in the summer before the season started and he hadn't yet donned a Kings uni. So of course the folks at Fleer used the exact same image that they used in 1986 and Star used in 1985. Is the only stock image of Randy Wittman playing basketball that anyone felt comfortable using in the mid-1980s?

For its image alone, the card is a classic. But I love the "Traded to Sacramento" pennant placed over the Hawks name, as if someone had placed an actual sticker or something on an old Atlanta card. The back of the card displays Randy's stats as a pro, just like the Atlanta cards did. Card manufacturers still hadn't started adding liner notes to the backs of cards yet. That would change soon.

1989-1992: The Indiana Pacers Years

Randy's stay in Sacramento was brief. He wouldn't last the 1988-1989 NBA season, being traded to his hometown Indiana Pacers on February 20, 1989 in exchange for Wayman Tisdale and a draft pick. Indiana is where Randy would spend the rest of his playing career.

By the time Randy got home to Indy, he was effectively done as a starting player in the NBA. With the exception of his rookie year in Atlanta, he never averaged fewer than 9.9 points per contest while playing there. In Indiana, he only averaged as many as 5.2 points per game in 1988-1989, his first year back in town. In the 1985-1986 NBA season with Atlanta, Randy managed 12.9 points per game in 81 games. The next two years (also in Atlanta), he'd average 12.7 and 10.0 in 71 and 82 games respectively. His last three years in Indy saw scoring averages of 2.1, 1.8 and 0.7 points per game. Done...

Despite his lack of production, the folks who made basketball cards back then saw to it that Randy got one each year he was playing for the Pacers, and doubled the fun by making two in 1990-1991. By this time, basketball cards were starting to become collectible as the trading card market exploded. I'm not sure it was worth it making two Wittman cards in a single year, but it wouldn't be the last time that happened either. Randy's cards from the 1989-1990 and 1990-1991 seasons are shown above. 1989-1990 was the first time we saw the issuance of cards under the NBA Hoops brand, a line carried on to this day by Panini America. I don't know how successful the arched design of the two cards on the left are but I'm positive it's better than the Skybox swoosh and diagonal lines design on the right. In this card, Randy looks like he's an unwitting contest in some sort of basketball Tron, although 8 years after that movie was originally released.

During the 1991-1992 season, the Hoops design loses the arched feature (shown above on the left), which definitely enhances the brand, although the appearance is still sort of bargain basement, a look which sort of continues to this day. That year would be Randy's last in the NBA, although that didn't stop Topps from producing two Wittman cards during the following season after the Pacers waived him: the gold embossed Stadium Club series on the right above featuring Randy shooting in warmups or practice and the shot of him on the bench shown below. Two cards and he didn't play a single game?? That's not bad.

During Randy's first year in Indy, we finally see notes about the players' histories on the backs of cards. They wouldn't be there every year but they'd eventually stick. The notes on the backs of these cards often stretch the truth; I'm convinced writers employed by the card companies are paid to embellish the facts as much as possible. I'm not sure why. It's not like people are buying the cards for the information on the backs.

The words on the back of the Stadium Club card are both prescient and sort of pathetic. First... "Coach on the floor type who hasn't been a regular starter sine 1987-88." Well that's projecting Randy's future vocation pretty well, although as I've noted many times before there are many who feel Randy is not damn good at coaching (I'm not one of them, just to reiterate). And then..."Once played 54 minutes in a playoff game without fouling." Is that all they can say that's positive? Really? OK, whatever. How many people play that many minutes in a playoff game, let alone without fouling.

So how cool is all that? I mean who has a better Randy Wittman basketball card collection than me? I'm guessing the answer is nobody.

But wait! I didn't even talk about the best part. By sheer luck while I was looking on ebay for everything that makes up my Randy Wittman card collection, I stumbled upon some dude selling a few Pizza Hut promotional cards from the 1986-1987 season, including one of Randy. There have to be far fewer of these cards than any of the others in my small collection so this really becomes the crown jewel of my Wittman card stash. It's shown in all its glory at the top of this post. The photo looks like a headshot straight out of the Hawks' media guide and I love the fact that the phone number has no area code. Like why would you even need more than one area code in a city in the 1980s.

With the Pizza Hut card, I know my collection is the best Wittman stash on the planet. Bring on the comments!! I swear I'll lay off the Randy Wittman appreciation posts for at least a few months now. Summer league starts in less than five weeks!

Playoffs Redux

During the 2012-2013 NBA season, I started exploring the hobby of collecting basketball cards. I used this blog as both an excuse and a justification to shell out some dough for a few rectangles of cardboard which I thought would occupy my attention for a few minutes.  I didn't think this was anything new for me. When I was a kid in England, I used to collect football (soccer, that is) cards and then when I moved to this country in the late '70s I got hooked on football (NFL, that is), baseball and hockey cards and kept that going in part as late as sophomore year of college. Since the mid 1980s though, the landscape of sports card collecting has changed drastically and I learned that pretty quickly. This hobby is now big business. During the 2012-2013 season, Panini America, who owns the NBA trading card rights, produced 26 different lines of basketball cards including some series that retailed for over $1,000 for a pack of 10. Insane, right?

I declined to pick up the box of 10 cards for over $1,000 ($1,250 to be precise) that year but ended up spending a significant amount of money anyway and accumulating a pretty good collection of Wizards cards. Some of these things are absolutely gorgeous and perfect for collecting signatures but I knew I couldn't continue at the pace I went at in my first year; it was just too much. So last year I cut back a lot and spent less than half of what I spent the first season, choosing to concentrate on specific series of cards. This year, I vowed to cut back even more. My intent was to ignore the first few issues of cards entirely and just make sure I collected what I really thought was worth collecting.

Unfortunately, Panini America made a series of insert cards in their Hoops cards that were just too good to resist; I fell for it and I'm glad I did. This year's Hoops collection includes a "Road to the Finals" set of cards which features a card for each playoff game in the 2014 NBA playoffs. The front of the card features the star of the winning team for each particular game; the back of the card shows the final score and a quick narrative about the game. As a point of clarification, most sets of sports cards these days feature a base set of cards which is pretty easy to collect and then a series of insert cards that are aligned against a number of themes which are rarer and take a little more hunting to gather a full set.

Last year's Wizards team made the franchise's deepest playoff run in 35 years, moving out of the first round of the playoffs for the third time since 1979 and then securing two wins in the second round before ultimately collapsing in the second half of game four against the Indiana Pacers and succumbing for good two games later. These cards are the perfect way to remember each game in that couple of weeks' period so I decided to get a hold of the cards for all eleven playoff games to add to my collection. I know these will stir memories every time I pull them out and look at them.

Our first round playoff series last year was against the Chicago Bulls. It lasted just five games with the good guys winning four games to one so Panini's set features four Wizards cards and one Bulls card, each one numbered to an edition of 2014. The notable thing about this five card set for me is that the Wizards cards feature four different players in Nenê, Bradley Beal, Trevor Ariza and John Wall. That series was truly a team effort with no one player from our side dominating for more than a game. That balanced attack allowed us to completely overwhelm the Bulls and make them look like an offensively challenged, overworked-in-the-regular-season squad, starting with the 2-0 lead we took in Chicago.

Coming home for one game at least wasn't so sweet; we lost game three behind 35 points from Mike Dunleavy, who is featured on the one Bulls card in this series. That was the same game that Nenê was ejected (and subsequently suspended) for holding his head against Jimmy Butler's (there's really no other way to put what he did) for a few seconds. Game four featured a 17-2 game opening run, a dominant performance from Trevor Ariza and some late game "Free Nenê!" chants from the sellout crowd at Verizon Center. We never saw the Bulls that year again in Washington, finishing them off in game five in the windy city. John Wall was the star that night.

Unfortunately, game four in the first round was the only win the Washington home crowd would see in those playoffs. The second round against the Pacers was a six game affair with each team winning more than losing on each others' floor but the Pacers managed a win at home in game two (when Roy Hibbert who had been invisible for the entire playoffs decided to acknowledge he actually knew how to play basketball) for the edge in the series. Because the Pacers won, the second round series of cards feature four Pacers cards and just two Wizards cards, this time numbers to an edition of 999.

This series is not so much fun to remember. Trevor Ariza was perfect from three point range in game one and the win in Indiana that night seemed like it foreshadowed a repeat of the Chicago series. Some folks around Washington even started punching the Wizards' tickets for the Eastern Conference Finals. Not so fast. There was a reason the Pacers were the best team in the east in the regular season and Roy Hibbert, David West and Paul George proved it in the next three games. George killed us in game four when it looked like we were on our way to an easy victory, up 17 with less than nine minutes to go in the third quarter.

Marcin Gortat stemmed the tide a bit in game five with a career game (and thus he's on the game five card) in Indiana, scoring 31 and grabbing 16 boards before David West and the rest of the Pacers put us away for good in the next game. That series featured only two games where the winning team scored over 100 points and it was the two games the Wizards won. But ultimately, it seemed that our team wasn't ready for that sort of stage quite yet. Hopefully it's something we can build on this year. We started to exorcise some of those demons last night when we defeated the Pacers in an ugly all too close overtime affair at Verizon Center.

If I had my druthers, I'd love for Panini to produce a set like this every year. I think it's a great way to celebrate teams' playoff runs. I know these things will serve as a memory jogger every time I want to take a trip to past Wizards success. Thanks, Panini. I've got a ways to go to get through the rest of your card issues this year. Looking forward to each one.

Meet The Team

As of this writing, the Washington Wizards are off to an inauspicious start to the 2013-2014 season, going 0-2 in their first two games with honestly no realistic end to the losing with upcoming games against Miami, Brooklyn, Oklahoma City and San Antonio. It might just take a fluke of a game. I figured we could pick up a couple of easy Ws against the Philadelphia 76ers both here in D.C. and in Philly in the first four games of the season but somehow Philly has managed to go 3-0 to start the year so I'm counting on a loss Wednesday when we play up there at this point. So before I get too frustrated to deal with writing about this team for a while in a positive light, I thought now would be an appropriate time to look back on last Saturday's Season Ticket Holder Party at Six Flags.

The Season Ticket Holder Party (or the Meet The Team Party as it used to be called) is one of the most important events of the year for the rabid season ticket holder. I once left a business meeting in Roanoke, VA early so I could get back to D.C. for this thing. It's the event where fans like me can stand in line for about an hour to get some stuff which is essentially worthless autographed by my favorite players and add it to my rapidly expanding autograph collection, which is displayed in various locations throughout my condo in and around my also expanding bobblehead collection. And yes, I know I'm too old to be collecting autographs and bobbleheads. Let it go!

This is how it all starts: standing in line to get to the spot in the park when you really stand in line.

I've attended the Season Ticket Holder Party / Meet The Team Party every year since the 2003-2004 season. I missed out the first three years of my tenure because the team didn't have this sort of thing during the Michael Jordan years (presumably because it would have been a complete mob scene if MJ was signing) and I think I bought tickets too late the first year I signed up in 2000-2001. The format and location of this event has changed over the years drastically. I love the current format because it rewards resourcefulness and planning (which I have in spades) and aggressiveness (which I don't have; just can't knock little kids out of the way) is of little to no value. Let me explain.

The first couple of years I went to this event at Verizon Center were pretty much a free for all. The players were rarely at tables signing in an orderly fashion but were instead just standing around in random spots around VC or in some cases giving locker room tours. I remember talking to Jared Jeffries one year as he helped kids into the moon bounce set up at the west end of the building. I think that same year I almost literally bumped into Gilbert Arenas while trying to get my bearings and Kwame Brown was giving locker room tours; we each shook his hand before the tour and he introduced himself ("I'm Kwame"; yeah, no kidding!). In those days getting autographs was literally a mad scramble: it was almost impossible to plan because there was no rhyme or reason to where guys were located and the lack of lines meant that sometimes getting something signed involved pushing your way to the front of a loose mob. There were also no name tags so it was sometimes difficult to tell who was who. My friend Mike helped me identify Larry Hughes one year by the "LH" tattoo on his neck.

There's plenty of this going on. Notable here are Jan Vesely knowing he's just had his fourth year declined on his rookie contract and John Wall, who is not exactly Mr. Personality during these things.

The event stayed at Verizon Center through the 2009-2010 season (with one random year at the Newseum) but the team decided to change the format once we started to make the playoffs. In those middle years of my season ticket holder tenure, the team decided to distribute color coded tickets to attendees which allowed you to stand in one (and theoretically only one) line to get autographs from 2-3 preselected players. There were ways to get additional tickets if you tried, including grabbing more than one ticket the years they handed them out at the door and trading for different colored tickets with other fans the years they mailed them. These years were the worst. They rewarded neither resourcefulness and planning nor aggressiveness. It didn't matter how early or late you got there and you had no control over who you wanted to stand in line for: your fate was predetermined by the color of the ticket you owned. It also hindered any ability to get a single year's team collected on a single ball or whatever other object you elect to get signed. I like to use the box the season tickets come in.

Chris Singleton, Jedi Knight, with Bradley Beal and Glen Rice, Jr signing away furiously.

Then when Ted Leonsis took control of the team, he moved the event out to Six Flags in Prince George's County. This year the event was held on a Saturday afternoon in the picnic area of the park since the place was still open to the public; the past three years, it's been held at night on a weekday. In all four years I have been going to Six Flags for this thing, the format has been essentially the same: players are arrayed in different positions around the park with orderly lines set up and start signing about an hour after fans are admitted. For those who are resourceful and can plan, the hour before signing allows scouting out of locations to determine who is where and laying out the ideal sequence to get players in priority order. It's been tight the last two years but I've been able to get the entire team both years so I can check that box in my neurotic obsession about this stuff.

Basketball cards: my new favorite item to get signed.

Because of the rush associated with this event, there's very little opportunity to interact with players which is too bad (conversation after all slows down the line for others and hinders the annual complete set of signatures quest). But some players can't help themselves and I can't get by Kevin Seraphin without a couple of sentences in French (after a couple of sentences my language skills betray me) and without him showing stuff to his neighbor. Kevin's one of those guys who loves being semi-famous and having fans. He has his own hashtag on Twitter (#KevinSeraphinLife) and loves the spotlight that being a backup center for an NBA team affords him. He's humble but there's also no question he has an ego that he likes to have stroked. Last year I pulled up a picture on my phone of him as Superman and he made me show it to Earl Barron who was sitting next to him. This year he had to show Trevor Ariza the gold basketball card (above) I handed him so Ariza could be impressed by the kind of products Kevin inspires I guess.

This is the sort of event that makes me feel a little more engaged with the team. I know most of these guys must hate sitting at tables for an hour signing stuff for fans who should have outgrown this stuff years ago but I think it's great the team makes this happen. Fans are the reason these teams exist so I guess for one day anyway it makes me feel good as a fan that we get something exclusive for the money that we are forking over. Maybe one day this event will cease having so much value for me. Until then, I'll be leaving business meetings early or whatever else I have to do to get over to this each year.

This year's season ticket holder box, signed by the team.

20 Jan Veselys

Last fall, I invested in my first box of basketball cards, something that was supposed to be a quick lark and a way of pretending to be serious about this blog. A month later, I followed that up with two more boxes of different types of cards and suddenly found myself a couple of hundred dollars poorer with a ton of cards with basketball player images on my hands. Not knowing what else to do with these things, I posted my thoughts on the overly optimistic descriptions on the backs of the cards last December as a way to distract myself from the Wizards' miserable start to the 2012-13 season.

After my December basketball cards post and knowing I am a recovering collector who sometimes relapses, I had a conversation with my friend Mike that went something like this:

   Mike: So you are collecting basketball cards now?

   Me: No, I just bought some.

   Mike: So you are collecting basketball cards.

   Me: No, honestly, I'm not. I just bought a few. Really.

Well, ten months or so after my first purchase, I think Mike's right and I can say I have a pretty good collection of basketball cards focused of course on the Washington Wizards.

When I was a kid growing up in England, I collected football cards. And I'm talking real football (translation: soccer), not the NFL. Just about every kid in England is obsessed with football and so pretty much everyone collected football cards. We saved our allowances to buy these wax sealed packs of cards with a brittle stick of pink gum inside hoping we would get one or two Liverpool players (back then it seemed like every kid was a Liverpool fan) or something worth trading so we could get some cards that we really wanted from another kid.

When my family moved to the United States in 1979, I continued to collect cards but this time it was baseball, football (NFL football this time) and hockey cards. No basketball for me at that time. No interest at all, ironically. These cards came with the same brittle pink gum in the wax sealed packages as my cards in England but instead of collecting one series of cards, I now had to divide my allowance a quarter at a time among three seasons, carefully rationing out my precious savings so I could cover all three sports reasonably well. I continued to collect cards for a few years until I lost interest and moved on to other pursuits (probably Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games) before buying some football cards in college when I was absolutely maniacal about all things New York Jets.

That was about 25 years ago and I hadn't given collecting cards much thought since then. But a couple of years ago, Panini America, the same company that made the football cards I collected as a kid in England, bought the rights to manufacture cards for the NBA and I followed them on Twitter about 15 months ago. From there it was all downhill and I can honestly say I am no longer in recovery. I've definitely relapsed.

This year, Panini America will release 26 different basketball card sets and until they announced the impending release of their second to last issue Flawless series, which retails for $1,250 per ten card pack, I made sure I bought at least one (OK, more than one) of each card set featuring a Wizards player. We can stop for a second if you want; the previous sentence does not contain a typo in the numbers. $1,250 is the correct price for ten 3" by 4" pieces of cardboard. Admittedly, this card set features actual diamond and emerald embedded cards but come on, some people have way too much disposable income on their hands. We have definitely come a long way from me buying baseball, football and hockey cards for 25 cents a pack.

I always thought of collecting sports cards as something that kids did, but the prices in the previous paragraph and some of the secondary market prices of these cards is astounding. And the amount of variations and unique numbered cards makes it even pricier. When I was writing this post I did a quick search on ebay and found a Damian Lillard National Treasures Rookie Platinum 1/1 card with a current tally of 42 bids and a price of $2,100. And the bidding wasn't even closed. Are you kidding me???

OK, so some of these cards are pretty cool and they are going to make or have made high quality and extremely portable items for autographing (much more on that other collection later, I am sure). Over the past ten months, I have acquired thin cards, thick cards, cards with pieces of jersey in them, cards made out of acetate or leather or wood, die cut cards, autographed cards, cards with prismatic qualities, foil embedded cards and other sorts of cards that I never would have imagined would ever exist when I was buying their predecessors for a quarter a pack at Franklin Pharmacy in Glastonbury, CT. And it seems at every turn that I have Jan Vesely versions of these cards, whom I desperately want to succeed this coming year to provide some stability in the frontcourt off the bench. Just tying things back there.

So what's the point? I have no idea. I've spent an insane amount of money on these things (not $1,250; not even close) and I think I have fulfilled my yen for this year. I will never pledge to buy one of each series of cards ever again. But I think I'll continue to buy on a budget and I am genuinely intrigued and love the graphic quality of some of these things. I really believe there is real design in some series that is very appealing. I think the first 2013-14 sets start coming out in late October. Until then and appropriately enough since EuroBasket is in full swing right now, enjoy a portion of my collection of Jan Vesely cards. Trust me, these things will be worth a fortune when Ves breaks out and takes the league by storm. Everyone will be saying Blake Griffin is the American Jan Vesely. That's all I have on this one.

Wizards Basketball Card Optimism

Now that I have a blog mostly about basketball (although it's really about me), I have an excuse to do stuff I couldn't in all good conscience do before, like buy basketball cards. I'm currently tracking down the Wizards players in the sixth of at least 12 basketball card series that Panini America, the officially licensed card manufacturer of the NBA, is producing this season. Who knew there was such a market for this stuff? There are cards which sell on the secondary market for over $2,000. Admittedly, there are some which are absolutely gorgeous but paying that much for a 3" by 4" piece of cardboard is insane! I'm not spending anywhere near that much money on these things; I may be obsessed and waste way too much time and money on this team but I'm not THAT stupid!

Just like the baseball and football cards I collected as a kid, the fronts of the cards show an image of the players and the backs of the cards contain stats as well as some random facts or future projections. I don't know who at Panini America writes the stuff on the backs of the cards, but some of it is pretty ironic with the Wizards off to a 4-23 start this season. In fact, you could make the case that some of it is just downright deluded. I thought I'd share some of my favorites. Or perhaps considering the context, my least favorites.

Hoops Card No. 175, Nenê

"Nenê has only hit the court 11 times with the Wizards, who acquired him from Denver via a trade. Assuming those 11 games were a preview of how it will fare with the Brazilian in 2012-13, Washington could be in for a gripping season." 

Gripping is probably a good word to describe our season so far, but I'm sure it's not what the author of the quote above quite had in mind. It's hard for me to pick on Nenê because he's far and away the best player on our team. There's no question we are a way better team with him on the court than on the bench.

Hoops Card No. 176, Kevin Seraphin
"Only 22 years old and in his second NBA season, Seraphin had an amazing closing kick to the 2011-12 season. He started all 15 of the Wizards' games and averaged 15.5 points and 7.0 rebounds while putting the ball through the net 53 percent of the time. April may have been his launching point."

Well, maybe not. While Kevin started the season strong, he's tailed off. He's currently averaging 10.7 points and 5.4 rebounds, which are both career highs, but his field goal percentage has dipped from last year to 45.1 percent. He needs to get better at recognizing double teams. Once he does that, I'm hopeful we'll see great things.

Hoops Draft Night Card No. 3, Bradley Beal
"There's not a whole lot this guy can't do on the basketball court. Beal is a great 3-point shooter, first and foremost."

Some nights this season have clearly been a struggle for Bradley as he gets used to being in the NBA on a bad team. But there's no question we are still waiting for "greatness" from the three point line: Bradley ranks 131st in the NBA from downtown and Martell Webster, A.J. Price and Jordan Crawford are shooting better from that range on our team.

Prestige Card No. 109, Emeka Okafor

"Okafor has been good for a double-double just about every night for his eight-year career."

Well, not this year. Okafor is averaging 7.5 points and 6.5 rebounds this season and has tallied a double-double in only two games. It's clearly the worst statistical season of his career. What is it about Washington that does that to people?

Prestige Card No. 178, Jan Vesely

"His popularity is on the rise in Washington."

I have no facts to dispute this claim, but it's not. It's just not. Sorry. And I like Ves a lot. I hope it all turns around when Wall returns.

Prestige Card No. 193, Shelvin Mack

"He was steady for Washington all season long, earning high marks from his coaches."

Not disputing the steady claim here but I doubt the high marks from the coaches considering we cut Shelvin during training camp. But...since we just re-signed him after firing his replacement (Jannero Pargo) and his replacement's replacement (Shaun Livingston), maybe he should have been on the team all along. Welcome back, Shelvin!

Totally Certified Card No. 8, Trevor Ariza

"After the club acquired him from the Hornets in the offseason, Ariza told The Washington Post, 'I definitely believe this can be a playoff team.'"

Well, believe away, Trevor. It's not going to be in 2012-13. The Wizards currently have the worst record in the NBA and it's not really that close. Admittedly, we are only 9-1/2 games out of the eighth spot in the Eastern Conference but it looks bleak, especially since we have only won four games so far. I believe the team deviated from the rebuild plan when trading for Okafor and Ariza in the hopes those two would get us over the hump. Doesn't look that way so far.

Totally Certified Card No. 28, Trevor Booker

"In his first two seasons since leaving Clemson, Booker has developed into a potentially dominant force on the glass for the Wizards."

I'm afraid I'm going to have to take issue with this whole statement. While Book has had some nice games, he's far from a "dominant force" or even a potential one. In his first two years, he averaged 3.9 and 6.5 rebounds per game but this year has dipped to 5.6 while only playing in nine of our first 27 games.

Totally Certified Card No. 158, Emeka Okafor

"After three seasons with the Hornets, Okafor now joins a young Wizards team with a strong nucleus that is looking to make a big jump in 2012-13."

We're still looking to make that jump. So far, our winning percentage has dropped from .303 last year to .148 this year. Even though I can feel good about last night's win over Orlando,  there is still a long way to go.

Totally Certified Card No. 236, Jan Vesely

"With Vesely, former No. 1 overall pick John Wall, and 2012 first rounder Bradley Beal, Washington has the makings of a high-speed, high scoring team this year."

I know this is unfair because Wall hasn't played a single minute yet, but "high scoring" absolutely positively cannot be used to describe the Wizards this year. The team is dead last in scoring  in the NBA this year at 89.2 points per game, a full 2.2 points per game behind the next highest (or should it be lowest?) team. We are also on track to set a franchise mark for fewest points per game in a season.

My friend Mike asked me a couple of weeks ago why every other team seems to get better and the Wizards don't. I don't have a good answer to that question. No doubt injuries have killed the Wizards in the first third of the season, probably making anything we do in the rest of the season irrelevant. And it's difficult to judge based on what happened last year, but most of our guys are clearly struggling. I'd be a much happier guy if just some of the stuff above were true and believe me, I really really want it to be true. Maybe when John Wall finally plays this year. Or maybe next year, right?