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!

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.

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?