June 27, 2014

I Stayed Up For THAT?!?!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

June 16, 2014

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

It's 32-0 now!

June 5, 2014

2014 Off Season Priorities


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

May 20, 2014

Draft Lottery? Who Cares!


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 19, 2014

That's The End Of That

Game four: Wiz up 17 in the second. It all looked so good then.
It's always tough for me when we get to the end of the Wizards version of the NBA season and we got there at the end of the night last Thursday with a game six loss to the Indiana Pacers at home. Oddly enough, that finish wrapped up the most successful Washington pro basketball season since 1979 and the most successful season ever as the Wizards so I have to feel good about that despite the sting of losing. Over the last five years or so, the season has been effectively over three weeks or more before the end of the regular season. I'm proud of what the team accomplished this year; this team supplants the 2005-2006 squad as the most successful team since I've been a season ticket holder, despite the one fewer regular season victory when compared to the 05-06 group.

Just a couple of weeks ago, it seemed like the whole city of Washington was riding high on the Wizards' run. It seemed like we took care of the Chicago Bulls handily and with a second round matchup against what seemed like a wounded Pacers team, there was more talk about how many games we could win against the Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference Finals than there was about the team standing in our way to the first Conference Finals appearance in 35 years. Turns out we should have been paying attention to our second round opponent. It all came crashing down pretty quickly after our game one victory in Indy. Oh well, I didn't really expect much more than we got this year, despite the momentary glimmer of extreme possibilities.

So because I wrapped up round one against the Bulls with a six pack of thoughts (and because really amazing things usually come in six packs), here's my take on the last basketball the Wizards played in the 2013-2014 season.

David West's scrunchy face in game five. Every foul that's called on him gets this look.
1. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie
The Indiana Pacers started the 2013-2014 NBA season with 16 wins against a single defeat, the best start in their franchise history. At the halfway point of the season they were 33-8 and pushed their record to a season high 33 games above .500 with a victory against the Utah Jazz on March 2. The Pacers began this season with the self-proclaimed goal of finishing with the number one seed in the Eastern Conference so they would have home court advantage in game seven in a presumptive Eastern Conference Finals against the Miami Heat. Assuming they got that far.

But after that March 2 game, something happened to the Pacers. Maybe they were thrown off by the introduction of Evan Turner at the trade deadline or by the signing of Andrew Bynum shortly thereafter or maybe they just got bored or forgot about their home court advantage dream. Whatever it was, they stumbled to a 8-9 record to finish the regular season, losing as many in their last 17 games as they lost in their first 44. They even managed to yield their top conference spot to the Miami Heat in the last couple of weeks of the season before the Heat, equally bored it seems, handed it right back to the Pacers.

The first round of the playoffs looked like more of the same for the Pacers, especially when they found themselves down with three minutes to go in what could have been a deciding game six in Atlanta for the hometown Hawks. Their play in round one was listless, bored and lacked urgency. They made Jeff Teague look like an All-Star night after night. But they squeaked by. Game one against the Wizards was a similar story. Roy Hibbert, who disappeared entirely in the series against Atlanta, had zero points, zero rebounds and five fouls in the Pacers' game one loss to Washington at Banker's Life Fieldhouse.

But suddenly the Pacers awoke and realized they actually knew how to play good basketball and from there it was not much of a contest. Hibbert went for 28 in game two. Paul George followed that up with 23 in game three and 39 in game four, both victories for the Pacers in D.C. Then in game six, also in Washington, David West finished us off with 29. But despite getting big games from their bigs in each second round win, what impressed me most of all was how they got back on defense. The Wizards' ability to score quick and easy points off the fast break was totally negated by Indiana's D. Even off missed field goals with long rebounds, they always got three or even four guys back quickly to their end of the court in position to defend. When they played that way, it wasn't much of a series.

It's difficult for me to hate the Pacers the way I hated the 2005 Heat or the 2006-2008 Cavaliers who beat us in the playoffs in my season ticket holder tenure. I need them to beat Miami too badly to hate here so I'll confine my displeasure to Lance Stephenson and the whiny way David West and Roy Hibbert complain any time a foul is called on one of them. For the record, I wanted the Hawks in round two.


2. Not Quite Ready for Primetime
For all the success this season brought for the Wizards, when the Pacers set their minds to it, they could have beaten us on any given night. I think we were just fortunate that they didn't set their minds to it most nights. Our game three 63 points, the lowest scoring output in franchise playoff history, proved that in spades. Having said that, if some calls had gone our way, if we had hit a few more free throws or if we had not blown a 19 point lead at home in game four, we might very well have found ourselves in the Eastern Conference Finals this week. 

You have to start somewhere and this is really how it works in the NBA: teams on the rise get to the first or second round a couple of times and lose before making some sort of jump spurred on by playoff success and challenging for a Finals berth or even a championship itself. Hopefully, this year was the Wizards' start to such a journey. Our inexperience (and the Pacers' defense I guess) really showed through inconsistent play. Over the six games of the series, we had one 30 point scorer (Marcin Gortat in game five with 31). All five of our starters except Bradley Beal had at least one game with fewer than 10 points (Ariza and Gortat had two!). And John Wall failed to hand out 10 assists in all six contests. Not that offensive statistics tell the whole story, especially a series played at the pace of this one, but there are some telling numbers in there.

Overall, we failed (or Indiana didn't let us) to provide a consistent source of offense out of our starting five. Beal had a nice series, averaging 18.7 points but other than game one, when he scored 25, he never really dominated. Our bench collectively scored more than 15 points only twice and only scored more than 20 once, allowing the team to stretch a small  game three early second quarter lead into 17 at the half before the post halftime collapse.

I hope we learned a thing or two from this series with the Pacers, and I hope our bench is far more prepared next year. That's going to take work over the summer but with Wall and Beal emerging as our best players, we better be prepared to do it.

Lady Gaga performing Bad Romance, if memory serves.
3. The Curse of Lady Gaga
When the Indiana Pacers finally put away the Atlanta Hawks and sealed their second round matchup against the Wizards, the NBA finalized the second round schedule for both teams. Game six, scheduled in Washington, was announced on Thursday, May 15. That seemed like a mistake to me because about six months earlier I'd bought tickets to see Lady Gaga in the same building on that night. They had to move the game, right?

Friday seemed like a good candidate for game six. The Mystics had a game scheduled on that day but game seven of our series wasn't taking place until the Sunday. Surely they could slide the Mystics game to a day game and have the Wiz play at night on Friday, right? I mean after all, there had to be more people going to see Lady Gaga than like four or five Mystics games, right?

Apparently not. Instead of moving any sort of basketball, Verizon Center and Lady Gaga agreed to switch the Gaga concert in D.C. with the one in Philadelphia, meaning Lady Gaga would now play the Verizon Center on Monday, May 12. From the reaction on Twitter, you would have thought it was the end of the world. Some fans even pronounced curses on the Wizards for their transgression. Surely there are no such things as curses right?

Let's see…the Wizards won game one in Indiana on May 5. The very next day, the Verizon Center announced the Gaga concert reschedule and the Wizards lost game two in Indy on May 7 and then games three and four at home on May 9 and 11. What the hell was going on? 

I made it a point to wear one of my Wizards shirts to the Lady Gaga concert on the 12th and the very next day, the Wizards won. Curse broken right? Maybe. Maybe not. The next game at Verizon Center was a loss. 0-3 at home since the rescheduled concert. Uh-oh!



4. Bandwagonners, Where You Are?
Is bandwagonners a word? I guess it is now. I'm sure I'm not the first person to use it.

I've had Wizards season tickets for 14 years now. Over the years, I've offered a number of people the opportunity to go see a Wizards game for free, either with me or with whomever they chose when I had two extra tickets I couldn't get rid of by selling (and believe me that's happened a lot). Some have accepted; some have not. Some have asked who are the Wizards playing? Like I'm trying to ditch a game against an historically popular team (read: a winning team). Some have even thought the notion of spending a couple of hours of their precious time watching a team they don't care about was preposterous. The team they don't care about is the Wizards, in case that wasn't clear. Throughout all of that, I have kept the faith, that someday, I'd be watching my team win more than most others.

So imagine my surprise when people came out of the woodwork during our first round against Chicago asking if I could get them some tickets. I had at least three people who I know for a fact have not attended a single Wizards game this entire year ask me if they could buy in to the ticket presale offered to season ticket holders, either in the first or second round. All of a sudden everyone wanted to go see the Wizards play ball. And it wasn't just people I knew. Jose Andres (complete with John Wall jersey), DeSean Jackson and Robert Griffin III (both Redskins) all showed their faces for game three of the Indiana series. Where are these people during the regular season on a Tuesday night against Milwaukee? At least Wale (who showed up for game six of the Indy series) shows up once or twice a year. I've often heard over the last 14 years that Washington is a basketball town. I'm thinking now it's a fair weather fan town. Try struggling through 35 plus games a year for over a decade.

Sadly, as fast as the bandwagonners jumped on the train, they got off even faster. Once the Pacers beat us in game three, it seemed like nobody wanted to have anything to do with the Wizards. All of  sudden, everyone was concerned about how gorgeous the weather was this spring. Game six of the Indy series wasn't even sold out. Are you kidding me? I believe in karma. I hope Ted Leonsis remembers the true fans who soldiered through the lean years when we get really good.

5. Ticket Greed
Speaking of Ted Leonsis…

Thanks to the bandwagonners and I guess to the Capitals for sitting the postseason out this year (not their choice exactly), tickets for Wizards playoff games were about the hottest ticket in town the last few weeks. The secondary market literally exploded. I keep an eye on prices of secondary market tickets and I was astonished to see upper deck tickets posted for north of $150. I realize POSTING tickets for that price is not the same as SELLING them for that price, but I checked back often enough to feel pretty confident that someone somewhere paid that price for 400 level tickets.

If I was astonished, I think the Wizards were too. The first season ticket holder presale for games one and two of the Chicago series featured upper deck center tickets for $32 per seat. Based on the secondary market (in my opinion), the team upped the price for game six (which never happened) to $60 for the same seat. When we ousted the Bulls and got ready to welcome the Pacers for round two, the presale price for the same tickets went up to $75. The secondary market remained as hot as ever so the team went for broke seemingly during the game six presale, offering upper deck tickets for $129. In about two weeks, the team had raised the price from $32 to $129. I know I'm oversimplifying but that's what happened in a nutshell.

Game six of the Indiana series, the most important home professional basketball in Verizon Center EVER, was not sold out. And I believe the ticket prices had a whole lot to do with it. For those couple of weeks when Wizards fever was high, it seemed like people would give their right arm to see a game. But when we lost game three to the Pacers, the bubble burst. I don't think it's a stretch to blame the non-sellout in game six on ticket prices being just too darned high. And I think the team has to take the blame for some of that. Note: it's rare that I blame ownership for anything in this blog. I just feel strongly about this one.

My biggest fear about my season tickets is that I will be priced out of my comfort zone one day and be forced to surrender my seats to a fair weather fan who doesn't care one iota about this team unless they are super successful. I'm making a plea here for ownership to make a place for fans like me in the future. It's not the first time and it for sure won't be the last. I see the playoff pricing this spring as a sign of things to come. And I don't like it.

0.0 left in game six. Season over!
6. Game Six
Despite the heartbreak of the series loss to the Pacers, especially after the euphoria of game one, game six was the most exciting game of basketball I have ever attended. Sure we didn't win and it probably wasn't as satisfying as the 2008 Soulja Boy playoff game, but it was still the best I've been to because of the sense of hope in the building and the genuine realization surrounded by fellow fans (some probably bandwagonners, admittedly) that this sort of thing could be an annual occurrence.

The game didn't look so good in the first half. It looked like another one of those games that Indiana would just be too strong and we'd wilt and hopefully come back stronger the next year. The Pacers were up 12 at the half and despite a reasonably competitive third quarter it seemed like the game was lost. There were a number of calls that hadn't gone our way (Paul George drawing the charge / just blatantly falling down against Trevor Ariza comes to mind) and the Pacers were once again whining (David West again!) and flopping (Luis Scola with the Oscar please) their way to an easy clinching win.

But the fourth quarter changed all that and made this game the best I have ever seen. If I sat down for five minutes in that quarter I'd be surprised. Nobody else around me was either. At the end of the quarter we were standing and cheering in appreciation of a special season (don't dispute me please, it's the Wizards remember) but earlier we were on our feet because the Wizards showed one last time how well they can play. I can't remember a sequence more amazing than Bradley Beal pulling the defensive rebound out of 7'-2" Roy Hibbert's hands and coming down to our end of the court seconds later to hit a long three to put the Wizards up 74-73. The place went crazy! That's what I can't wait to see next year and it will keep me going through Summer League until then.

After Beal hit his three, the Pacers killed us, ending the game on a 20-6 run and taking the game by 13. Game over! Season over! Best season since '79. Next year!

April 30, 2014

Sweet Home Chicago


If you told me two weeks ago the Wizards-Bulls first round playoff matchup was over after five games, with Nenê being disqualified from four games and one team not winning a single game at home I would not have felt good about the Wizards' chances. But lo and behold, last night it was the Wizards closing out the Bulls in Chicago to end a quick series that Washington completely dominated. For the first time since 2005 and the second time since 1982, Washington's basketball team is in round two of the NBA playoffs.

If there's one big picture theme I take away from the last week and a half, it's how well the Wizards can play when focused. The Wizards had a number of stretches this season where they won four out of five (heck, we even had a six game winning streak in late February / early March) but none were this impressive and we had some serious concentration lapses, especially at home. I know very often in playoff series a superior team can kill an inferior team when presented with a best of seven series. I never expected us to finish the Bulls off the way we did. Total domination. After five seasons missing the postseason, this series was really sweet.

So for the first time since we beat these same Bulls (OK, maybe not the SAME Bulls once you get beyond Kirk Hinrich) in 2005, the Wizards are in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. And we might have home court advantage if the Atlanta Hawks manage to close out the number one seed Indiana Pacers tomorrow night. Before I look forward to that series, here's this fan's six pack take on what was so memorable about this year's first round series.

Is that a basketball or a grapefruit? Tony Snell stood no chance here.
1. Nenê
Of the five games in the series, Nenê finished only one and didn't play at all in game four. Yet his presence was felt in significant ways in all five games. From his game one playoff career high 24 points on 11 of 17 shooting to his closing game five 10 of 17, 20 point performance, to the "Free Nenê" chants by the Verizon Center crowd at the end of game four. Nenê may not have been the best player on the court in all five games but in ways that continue to confound all non-Wizards fan, Nenê demonstrated over the past week and a half why he is the most important cog on the Wizards team until John Wall is ready to assume that mantle in full.

It is absolutely amazing that the Nuggets allowed us to have Nenê for the small price of JaVale McGee. The Nuggets got a knuckleheaded freaky athletic center with poor court awareness and a total misunderstanding of the concept of team play and we get back one of the most cerebral passing big men in the game who makes this team instantly better. The Nuggets gave up Nenê according to what I have read because they were convinced Kenneth Faried could take his place in the Nuggets starting five at a way lower price and they were concerned about a history of injuries. Kenneth Faried is a nice player but he's no Nenê and since the February 2012 trade, Nenê has played 125 regular season games to JaVales's 104. No second round playoff appearances for the Nuggets with JaVale; one for the Wizards with Nenê. Wonder who won that trade?


2. Game Two Overtime
I watch sports to see my team beat their opponents. I don't watch for the love of the game or the majesty of the competition or any sort of nonsense like that. I only want to see my team win. Having said that, on any given night I'm eager to get to the point when I can declare victory as soon as possible. I have no problem blowing away the competition, crushing their spirit and cruising to an easy W.

But I have to say close games are way more exciting, especially when whatever team I am rooting for pulls out a close hard fought game. The overtime period of game two in Chicago has to be one of the most intense Wizards games I've watched on TV in a while. It was a late start (9:30 p.m.) and the overtime period pushed the completion of the game to beyond 12:30 a.m. with work the next day. But pulling out that win was so satisfying that staying up late and not sitting down at all due to nervous energy until Kirk Hinrich missed his two free throws in the last minute of OT were worth it. I can't remember a Wizards road game that intense since Caron Butler hit the game winner at the buzzer in game 5 of the 2008 playoff first round series against Cleveland. I like playing Chicago way better than Cleveland in the playoffs.

The opening of game three, first home playoff game at VC in six years.
3. Playoffs Back at Verizon Center
Six years without a playoff game is a long time. What made the drought worse was the almost complete lack of playoff atmosphere games at Verizon Center during that span. Sure the Wizards have had great wins against good teams, most notably in the last couple of years against the Miami Heat and Oklahoma City Thunder, but even those games had too many bandwagon non-Miami and Oklahoma natives making altogether too much noise for the visitors. The closest I think we came since 2008 to a playoff atmosphere in the phone booth was this year's March 15 game against the Brooklyn Nets. The place was rocking at the end of that comeback victory.

So it was truly special to get to game three. The lines outside Verizon Center were longer than I have ever seen, even inside the back side movie theater entrance, where the line of Wizards (not Bulls) fans stretched across the lobby and eventually wrapped into itself. I can't remember this much excitement over a Wizards game in a while. The scene inside was equally impressive, with red, white and blue t-shirts waiting on each seat and a packed house at tipoff. The scene captured above is what I want each Wizards game to be like, even if it's a Tuesday night game against Milwaukee. I can always dream, right? By game four, the city had reverted to a late arriving crowd again. Maybe we can do better in round two.

4. Depth
Two years ago during the lockout shortened 2011-2012 season, the Wizards roster on opening day featured seven players on their rookie contracts with top reserve Nick Young on a qualifying offer after just completing his fourth year. While there were a few veteran role players, the most important Wizards player not on his rookie deal was likely Andray Blatche. Third year man John Wall and rookie Chris Singleton were the only two players to appear in all 66 games that year.

One of the reasons the Wizards so thoroughly dominated the Bulls over the past ten days was the team's depth. Unlike the Bulls, who (admittedly without Derrick Rose) self limited their team to seven with an occasional cameo from Tony Snell, the Wizards posted a solid eight man rotation of legitimate NBA players with the ability to insert Drew Gooden, Al Harrington, Garrett Temple and Kevin Seraphin in a pinch, especially during game four when Nenê was serving a one game suspension for head butting the Bulls' Jimmy Butler the previous game.

I think the depth of the team points to two things. First, the willingness of guys like Harrington and Gooden to want to play with a budding superstar like John Wall. Hopefully, Harrington's desire to join a team starting to make some noise for the veteran minimum is a sign of future things to come. Second, Ernie Grunfeld, despite whiffing on six of the last nine drafts, pulled together a pretty balanced team featuring a number of guys who can run up and down the court to complement John Wall and Bradley Beal's games. This team looks a little dangerous now that everyone is healthy.

5. Coaching
Before the Wizards-Bulls series started, I read a number of series predictions which broke down the matchup between the two teams into compartmentalized pieces as a means of predicting which team would emerge and move on to round two. Everything I read before the series started gave the coaching nod to Tom Thibodeau of the Bulls over our own Randy Wittman. In the press and coaching circles, Thibs is generally viewed as a top flight coach and motivator and defensive genius. Randy Wittman seems to be seen as a guy who is in the wrong spot at the right time and that if the Wizards were led by another coach (say…George Karl) they would have been way more successful.

But now that the series is over, there are a lot of reports out there that Wittman actually outcoached Thibodeau. I agree, even though that opinion is pretty well self-serving considering my thoughts of earlier this monthI generally view a head coach's responsibilities simplified into three different areas: game preparation, motivation and in game adjustments. 

At the end of game one, which I watched on TNT, Marv Albert and Steve Kerr were gushing praise for the Wizards' defense. Defense and hard nosed prepared play has been one of Wittman's consistent messages since he took the Wizards' head coaching gig, yet no kudos were handed Randy's way during the broadcast. Team defense is not something that just happens. It takes work and practice and the Wizards have been a top ten team in defensive efficiency each of the last two years. Do we have defensive minded players? Sure. But the focus on defense that the head coach brings makes it all happen.

I believe Randy has our guys motivated. The players consistently backed Wittman throughout this season and last season as a guy who kept the end goals in focus, although that didn't always manifest itself on the court when I sat in the lower bowl of Verizon Center watching us lose to Philadelphia or Milwaukee. The Golden State Warriors' Mark Jackson gets a lot of props for being a master motivator and the resultant 51 win season in Oakland is credited in large measure to Jackson. Randy doesn't seem to get anything close to the same amount of credit. Maybe 44 wins in the East is obscuring what's really going on.

But the most humorous part of the coaching comparison in this series is the ability to adjust strategy and match ups in game, something that almost everyone was convinced Thibodeau would do to beat the Wizards. But Thibodeau refused to change up his approach in this series and it killed the Bulls. His insistence on playing his defense first team in the fourth quarter (damn the scoring!) didn't pan out and he didn't adjust. Randy made critical adjustments like switching Trevor Ariza onto D.J. Augustin in game two and coming up with a game plan to win a Nenê-less game four. I'm giving the coaching nod to Randy in this series.


6. Haters Where You Are?
The sixth of my six pack of my top memories of this series is the almost universal dismissal our team got in this round. ESPN's playoffs page for our series (above) showed 18 of 19 experts picking the Bulls to win the series in five, six or seven games. The Bulls avoiding the Brooklyn Nets was generally seen as a fortuitous situation for Chicago. Seems like everyone preferred the Bulls in this series except the Wizards themselves, who knew they could outrun and outscore the Bulls.

Nenê has famously talked about the Wizards' haters. Seeing his team beat the pulp out of the Bulls while those same people sat silent on the sidelines has to make him feel good.

Round one is over and I'm looking forward to the next round against the Hawks or the Pacers. Missing in this list but no less important is Andre Miller finally reaching the second round of the playoffs. Andre was the all time leader in games played without winning a playoff series. No more. A few days off and then back at it. Hoping game one is at home on Sunday.


April 20, 2014

The Hoop Hall


The Washington Wizards 2104 postseason starts today at 7 pm. So before my attention gets totally swayed in the direction of our first playoff run since 2008, I thought I should wrap up my thoughts on my recent trip to New England. I've talked about watching hoops in Springfield and finding what I hoped to find in the D-League in Maine in past posts. I've also covered an important side trip in Portland on my mini-brewery tour up there. But one of the most important reasons I visited New England this year was to make a pilgrimage to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame while I was in Springfield. After becoming a true certifiable hoops junkie, I figured it was time to go.

This was not my first trip to the Basketball Hall of Fame. I'd visited once before when my dad and I were both Knicks fans and my folks lived about 35 miles from the Hall in Connecticut. But it feels like a long basketball journey for me since that visit. I've now been a Wizards season ticket holder for 14 years and schedule my life around the NBA season, something I couldn't say the last time I was in Springfield, Massachusetts. I've become engrossed in the history of my own team and basketball in general with a focus on the pro game through reading books and watching movies in the last dozen plus years so I figured this time around I'd get a lot more out of a visit to the Hall.


After flying to Boston Friday morning, driving straight down to Springfield and making a cautionary, but as it turned out unnecessary, couple of hours long stop in the Mercy Hospital emergency room, I arrived at the museum that celebrates the birth and history of the greatest game ever invented. To be clear, the museum is not the NBA Hall of Fame (there's no such thing…yet) but instead covers basketball in all its incarnations both foreign and domestic and focuses as much on the amateur and collegiate game (yes, I'm deliberately separating those two) as it does on pro ball.

My first impression of the place was that I didn't remember the Hall of Fame this way from my previous visit. The museum is buried in a strip mall with a Subway, Cold Stone Creamery, a couple of bars and some retail stores I'd never heard of. I totally didn't recall all this. And for good reason based on some Googling when I got home. As it turns out, this is the third iteration of the Hoop Hall which opened in 2002 and in fact, I had never been here before. The Hall of Fame I visited with my dad is about a football field's length north of the current location, now converted into an L.A. Fitness gym. I was shocked to learn that the current facility was designed by respected architects Gwathmey Siegel. To me, it looked like a commodity strip mall and until I actually got all the way into the museum, I remained unimpressed.

After entering the museum property, we grabbed some tickets and then looked for the entrance to the Hall, something that required the assistance of a guide after asking for directions; the sequence of arrival is that confusing. Our visit started with an elevator ride, which is never a good way to start the journey through a building to me. It works in the Guggenheim Museum in New York; this is not the Guggenheim. The elevator let us out in the Honors Ring, which occupies the giant silver ball component of the building in the photograph above.

The Honors Ring contains photographs and career details of all the Hall's inductees and while to me this should be at the end of the museum sequence, it at least provides an instant immersion into the history of the game. Eventually, most visitors are going to recognize someone in this room unless they just started watching basketball in the last few years and have managed to remain blissfully ignorant of any and all of the game's pioneers.

For me, the Honors Ring meant seeking out Bullets and Wizards legends from the past. There are a total of 11 former Bullets and Wizards players currently inducted into the Hall of Fame, with a 12th (Mitch Richmond) on the way this fall. Only one of those 11 (Michael Jordan) played for the Wizards and most of the soon to be 12 played their best ball somewhere else. In the interest of time, I concentrated on finding the four who have had their number retired by the franchise, meaning Gus Johnson (class of 2010), Earl Monroe (class of 1990), Elvin Hayes (also class of 1990) and Wes Unseld (class of 1988).

Gus Johnson was selected by the Chicago Zephyrs (soon to be the Baltimore Bullets) in the 1963 draft and played nine years with the Zephyrs and Bullets before being traded to the Phoenix Suns in 1972. Johnson was released by the Suns but went on to win an ABA championship with the Indiana Pacers in 1973. Earl Monroe was drafted by the Bullets in 1967 and spent four years with the team before being traded to the New York Knicks in 1971 and helping the Knicks to their 1973 NBA Championship. Monroe, to me, is more a Knick than a Bullet, although he arguably had a greater impact on the game in Baltimore.

Elvin Hayes and Wes Unseld both played on the Washington Bullets' 1978 championship team. Hayes spent the first four years of his career with the San Diego and Houston Rockets before being traded to the Bullets and helping the team to its three NBA Championship appearances in the 1970s. In 1981, he was traded back to the Rockets where he ended his career. Unseld is undoubtedly the franchise's greatest player, spending his entire career with the team from the time he was drafted in 1968 until his retirement in 1981. He won both Rookie of the Year and Most Valuable Player honors following the 1967-1968 season and presided over the franchise's most successful run ever in the 14 seasons he suited up for Baltimore and Washington. The franchise hasn't been the same since.


After the Honors Ring, we were directed into the History of the Game Gallery, a room whose entrance is presided over by a bronze statue of Dr. James Naismith, the inventor of basketball. Among major American team sports, basketball is unique in that its origin can be traced back to a single inventor on a specific date and time before which the game absolutely, unquestionably didn't exist.

The game was invented by Dr. Naismith in December 1891 while he was a physical education instructor at the International YMCA Training School (now Springfield College) in Springfield as a way to keep his students occupied during the New England winters when they were frustrated about having to exercise indoors. Naismith wrote the original 13 rules of the game down and pinned them to the gymnasium's wall before the first game was ever played. He originally requested two boxes for goals from the YMCA's staff but finding no boxes, elected to use peach baskets instead. I'm glad in a way. Although I never would have known it, I think I would have had a harder time being a boxball fan.

The original game was way different from the way it is played today. The first game was played with a soccer ball and dribbling was not permitted. The game also featured two teams of nine, because there happened to be 18 student's in Naismith's physical education class. I imagine the original game would be barely recognizable to fans of the current NBA game. The invention of the game is described in a video behind the bronze statue of Naismith in front of the History of the Game Gallery.

The History of the Game Gallery itself traces the game's spread and development from its beginnings in the YMCA system and then through the American Athletic Union (AAU) when the game outgrew the ability of the YMCA to manage the game's growth. It deals with the early professional leagues and the transfer of the game to the college level and its rise internationally. It also traces the development of the game's equipment, from the balls used to the design and manufacture of uniforms. The early woolen uniforms and smoking jacket like warmups (complete with pockets) on display in the center of the room are crazy. I can't imagine today's players competing or warming up in these things. 

Early gear in the History of the Game Gallery. Love the wool Celtics jersey.
The next room in the museum to the right of the History of the Game Gallery for me did a great job of crystallizing the start of the current NBA. Early on in basketball's development as a professional spectator sport, there were a number of regional leagues formed, mostly in the northeast and midwest, between the two world wars. At this time, before the development of jet travel, it was difficult to get anywhere outside of your immediate geography so most teams were clustered within few states. It's odd to think of Oshkosh and Sheboygan, Wisconsin being able to support teams but that's just where some of the early teams were located.

Eventually, two leagues, the National Basketball League (NBL) in the northeast and the Basketball Association of America (BAA) in the midwest became the dominant professional leagues. The NBL was important in standardizing the rules of professional basketball which had been in almost constant evolution since the game's invention. In 1948, the two leagues merged, creating a league which would eventually be renamed the National Basketball Association in 1949 and would continue under that name to the present day.

The same room that chronicles the development of professional ball also describes the NBA game's early days and the introduction of the most important development in the game's history: the introduction of the shot clock. The proverbial straw that broke the camel's back to need to speed up the game and stimulate more scoring came in 1950, when the Fort Wayne Pistons and the Minneapolis Lakers played to a final score of 19-18. I know a lot of people who criticize today's NBA game for too much scoring, claiming all you need to do is watch the last five minutes of the game to understand what happened. I can't imagine watching a game in which both teams scored fewer than 20 points. It would be worse than watching playoff hockey!

From this point, the Hall got a lot less interesting for me. We spent some time looking through the Players Gallery, Media Gallery and Coaches and Teams Gallery but the substance contained in the History of the Game Gallery were just not there. There are only so many uniforms and autographed balls and shoes I can look at in one day. The Media Gallery admittedly suffered from some of the interactive displays being inoperable, but ultimately I was there to learn about the history of the pro game and not the guys who covered it.

The last stop on my Hoop Hall tour was the Center Court on the ground level of the museum, a full size basketball court with a museum display on one side chronicling the development and history of the hoop itself, starting with Dr. Naismith's peach baskets and ending with today's NBA hoop and backboard. Since the place was relatively quiet the Friday I was there, I thought this would be a great opportunity to show off my shot on everything from the original peach basket to dropping in some Js from three point land on the main court.

When I lived in upstate New York, my primary source of exercise came from playing basketball down at the Cooperstown Elementary School (next to the addition I designed) and up at the Richfield Springs Central School near where I worked. While there were obvious deficiencies in my game (like my utter lack of ability to play defense), I always had a pretty good shot if I got going on any given day. It's been a few years since I've been on a court but I figured I could get right back into the groove like riding a bike or something. 

Not so much. The years away have not been kind to my game. My performance was quite honestly embarrassing. It took about four or five progressively closer shots for me to drop one in the peach basket and I never hit a shot from beyond the arc. I left humbled and felt the whole exercise in futility the next couple of days in my shoulder. I'm not as young as I once was clearly. At least I could still dribble properly. All in all a pretty humorous end to my trip. We moved on from here to a local bar, far more up my alley at this point in my life.


I know I'll come back here one day. I've promised myself I'll come take in Hall of Fame Enshrinement Weekend one day but I'm sort of waiting for a Wizards-related induction. Mitch Richmond this year doesn't count, despite him being in a Wizards uniform for a few seasons. Given the Wizards' fortunes of late, know I'll likely have to wait a while, unless somehow Antawn Jamison revives his career and squeaks by in a down year, so I may have to revise my philosophy. I'm not sure I can wait 20 years, assuming there's even someone who would qualify on our current roster. Until that time, I know I got something out of this year's visit and I'm glad I went. And I'll keep learning. I still have five or ten books on my shelves about basketball history I still haven't read.

Strip mall: Not the look I want for the Basketball Hall of Fame.