Washington Wizards manage to fall behind a team that isn't even playing

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There aren't too many dedicated Wizard fans. I blame the stupid name change from "Bullets" to "Wizards" and also because they have been a relative non-issue for quite some time. Sure they make some fledgling move to the playoffs every now and then but even if they go on a temporary hot-streak no one seriously considers them a threat for the Championship. They are akin to the Sacramento Kings in that every now and then they show some promise but always manage to screw it up somehow.

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The most interesting thing about the Wizards is Rui Hachimura because what is not to like about a guy who is in fact Japanese born to a Japanese mother and father from Benin - which is a tiny little country between Nigeria and Ghana that most people probably don't even know exists. He was drafted in the first round in 2019 and shows a lot of promise. At 6 foot 8 and 230 pounds with very strong ball-handling and shooting, he is a real power on the court. He also plays for the Japanese national team and obviously is a HUGE star in Japan.

He normally will end up posting a double-double in both points and rebounds due to his powerful presence on the court but unfortunately for the Wizards, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link and the Wizards have kind of the opposite of that... all of the links except for a couple are pretty weak.


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Some people argue that the Wizards shouldn't have been invited to begin with especially since the entire idea behind having a limited number of teams attend was to reduce the amount of potential introduction of Covid-19 to the events. When they came in, the Wizards had a record of 24-40, hardly the record of a team that has any chance of going the distance. To add more troubles to their inclusion in the "bubble" the top two scorers for the Washington side, Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans opted out of attending the bubble at all.

But some humour is coming out of all of this: The Wizards have lost all 4 of their games thus far and this has now sunk them in the rankings below the Charlotte Hornets, who are not even there for the competition.

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It's smiles all around in Charlotte, where the best way for them to move up in the rankings was to not play at all.

We can all but count on the Wizards losing their next 3 games as well since they currently have a more than 40 point-differential in all games leading up to this point and their next 3 opponents are the Oklahoma City Thunder, Milwaukee Bucks, and Boston Celtics; three teams that are in the top ten and are all pretty much guaranteed to make the playoffs and are strong contenders for the overall title.

I think in the coming weeks we can expect to see a rather demoralized Washington team because they really don't have a chance in hell. I may actually find a way to make an online bet on the fact that Washington will lose all 3 of these upcoming games. I wonder what the odds are on that? It probably isn't great since these losses, barring some sort of Rui miracle, are all but guaranteed.



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4 comments
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Even though I am kind of from that area, i have never really cared about the Bullets / Wizards. I don't know anyone that does. I do like Rui though and hope he can do alright.

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the Virginia / DC area is a strange one as far as fan affiliation is concerned: There are a lot of DC metro area peeps that are intentionally fans of another area's team for some reason. I'd like to know why that is too.

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The Wizards are always one of those teams that no one really pays attention to but the way that things have been going lately with top teams dropping to the bottom and vice versa, maybe being mid-table makes sense economically for the owners? It is DC after all so they probably pull a decent crowd even if they suck.

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I was just talking about this with a friend. There is money in a losing team by virtue of not spending it and yes, DC is a big sports market. Isn't it a bit sad that you sell out an arena so that your city can come and watch the Lakers or Celtics or whoever come over and beat up the home team?

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