The Wizards should cut ticket prices if they’re going to show reruns.
The Wiz are experiencing a deja vu experience when facing the New York Knicks tonight at Verizon Center. The team’s best players are injured just like last year’s post-All-Star stretch. A once promising team many hoped would contend for the Eastern Conference title now has a losing record and more future talent than present stars on the court.
It’s going to be another woulda, coulda, shoulda season unless everyone heals and comes together over the final weeks. That is, provided the recent eight-game losing streak isn’t the sign of a continued freefall that could render the season’s end meaningless.
Agent Zero — where are you?
It’s nobody’s fault. Injuries happen. They just happen all the time to Washington teams. The Redskins were decimated. The Terps offense was wiped out. The Wiz have barely seen Gilbert Arenas for the last year with two different surgeries that leave him iffy for the final run. Fellow All-Star Caron Butler has missed 8 of 10 games with a hip flexor. Antonio Daniels is bothered by a sore ankle and bone spurs. DeShawn Stevenson has a sore knee. Etan Thomas hasn’t played this season after heart surgery.
That’s not three tattered Revolutionary soldiers carrying the colors for the national anthem. That’s the Wiz backcourt.
At best, the Wiz will literally limp into the playoffs. Hopefully not as badly as last year’s first-round mercy sweep, but no one can seriously expect Washington to contend. That’s too bad because a healthy team could go far into the postseason.
Boston is obviously the best Eastern team even if Kevin Garnett has missed the last nine games. Unlike the Wiz, the Celtics don’t lose all of their best players at once. Detroit is strong enough to take the conference again.
Afterwards, the Wiz are among six teams that could claim to be third-best, with Cleveland, Toronto and Orlando as the top three. But out of the next three, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Washington, somebody’s going to miss the playoffs. If Wiz don’t get healthy, it’s going to be the Wiz.
There’s a short-timer’s dilemma with this team. Arenas could opt out of his contract thissummer, though injuries over two years will undercut his market value. Nobody can pay him more than Washington. Antwaan Jamison is playing out his contract. Coach Eddie Jordan is vulnerable if the Wiz miss the postseason. Someone has to take the fall.
The Wiz are manning up, but they’re still outmanned. Just beating the bad teams like New York would be enough to merit a playoff slot, but who wants to sneak in only to face Boston or Detroit right away? Washington could beat them if healthy, but it’s one injury at a time for now.
Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Contact him at [email protected].
