Wizards hit a new low as they remain winless John Wall drove the lane, turned in the air to pass and sent the ball backward to no one. Kevin Love picked it up and finished off an easy dunk. The boos rained down on the Wizards from a half-full Verizon Center — with majority owner Ted Leonsis in the front row.
At 0-5, Leonsis had blogged that the Wizards’ troubling start to the year was going as he expected. No one in his right mind would say anything of the kind after a 93-72 loss to Minnesota that extended the franchise’s worst start ever to 0-8.
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Flip Saunders’ spot on the sideline is only a couple of seats down from Leonsis, but “when you’re playing like that, it’s hard to make eye contact with anybody,” said the Wizards coach, who was disappointed and embarrassed. The Wizards scored the fewest points of his tenure and the fewest overall since a 98-67 loss to San Antonio on Feb. 21, 2009.
The franchise also was reminded of the bold step taken by the Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld later that year when he shipped the No.?5 pick in the 2009 NBA Draft to the Timberwolves in exchange for Mike Miller and Randy Foye in anticipation of a playoff push in Saunders’ first season in Washington.
On Sunday, Saunders’ career mark with the Wizards dropped to 49-123. Meanwhile, Spanish point guard Ricky Rubio, whom Minnesota took with that pick and who joined the team as a rookie this season, came off the bench to rack up 13 points and a season-high 14 assists, one fewer than the Wizards’ team total of 15.
Aside from a pair of dunks, Wall missed seven of his eight shots from the field, finishing with 10 points and six assists. Washington, which shot a season-low 34.5 percent as a team, got its best effort from Trevor Booker, who was 7-for-9 for 14 points, the same amount as Nick Young, who needed 16 shots to get there.
“I’m going to go home tonight and I’m going to say what I can do as a coach to get us better because evidently right now I haven’t done a good enough job,” Saunders said. “That’s evident because we’re not totally getting through to some guys, and some guys continue to play the way they want to play and not the way that we need to play as a team.”
Rubio sparked a 17-2 run for the Timberwolves (3-5) when he entered with 1:30 remaining in the first quarter. That was the same moment Wizards top draft pick Jan Vesely also made his season debut, which was notable for his first points (a dunk) and his first free throw attempts (an airball and a miss that barely grazed the front rim).
For now, trying to help Vesely and get through to the rest of his players remains a priority for Saunders, who said he doesn’t fear that he’s running out of chances himself.
“I think I know the process that we’re going through, and I know it’s a painful process because we show signs,” Saunders said. “I look and see a guy like Booker and how he’s improved, what he’s doing and some of our other guys that have improved, so if we had guys that were all taking a step backwards, that would be different.”
