Give Up, Wizards Fans
by: UnitedSkins
Before last night's draft, I had a hunch about something, and no big moves on draft night means that I was right. Ernie and the Wizards front office are never going to spend the kind of money necessary to make the Wizards any kind of contender. I can still remember a playoff series in 1997, I think it was, when the Michael Jordan led Bulls swept the then Bullets in the first round of the playoffs en route to a sixth ring for MJ. Despite getting swept, the Bullets lost the three games of the series by a combined 18 points. Michael Jordan was interviewed after the a series clinching win by a reporter who asked him what he thought of the Bullets, at which time he called them the team of the future. A team that featured Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Rasheed Wallace, Rod Strickland, Mark Price, and Gheorghe Muresan and, if held together, would go on to include Ben Wallace, Mitch Richmond, and Richard Hamilton. Wallace, Wallace, and Hamilton gave the then NBA Champion Pistons the nickname of the "Former Wizards." Point is, Abe Pollin and Ernie Grunfeld have had plenty of opportunities to try to put the Wizards over the top. They could have made a move for Jermaine O'Neal when he wanted out of Indiana in the prime of his career when he was healthy. They could have kept the core of players from the mid to late 90s around and letting them develop, but they didn't. They could have made a trade when they had the number 1 overall pick in a draft that clearly had no players worthy of a number 1 pick, but they didn't. They could have tried to trade either Antawn Jamison or Gilbert Arenas (who might both be gone next year) for a high draft pick this year, but they didn't. The Celtics proved this year that one offseason of spending big can produce a championship. The Wizards have had opportunities and they always let them get away. My point being, for myself and the rest of the Wizards fans, I think it's time that we said enough is enough. This team, right now, can't beat a one man team in a 4 game series. Every year, we say the Cavs are one player, but the Wizards are a TEAM, and it doesn't matter. If they can't beat one player, how can we have any kind of expectations from them. Pollin and Grunfeld seem to be content that as long as their team is good enough to make them money, they don't care where it goes from there. If they did, they would either try to rebuild, or get a player or two that we need to get over the edge. But they haven't. They've decided that they're content with being average. Any hope for the current Wizards to acheive anything of note has become more than hope. It has crossed the line into foolishness and naivete. Time to throw in the towel on the contender talk for the current Washington Wizards. I'll still root for them, I'll still love to watch them play, but I can't fool myself anymore. The current roster is not a contending team, and they never will be.
Comments:
i'd say they did a pretty good job of turning the worst team in the nba to a consistant playoff team and they are spending over 100M on one of the best scorers in the game so why dont we wait and see waht happens in a season when the potential MVP of the league doesnt have 3 knee surgeries to start saying they will not "contend."
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