I last felt deeply connected to the Washington Wizards on May 15, 2017. Three days earlier, John Wall had hit that 3-pointer — you know, the one where he jumped on the scorer’s table moments later — to force a Game 7 in the second round against the Boston Celtics.
I was a junior in college, and the Wizards were so much fun. Wall was an All-NBA star, a dashing, darting speed demon who packed a punch at the rim, directed the offense as a wonderful passer and was a menace on defense. Bradley Beal was emerging as one of the league’s best young sharpshooters. Otto Porter Jr. and Kelly Oubre Jr. were exciting young wings, Markieff Morris was the take-no-nonsense vet with a strong offensive repertoire, and Marcin Gortat set a screen so good they named it after him. Washington had the seventh-best offense in the NBA. Wall was 26, Beal and Porter 23, Oubre 21. The world was the Wizards’ oyster.
And then came that fateful day. Isaiah Thomas and Kelly Olynyk played Game 7 heroes for Boston. I watched it with a friend from Boston in a bar in New York. He was happy but celebrated courteously; he knew how much the Wizards meant to me. An Eastern Conference semifinal loss may not seem all that high on the heartbreaking losses list for most franchises, but the Wizards hadn’t been past that round since 1979.
They still haven’t. In fact, they haven’t won a playoff series since that delightful season, and Capital One Arena still hasn’t roared like it did after Wall’s shot. The 2017-18 Wizards were similar, roster-wise, but they weren’t the same. Wall had midseason knee surgery and played in just 41 games, and Washington got bounced in the first round. In late 2018, Wall suffered a heel injury, was ruled out for the season and developed an infection from the surgery. The next month, he tore his Achilles in his own home. He never played for the Wizards again.
The climb to becoming a contender — or even just a team that means something — in sports is a long and arduous one. And the Wizards, who won Sunday’s NBA Draft Lottery, finally are ready to dig out of a dark and depressing hole.
A listless decline
The fall can happen in the blink of an eye, and it can leave you there for a while. After another first-round exit in 2021 came two seasons of inept mediocrity, with the front office foolishly and futilely trying to keep the team relevant.
Then came the tanking. Over the last three seasons, the Wizards went 50-196. The second-worst team in that span, the Jazz, won 70 games.
It would be easy to say it’s been miserable, but that would be the wrong word. Really, it’s produced in apathy. Save for a few games I’ve been to in person, I haven’t watched the Wizards. For years, I watched every game I could. But shelling out over $100 after the team broadcasts disappeared from local TV waves, just to watch said team lose over and over, sometimes without even trying to win? I’ll pass.
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When my now-wife and I moved into an apartment just a few blocks away from the arena in late 2022, we expected increased traffic, both foot and vehicular, on home game nights, but truth be told, you couldn’t tell much of a difference other than the scores of visiting-team jerseys we’d see around town.
In sports, we all want to root for winners, but all that we can really hope for is a team to care about. Yes, they’ll bring us more lows than highs. Yes, they’ll break our hearts. But the wins will mean something, too. That’s the joy of sports.
Except for when it’s come to the Wizards the last three years — or really, the last five years, or even back to every day since May 15, 2017. After all, the Wizards also have the NBA’s worst record since that date, too.
Why the Lottery win was so meaningful
On Sunday, for the first time in years, I watched a Wizards-related broadcast. And for the first time in years, I felt legitimate joy and hope emanating from and for this team. The Wizards have had arguably the worst lottery luck of all time, and with sweeping changes likely coming to the lottery format, this year felt like a must-have. It didn’t have to be No. 1. But it couldn’t be yet another steep fall like so many other years had been.
Still, in the hours leading up to the lottery, my brother — who has somehow watched this team night-in and night-out and dutifully reported back the silver linings of Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Bilal Coulibaly, Will Riley and Tre Johnson — and I were convinced the Wizards would fall to the No. 5 pick, the worst possible outcome.
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But then they didn’t. They won the lottery. I was out of town, but local friends said they heard cheers from neighbors. How many on-court wins do you think those neighbors have audibly cheered over the past half-decade? Any? They weren’t alone in their cheers, either. It was a long-overdue reason for hope. That Wall — Washington’s most recent No. 1 overall pick and most recent reason for hope — was the representative was almost too good to be true.
There’s still a long way to go. It’s the hope, they say, that kills you. The Wizards have to figure out what they’ll do with their top selection. A.J. Dybantsa? Darryn Peterson? Cameron Boozer? They have to make sure they have the infrastructure to help whomever they take succeed. They have to figure out what to do with Trae Young and Anthony Davis, who were acquired on the cheap but don’t exactly fit the team’s new, promising timeline and might not be ideal on-court fits, either.
But that’s all for down the road. A superstar rookie can breathe life into this entire city whose teams have been beaten down for years; Jayden Daniels did it just two seasons ago for the Commanders.
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The Wizards, like the Commanders, have been the butt of jokes for years. This is a franchise that hasn’t had a 50-win season since the Carter administration. UConn men’s basketball won as many games at Capital One Arena (two, in the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight) as the Wizards did over the final two months of this NBA season. The Wizards’ most notable contribution to NBA discourse over that span? Apologizing for an April Fools’ prank. The most notable win the franchise has had in the past three years is not moving out of to the D.C. suburbs.
For now, there’s hope. There’s hope that a young core that’s shown glimpses can take big steps with a star-level centerpiece in the fold — maybe even two if Young can be the offensive dynamo he was in Atlanta. The Wizards don’t have to be great overnight. They probably won’t be. But they have the chance to make the desolate last three years worth it. Maybe it won’t work out. Maybe it won’t be the right fit, the right player, the right injury luck or any of the countless other reasons high hopes go unrealized.
But maybe it will work out. Maybe basketball in the District — historically a great basketball community but too-long-dormant with the Wizards’ and Georgetown’s struggles — can be fun again, like Wall made it. Maybe it can even *gasp* be something greater. It’s fun to dream big. It’s fun to have hope.
I won’t mind more traffic on game days. I won’t mind the tough losses; there will be plenty of hurt in the hope. But ask anyone, from the diehards (like my brother), who suffered through the last three years, to the other fans (like me), who to stopped watching, to the organization itself, about what winning the lottery means.
It’s not just a basketball lottery. It’s a new lease on basketball life. There’s meaning again. Welcome to Washington, D.C., soon-to-be No. 1 pick. We’re more ecstatic to have you than you could possibly know.
