Team Dreams 2K19: Washington Wizards
The Wizards Curse (Not the result of a Wizard’s Curse, though)
You owe it to yourself to gaze directly at the life and times of the Washington Wizards. It is not impressive, inspirational, or enjoyable. The grueling annals of the Washington Wizards serve one purpose only: to show us a path we must not follow, a curse we must avoid. The Wizards languish in infamy now and forever, and the least we can do is to speak ill of them, to dishonor them, to remember their malfeasance so that their self-imposed purgatory can have value to someone, somewhere. The Wizards are worse than us; this is valuable.
Curses don’t exist. No matter what Lil B may have tweeted, no matter how much mummy juice you drink, there’s not a single curse in the real world. The universe is too vast and complex for something as provincial and anthropocentric as sorcery to exist. We know this all to be settled fact. On the other hand, the Washington Wizards are absolutely cursed.
This is not a mystical curse. This is the same sort of curse that exists within a cursed image, fan fiction about actual persons, or The Phantom Menace generally (and Senator Binks specifiallyc). This curse is self-generated in the same way that door-to-door salesmen generate sales. This is an ongoing effort decades in the making, and it is in some sense an inspiration to see that with enough hard work anything is, indeed, possible.
If there was ever a time that the Wizards were not dropping a shot of poison into everything they drink, it was probably before they took their current name. The steadfastness with which Ted Leonsis, and Abe Pollin before him, have steered into every sandbar is almost admirable. From the bizarre days of Michael Jordan’s unfortunate final years to the ongoing fever dream of Gilbert Arenas, all the way to the current selection of mendacity and regret.
John Wall was supposed to be a transformational figure, a player whose athleticism and grace could bring a new level of success and relevance to a flailing franchise. Bradley Beal has been a figure of endless promise and has, in fact, made the All-Star game two times. He has also failed to see the playoffs at all in three of his seven seasons. Under the guidance of Wall and Beal, the Wizards have not only been mashed in the playoffs by a series of teams who would themselves be utterly mashed in the following round, but have alsoseen the marked improvement of “actually winning some games in the second round” instead of “winning precisely one second round game from 1980 to 2013”.
Bradley Beal has, in a moment of profound something, decided to sign an extension to stay with the Washington Wizards through the 2021–2022 season at the minimum. With John Wall sidelined for perhaps the entire season and the rest of the roster increasingly resembling the answers section of an NBA esoterica trivia quiz, perhaps he would like to be the de facto leader of the team. This team. Maybe any team.
Without John Wall, there is finally, mercifully, no room left for hope. After striking out on such luminaries as “Modern, Old Dwight”, the Wizards appear to have finally decided to accept the curse they have lain upon themselves for decades (and, not coincidentally, they have moved on from notable incompetent Ernie Grunfeld). Perhaps one day, the Wizards will be able to slip free from those chains and live up to whatever their potential is at any given moment. It will not, however, be this year. This year will be devoid of any value or joy, which is certainly not good. It’s barely even bad. It simply is.
For us, however, who are not members of the Washington Wizards, there is hope. The ongoing disappointment of the Washington Wizards is the result not merely of misfortune or kismet or curses. Those at the top have worked toward this end for decades, and have in fact flirted with success repeatedly during this time. This is the only thing that is worth taking away from a season that may see Bradley Beal produce a nice stat line and little else.
Even when you’ve worked against yourself for years, you could still find success, if you can only just stop digging. The Wizards are a beacon of hope, in showing us that failure is not a result, but a lifestyle. The Wizards are worse than you. Thank them for it as you bury them.
