Wizards, Bullets, and Curses, Oh My!

  

A friend emailed me recently asking whether or not I thought the Wizards were cursed. The short answer to his question was no, I don't believe that cosmic forces have aligned to collectively screw over an NBA franchise. Excepting the possibility of the supernatural, though, I was forced to admit that he had a point about the eeriness of their futility. This is, after all, the team had a Mexican standoff in their locker room. That standoff involved a player (Arenas) who has played 47 games in the last three seasons combined while under contract for 111 million dollars over 6 years. Arenas then decided that the most mature way to handle these allegations was to make light of it by mock shooting his teammates before a game, which made about as much sense as Tiger mock humping a caddy at a golf tournament. Naturally, at that point the league decided to eschew allowing the legal system to run its course in favor of a year long suspension.

The Wizards subsequently decided that since they were going to stink, they might as well stink in the cheapest way possible. They sold every decent player they had for nothing, asking for nothing more than an expiring contract in return. Next year they'll be terrible, but they'll be terrible with a low payroll.

What little they did receive in return for their assets was Josh Howard, a decent player who was not working out in Dallas. Naturally, he tore his ACL in his fourth game as a Wizard.

Now, this could just be poor luck, but it certainly seemed to be a trend. Given that, I decided that I had no choice but to figure out whether the Wizards were simply a terrible team with terrible management, or were in fact hexed by some otherworldly force.

(Cue flashback to the early 60's)

The Bullets' (their name until 1997) first 7 seasons of existence were rather nondescript. They never finished with a winning record, though they still managed to make the playoffs twice. With the number 2 overall pick in 1967, they drafted Earl Monroe, a future Hall of Fame shooting guard. In 1968 they drafted Wes Unseld, a.k.a. the player whose career was a testament to team basketball. He was so good he won an MVP while averaging 14 points a game (which happens less often than World Wars do). For the next decade, Unseld's defense, rebounding, and outlet passing would lead the Bullets to consistent success, with him as the focal point. The Bullets went from 36 wins without Wes to 57 with him and had the honor of losing to the Knicks in the playoffs. They lost to the Knicks again the following year, then broke through and beat them in 1971, advancing to the finals to play the Milwaukee Bucks. That Bucks team featured guys named Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson, so naturally the Bullets were swept. Still, the Bullets managed to go from a joke to the finals in three years, overcoming the rival and incumbent champion Knicks in the process.

Of course, management screwed things up. When future hall-of-famer Earl Monroe felt that he deserved a salary bump, the Bullets countered by trading Monroe to the Knicks. Yes, the same team that the Bullets had just managed to supplant as the Eastern power after a three year struggle. In a related story, the Knicks won the 1973 title, and the Bullets lost to the Knicks in the playoffs in 72, 73, and 74.

Following the Bullets 1972 playoff exit, they traded for the enigmatic Elvin Hayes. In and of itself, this is not a particularly shocking event. Hayes was an incredibly talented player, and the Bullets only traded the rather forgettable Jack Marin to acquire Hayes. However, as we will see later, acquiring these kind of players (enigmatic, moody, petulant, possibly chokers) became a pattern for the Bullets.

For the moment, though, the void left by Earl Monroe's 1972 trade was filled, and the Hayes-Unseld duo took the Bullets from 38 wins to 52. An early exit from the playoffs at the hands of the Knicks awaited them, as it did the following year. Finally, in 1975, the Bullets made it back to the finals, where they were swept by Rick Barry's Warriors.

The following two years the team lost early in the playoffs to inconsequential teams, then finished the 77-78 season with 44 wins. In spite of this downward trend, they managed to beat the 52 win Spurs and 57 win Sixers in a pair of 6 game series to advance to the finals against the upstart Sonics. Hayes did his best to choke away the title, fouling out of game 7 with 8 minutes to go and having scored only 12 points. Unseld and a deep supporting cast took it upon themselves to make sure Hayes' best attempts at failure were in vain, and the Bullets prevailed by 6. After the game, Hayes took it upon himself to remind everyone that he was now a champion, and always had to be referred to as such. He went on to lament the fact that he was never recognized as MVP of the league, demonstrating a startling degree of "Not getting it". This is the kind of player the Wizards acquire.

The Bullets won 54 games in 79 (most in the NBA) and made the finals again, ultimately losing in 5 games to the Sonics. Neither of the Bullets future Hall of Famers had a particularly good series, and the future was ominous at best in spite of the team having had its best regular season ever.

The team got old quickly, winning only 39 games each of the following seasons and missing the playoffs in the second. Unseld subsequently retired while Hayes was traded back to Houston, where he played for 3 seasons before also retiring.

Based on the success of the Bullets to this point, one would have to conclude that the team had followed an arc commonly seen in professional sports, from struggling expansion team to precocious contender, to champion, to aging incumbent, to has been. Very little about that trend stands out as being unusual, and based upon results, such a conclusion would be justified. However, with the exception of drafting and holding on to one Wes Unseld, the Bullets had made a number of very questionable choices, most notably with Earl Monroe. Not only was he a future hall of fame player, he was perfectly suited to Unseld's outlet passing, and yet he was traded to the team's main rival for a bag of beans. Elvin Hayes was a calculated risk, and one that worked for the best, but he certainly did his best to prove the Bullets wrong, and only through good fortune and copious opportunities did the Bullets succeed in winning a title, largely in spite of Hayes.

Now, these things might not even out in the short run. In fact, they seldom do. But in the long run, if you make bad choices, you're going to pay for it eventually. Abe Pollin, the owner of the team until his recent death, rarely knew how to fold a bad hand, and was faced with many bad hands during his tenure largely because of his own poor choices.

The team's first chance to rebuild came in the 1983 draft. With the 10th pick in a deep draft, they took Jeff Malone, passing on Clyde Drexler. This was like taking J.J. Reddick over Brandon Roy because Reddick scored more points in college. Drexler was clearly the better athlete, played on the better team, and was a first team All-American his Junior year. Malone scored a lot on a team that never made an NCAA tournament. Needless to say, Portland went on to multiple finals with Drexler as their best player, and Drexler won a title as the Rockets second best player. Jeff Malone played in two All-Star games, which suited him well because he didn't play any defense to begin with.

The team managed to make the playoffs 5 straight years (84-88) despite only having a winning record (42-40) once. They lost in the first round every time, winning 6 games total. Malone then missed a pair of seasons with injuries and was ultimately traded. During this 5 year stretch (one that would prove to be relatively prosperous, sad as that is) the team had 6 first round picks. The first, Melvin Turpin, was traded for a good and young Clifford Robinson, who was traded for the aging but still effective Moses Malone, who left as a free agent after two seasons. We'll count that as a half success. The next year they drafted Kenny Green, who can safely be called a full fail, particularly considering that he was drafted immediately prior to Karl Malone, (Joe Dumars, A.C. Green and Terry Porter were also available). The following year it was John Williams and Anthony Jones, who started a combined 91 games in their careers. 1987 brought the reasonably decent Mugsy Bogues, who the team promptly gave up in the following expansion draft. 1988 saw them draft Harvey Grant, who had a few decent seasons and was ultimately unremarkable.

The common thread? The team was just decent enough to not pick very highly, and just dumb enough to make the least of their opportunities. These fruitless drafts would come back to haunt the team over the next 8 years, a stretch in which they did not make the playoffs and won more than 31 games only twice.

Having been though all of that, do I have an answer? Nope. I've only gotten halfway through the pile of fail that is the Bullets/Wizards. If there is a curse, it's going to take a lot more digging, because all I can see from here is incompetence. Check back Monday for part two, where I open the tomb and pretend that I might find something exciting.

Image via Turner

You can email Chris with questions or comments at TheSportsKiosK@gmail.com