The Washington Wizards don’t need to hear it… or maybe they do: No one feels sorry for anyone else in professional sports.
Injuries, one-point losses, bad calls, they’re part of the game. The NBA season offers teams 82 chances to make their case. If several games spin sideways, the bulk of the schedule offers teams an opportunity to set the record straight.
Yes, the Washington Wizards endured bad luck throughout their 2015-2016 campaign, but not making the playoffs? This team should have been better. It should have had a chance to test itself under the bright lights of the postseason.
After Wednesday night’s 120-111 loss in Sacramento against the Kings, it almost surely won’t.
The Wizards are four games behind the Indiana Pacers in the loss column for the 8 seed in the East. Given that Washington has only seven games left, the Wizards have to go 6-1 at minimum and pray for Indiana to continue to falter. The Wizards’ window might not be sealed shut, but it’s no more than an inch open.
Even with the injuries to Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, and others; even with the inability to cultivate cohesion in their starting five; even with outrageous officiating misadventures such as this one…
NBA: John Wall should’ve drawn two more fouls in final minute of regulation in Wizards’ 2OT loss to Timberwolves https://t.co/SMEAXU4De1
— Kurt Helin (@basketballtalk) March 28, 2016
… the Wizards still could have made the playoffs. They had it within their power to change various outomes, even in the Minnesota game just referenced.
Observe:
Gortat missed two free throws with 15.1 seconds left trailing by one. Ouch.
Wizards 16 for 23 FT. Timberwolves 22 for 22.
— Ben Standig (@BenStandig) March 26, 2016
Indeed, even though Beal wasn’t in the lineup on March 12 against the Denver Nuggets, the Wizards led by eight after three quarters… and then allowed the Nuggets to hang a 41-17 fourth quarter on them. Washington must go 6-1 the rest of the way to ensure a winning record; the idea that the Wizards won’t finish the season with a winning record is something which seemed beyond the realm of possibility in late October.
Not winning 50 games? That’s a realistic limitation caused by injuries. Not winning 43 or 44 in a league with plenty of mediocrity to be found? That’s inexcusable for Washington. The Wizards got swept by the Nuggets and lost at home to the Timberwolves and Lakers. They fell to the Kings on Wednesday, and they also lost at New Orleans.
What’s perhaps most galling of all about the Wizards’ lost season is that this team fell to bad opponents even as the home stretch approached and the playoff push intensified. One of the two losses to the Nuggets; the home loss to the T-Wolves; and this Sacramento setback all occurred in March. The last two losses occurred with Beal on the floor, returned from his injury.
No one would have held a 45-win season against the Wizards this regular season, but Washington will have a fight to merely get to .500 or even the 40-win mark.
Randy Wittman had led his team far enough into the playoffs the past two seasons (remember that the John Wall injury against Atlanta hampered the Wizards’ chances of moving to the East Finals a year ago) that it was reasonable to view him as a credible leader for this team in the future. In light of this lost 2016 campaign, it’s clear that substantial reform will need to come to Washington, D.C.
The Wizards are the Marco Rubio of the soon-to-end NBA regular season.
