CHICAGO — This felt cruel, if you’ve followed the Washington Wizards for any length of time, or know the angst and belief by much of their fan base that the franchise, for some reason, has been cursed. That their team is viewed as unimportant by a league that dotes on its glamour teams, and which never bestows upon Washington through its NBA Lottery the kind of difference-making player who can change the long-term fortunes of the franchise. That no one in Olympic Tower seems to know the Wizards exist.
Sitting amid several Wizards folk at McCormick Place on Monday, in the ballroom in which this year’s lottery was held — and mere feet from Cooper Flagg, the certain No. 1 pick, in attendance with other draft prospects at the NBA Draft Combine this week — the 6 p.m. local hour here began with giddy enthusiasm. Bub Carrington’s family looked at its charge, sitting on stage, representing the team that took him 14th a year ago. Assorted Wizards staffers were in the row as well, working their phones, waiting for that moment when Washington would finally get the adrenaline boost it desperately needed.
The half-hour soon ended with … well, what comes after shellshock?
Sixth.
Sixth.
Sixth!
Any #%^%*&*^*(^T^%%_)(U*&*%^*ing number but six.
In 1992, the Wizards — then, the Bullets — had the fifth-best lottery odds, with seven of the then-66 ping-pong balls with their name on it, to get Shaquille O’Neal, the monster center prospect from LSU, and the consensus pick to go No. 1. Or, if Washington couldn’t get the top pick, it could take the hometown hero, Georgetown center Alonzo Mourning, at No. 2, allowing Mourning to play on the same Capital Centre/USAirways court his Hoyas called home.
Instead, Orlando, with 10 of the 66 balls, got its wish – and the Big Diesel was Magic Kingdom-bound. And Charlotte, which only had four balls, jumped over Washington, to two, and picked Mourning. Minnesota, which had the highest odds with 11 balls, got the third pick, Christian Laettner.
Washington fell … to sixth.
Hey, Tom Gugliotta, how you doin’?
The next year, 1993, Washington had the third-highest odds to get No. 1, with nine balls in the hopper, just behind Dallas, which had 11 balls, and Minnesota, with 10. In ’93, the big prize was one of Michigan’s Chris Webber or Memphis’ Penny Hardaway, both massive talents. The kind of guys around whom you can build franchises. That year, Orlando, which had gotten Shaq the year before, had just one of the 66 ping-pong balls. That gave the Magic, exactly, a .0151515152 percent chance at the top pick, the lowest odds of any team in the lottery.
Oh, come on. You know what happened.
Philadelphia, which had the same seven balls in ’93 that Washington had in ’92, jumped over Washington to second. And Golden State, with the seventh-highest odds, also leaped over the Bullets to grab third. Orlando took Webber, but then traded his rights to Golden State for the draft rights to Hardaway, along with three future first-round picks.
Meanwhile, Washington fell to … sixth.
Calbert Cheaney, come on down.
Yes, the Bullets, amazingly, wound up with Webber a year later, and also added Juwan Howard and Rasheed Wallace within the next couple of years. But … we know how that worked out.
(I’m not gonna even get into Jan Vesely. Yeah. Sixth, 2011.)
There was absolutely nothing wrong with either Guggs or Cheaney, each of whom had solid pro careers. They just weren’t … Shaq or ‘Zo or CWebb or Penny. And there will be nothing wrong with Tre Johnson or Kon Knueppel or Derik Queen or Carter Bryant or anyone the Wizards take … sixth … if they keep the pick. They just won’t be Flagg or Dylan Harper. You win big in the NBA with Flaggs and Harpers. The Mavs, which were in the finals last year, but then proceeded to blowtorch the goodwill of most of their fan base by trading Luka Dončić (taken third, in 2018) to the Lakers, are going to win big, again, soon, with Cooper Flagg and Anthony Davis (first, 2012 draft) and Kyrie Irving (first, 2011), even if he’s not quite as electric post-ACL injury, leading the way.
Washington will not win big, soon. Not at this rate.
“We started the day with zero, and we walked away with six, and that’s the mindset we had going in,” GM Will Dawkins said.
And no, I’m not gonna say he was spinning or deflecting or anything. He was crestfallen. That any coherent sentence came out of his mouth was a victory.
There’s no sugarcoating this. This was a disastrous night for the Wizards, in an epoch of seemingly never-ending disasters — some man-made (see Webber to Kings, above), others a matter of bad luck. You could talk about the Celtics taking Larry Bird sixth in 1978, taken while he had a year of college eligibility remaining at Indiana State, or Damian Lillard, or Lenny Wilkens, or Adrian Dantley, or some of the other really good No. 6 picks through NBA history.
Or, you could call Mavs’ GM Nico Harrison, whose “Revenge Tour of the Texas Lowcountry and Other Lone Star Environs that Doubted Him” will be merciless and slow-moving, and see if he’d like to exchange one for six and 18. When the laughter subsides, let us know.
“The important piece is, when we came in, we knew there was a 50 percent chance that you’re getting five or six,” Dawkins said. “So you’re going into the lottery odds knowing that that’s most likely where you’re going to be. And it’s a game of chance.
“But, like you said, this rebuild that we’re on, we’re still in the beginning phases of it. There will be more and more rewards at the end of the tunnel, but I think six is where we’re at right now, and we’ll be able to use it, and we’ll make the team better.”
But that wasn’t the point of slogging through an 18-64 season. Everyone understood what this season was: as ethical a tank as possible, to have the best possible chance to add a young superstar that could reignite a base that’s been waiting (he says, again, into the void) for more than four decades to again be relevant. To again be featured on national TV. To again play in front of sellout crowds, not because a superstar from another team is in D.C. playing, but because the Wizards have their very own superstar, their own ticket- and jersey-selling machine, their own supernova who can attract other stars to come to town.
Their own hope.
But, once more, the most patient and woebegone fans in the history of this league have to wait again, while the Mavericks’ and Spurs’ fan bases again exult. It’s not that the cruelty is the point, but that the cruelty seems to have no bottom.
(Photo of NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum: Jeff Haynes / NBAE via Getty Images)