What's the story with the Wizards?
Buckle up for a season of bad national media takes!
The Wizards are now objectively good. As I wrote in my last post, historical data suggest the team will finish with about 47 wins on the season, but we shouldn’t make too much of historical trends. One thing that we should expect is more national attention from the broader NBA community and casual fans. This is already happening. But anyone who has had to listen to national commentators repeat the same three factoids about Beal knows that most of the NBA press doesn’t pay much attention to DC.
The DMV was the seventh largest media market in the US according to Nielsen. We’re home to tons of media outlets (and budding substacks). It’s not for lack of people or professionals that no one pays attention to the Wizards. Sure, there’s the historically bad record. This is a serious issue both for general local engagement and apathy among the NBA press. But there are plenty of good teams that don’t get as much attention as they probably deserve. The Wizards also have healthy competition from other sports like football and hockey. This is also a challenge, but there is at least some evidence that this is not that big of a challenge. No, the issue for the Wizards is their story.
Breakdancing or ballet?
Teams either need a generational talent who is so clearly good that you can just sit there and say, “wowie, look at that” or teams need a narrative. Giannis, Lebron, Steph (but not Seth) Curry, KD, and to a lesser extent James Harden all fall into this category. Basically, there are a handful of truly elite stars who are so amazingly talented that it doesn’t matter where they are—it could even be Portland1—that national media will cover them because they are just so damn fun to watch them. The talent tells the story. Casual fans can watch Giannis and get it right away. They don’t need to know about rookie extensions or efficiency stats. Prime John Wall was amazing and bumped up against this group, but injuries (among other things) kept him locked out of the club. Still, he had that special something. We’re really talking about the difference between breakdancing (fun! Head spins!) and ballet (difficult, but no head spins). Despite every team’s best effort, I don’t think you can plan around getting an elite player. By definition, they are rare.
This isn’t a knock against the current, incredibly talented team. To play in the NBA you have to be incredibly talented. It’s easy to forget that the venerable Washington Post described Anzejs Pasecniks as a, “two-way success story.” This is a player whose claim to fame is committing five turnovers in six minutes. But even if the Latvian Ladder never panned out for the Wizards, he still entered the NBA with a bunch of awards from across Europe. And this is kind of the Wizards’ narrative problem. They have talent, but so does everyone else.
The story so far
If you have spent any time reading, listening, or just absorbing general Wizards’ vibes,2 you’ve probably seen the recent stats. The team is ranked fourth in rebounds per game. Deni is one of the best defensive players in the league. Bradley Beal leads in free throw percentage. Montrezl Harrell is top-ten in electricity generated from dunks. Tommy Shepherd is a management genius for assembling this current team. Wes Unseld Jr. has already turned things around after a tumultuous Scott Brooks era. These are all aspects of the day-to-day narrative arc of this already amazing season. But it’s not clear what the story is given these different pieces.
The general narrative for the Wizards prior to this season, if there has been one, has been Beal’s contract. Will he stay or go? And that’s just not very interesting because it has no progress. The guy either signs or doesn’t. Sure, there was the vaccine stuff. The points race last season with Curry. None of this is really about the Wizards as a team. As much as I like Beal, he is not a member of that top-tier group where anyone, no matter how little they care about basketball, can be amazed by what he does on the court. The reason a story matters is that it gives everyone a common entry point—this guy is the villain, this team is going for it one last time—and gives people something to reference as they form their own opinions. Sure, this type of story is shallow (and probably not completely accurate), but it’s a place to start. The story frames how people—including local media covering the ins-and-outs of the team—view things.
The Wizards have a lot of stories
Chiney Ogwumike made a comment on the Lowe Post that this is Kyle Kuzma’s revenge season. And I think that could be a storyline for all of the players who were shipped out in exchange for Russell Westbrook and a handful other players (shoutout to Moe Wagner). Every NBA player makes some comment about having something to prove. And most post-game platitudes involve some amount of “I think we could be one of the best teams in the league.” But saying you want to win and being out for revenge are two very different things. It’s the difference between Kill Bill and Shanghai Knights.
For this to be a revenge season, the team would need a clear enemy. The former Lakers players all have one. Spencer Dinwiddie seems like a pretty reasonable guy, and I don’t think the Nets really did him wrong, so the “show my former team what they missed out on” revenge thing doesn’t seem to work with him. Same for Aaron Holiday. The revenge story doesn’t fit for Beal at all. So even though I like it, I don’t see this as a revenge season. Unless it’s revenge on all the people who wrote off the Wizards in the past or, worse yet, haven’t paid attention at all.
Maybe it is too early for a narrative to emerge. We might be in the first chapter of the story. Every good plot needs struggle or tension. Something to build and maintain interest. Despite three losses and some distracted play in a few games, we haven’t seen anything that would count as the beginning of a narrative. It might also be the case that the story of this team is just their identity as an incredibly deep group of players. Sometimes a team’s identity becomes their story. “These guys are pals” or “these guys hate each other but make it work” or “this team is so bad, we can’t look away” are common team identities that become a narrative.
This post might seem kind of negative, but I don’t think the Wizards need some generalizable story that national media can easily reference without having to learn more about the team. I would rather the Wizards keep winning than have some shallow, but slightly interesting arc, to engage casual fans. I still hope the casual fans tune in. It’s good for the game, good for the team, and good for DC. But, I want them to talk about KCP’s low-key clutch three pointers and the budding relationship between Deni and Kuzma and all the other weird and wonderful stuff that will happen this season. The Wizards story is already exciting. Yes, we’ll have to sit through some awkward Jeff Van Gundy commentary during the playoffs, but that will happen no matter what. I’m still going to listen and read to all of the national NBA reporters as they start to cover the Wizards. Part of the fun—and this is kind of a pitch to any casual fans—of this team, though, is not the BIG stuff, but the little things. That’s the story.
And the vibes have been gooood.