The blowouts are mounting, and the bickering has begun. In their first post-MJ season, the Washington Wizards are making a strong case as the NBA's most embarrassing team.
With Michael Jordan no longer on the court or in the front office, no team has fewer victories (16). No team loses as badly: Washington has dropped a league-high 25 games by 10 points or more.
And the Wizards look bad in other ways, too. Kwame Brown (a No. 1 overall draft pick) and Gilbert Arenas (a high-priced offseason pickup) traded not-so-subtle barbs in the locker room Sunday after a season-worst 28-point loss to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Sunday's shenanigans also included a fine for coach Eddie Jordan -- no relation to Michael -- and an ejection for Jerry Stackhouse as the Wizards lost by 20-plus points for the 10th time this season.
"When you have a group of tough losses like we've had, I think you have sub-factions begin to form," forward Jared Jeffries said. "But I think it's important for everybody to come together."
The Wizards have lost five straight games, including four by at least 22 points. They can't even make up deficits in fourth-quarter garbage time, when the winning team is letting up.
They have no semblance of team defense: Opponents have sliced through the paint or taken open jumpers to the tune of 50-percent shooting in four of the last five games.
"At one point I just wanted to foul everybody -- just to show everybody that we can foul," Arenas said after Sunday's 113-85 pasting by the Bucks. "We don't have to give up easy baskets."
Said Eddie Jordan: "We just didn't compete. At the start of the game, we were up two, and that was really the only sign of life."
Well, Brown did show some life after the game -- when asked what was wrong.
"To me, it just seems like guys are going out just to get numbers," Brown said. "They're not passing ... Games that we're getting killed on, we have one guy with OK numbers, but he's just shooting. We don't pass the ball. We don't play like a team. We've just got guys just whining and complaining about offense, and that's not basketball. It makes me sick."
Told of Brown's words, point guard Arenas was quick to take exception. Arenas, who led the team Sunday in points (21) and shots taken (21), hit back with a blistering critique of Brown's game.
"Everybody's getting the same amount of touches: If you ain't converting, you ain't converting," Arenas said. "Last time I checked, I pass him the ball like six, seven times, he passes to somebody else, right under the basket."
Actually, the team's offensive chemistry has been hindered since the start of the season, when knee surgery forced Stackhouse to the sideline for months. Arenas also missed a chunk of time with an abdominal injury. Then, just as those two got healthy, leading scorer Larry Hughes broke his wrist.
As a result -- and because the rest of the roster is so young -- first-year coach Jordan had to ditch most of the Princeton-style offense he hoped to install. His plan for set player rotations lasted only a couple of weeks.
Usually, when a team is this bad, the coach will try something -- anything -- to shake up his team. But Jordan has run out of things to change.
"We'll keep working hard and digging down," he said. "We'll teach improved technique, and we'll see how it goes. Maybe the tide will turn."
RSS