The team in the Windy City is showing us what life could, or probably would have been like if the Wizards didn’t make their changes this past offseason.
The Washington Wizards are one game in their regular season. And I’m not sure if the game went the way I thought it would, or if it was even worse.
And in an alternate universe, it wouldn’t be unheard of if the Wizards kept their previous front office AND decided to take one more crack at a Big Three of Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma this past week. What if that happened?
We’ll never know for sure, but the Chicago Bulls give us the next best thing.
In their season debut last Wednesday, they lost to the Oklahoma City Thunder, 124-104. The Thunder are one of the league’s up-and-coming teams, a team that today’s Wizards team hopes to be in about three years realistically. The Bulls are a team that decided to keep their core of Zach LaVine, DeMar DeRozan and Nikola Vucevic. In short, they’re trying to keep making the play-in round, just like the Wizards last season.
Ricky O’Donnell wrote a good column on Chicago’s players having a “players’ only meeting” right after their season-opening loss as head coach Billy Donovan came in. And I agree with O’Donnell here. There is a point where a players’ only meeting makes sense. But, after one game?
We’re not a Bulls site, so what goes on in Chicago is going on in Chicago. But let’s say the Wizards still kept Tommy Sheppard as the GM. And with Sheppard, let’s say the Wizards still kept Beal and Porzingis on the roster this season. And finally, the Wizards still lose by 20 to the Indiana Pacers in their season debut. Do you see the Wizards having a players’ only meeting right before Wes Unseld, Jr. walks in for a postgame chat?
I don’t think the Wizards would have been at that stage yet, but I still think that one would have happened within the first 10 games if the Wizards don’t play well in their first ten games or so.
Moral of the story: this season is going to be tough. And if the bookies are right, the Wizards will be so bad on the court that you just have to watch! And through it all, it could always be worse.
The Wizards could have just decided to stay the course like the Bulls.