[Bobcats of yesteryear. Credit: TAI's Adam McGinnis]

Whether or not the Wizards win on Saturday night—and that’s TBD—something unusual already happened at Verizon Center: The Charlotte Bobcats came to town with a winning record.

How rare is that?

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Foxhall Rd & Q St. NW DC – photo: K. Weidie

Forgive D.C. sports fans for seeming gloomy – for feeling like there’s a dark cloud hanging over their heads.

Ok, maybe that’s just Hurricane Sandy. But after a sunny September that featured Robert Griffin III’s debut and some incredibly exciting baseball, October’s been much more depressing for local fans; a stomach-punch Nationals loss, the Capitals locked out, and several big injuries to the area’s best young players.

Will the Wizards give us a reason to smile? When the NBA season wrapped up about six months ago, TAI did its first Wizards Optimism Index – a survey of where the team stood, having just ended the 2011-2012 season on a six-game winning streak.

We weighed in using five factors, weighted to reflect their relative importance to the  state of the franchise. Read more »

Truth About It.net will turn a whole five years old at the end of this October.

Hard to believe/interesting. Nonetheless, over the life of the site from the 2007-08 season to 2011-12, we’ve seen/lived/suffered through 131 wins, 263 losses, four coaches, two owners, one GM/team president, one Phil Chenier mustache removal, and 56 total players (amazingly, 48 players over the last three seasons).

You may have heard of ESPN’s #NBArank project, now in year two. Now hear of #WizardsRank, where we rank each of those 56 players during Truth About It.net’s five-year run. TAI anonymously polled 27 members of the Wizards pixel establishment — from mainstream media to new media, TAI staffers included, to a few pixel consumers (readers of the site) — and got 17 responses.

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[One of the last photos of Andray Blatche in a Wizards uniform? Credit: K. Weidie, TruthAboutIt.net]

Within the next six days, we’ll find out if 7-Day ‘Dray is here to stay. (Well, at least for another few months.)

The NBA’s summer amnesty period began yesterday and runs through July 17. Because the Wizards didn’t elect to amnesty anyone last summer, they’ve got one last chance to decide if they’re going to use it — and as the Washington Post‘s Michael Lee reports, the team is “seriously considering” parting ways with Andray Blatche’s three-year, $23 million contract. But should they?

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[Heaven is a playground in Oklahoma City--and perhaps Wizards fans will get there, one day.
Hat-tip SpreeGoogs.]

A word of warning: I’m Truth About It’s resident pessimist. You may remember me from such posts as “Memo to NBA: Contract the Wizards” and “Clearly, God Hates DC Basketball Fans.” (OK, I made that second one up.)

But I don’t feel like a pessimist today. Just a realist.

Kyle and John have artfully explained why the big Emeka Okafor-Trevor Ariza-Rashard Lewis deal is a net good for the Wiz.

Still, I think we need to go by a simple question: What Would Oklahoma City Do?

Answer: Not this.

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[The Bullets-Wizards have had 15 different 7-footers suit up over the years. Only one appears in this photo. Via SI Vault and B-R.]

Roy Hibbert is a very, very tall man. Seven feet-and-two-inches tall, in fact.

And over on Grantland, there is a really, really good article about Hibbert’s development. How D.C.’s own Big Roy went from Georgetown scrub to NBA All-Star in eight years.

Go read it.

Author Jordan Conn captures the routine — from Hibbert’s pre-game stretching to his mixed martial arts practice — that transformed a 7-foot-2 non-athlete into one of basketball’s best players. But in the sea of detail, there was one data point that jumped out to me. (Bolding is mine.)

Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control, Sports Illustrated estimated that there are fewer than 70 7-footers between the ages of 20 and 40 in the United States. Seventy 7-footers; 30 starting NBA centers.

If you’re Nate Robinson’s height, you need to be an exceptional athlete to make the league. If you’re Hibbert’s, you just have to be pretty good.

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[Whether you're a Laker fan or a Thunder hater,
blows to the brain aren't anything to joke about.
Via onsmd.com.]

An intense game between two Western Conference powers. A hard smack to one player’s head.

The Lakers’ Ron Artest in the middle of it.

But this was February 2011 in Memphis, not yesterday’s Thunder-Lakers game. And Artest was the player getting popped in the head, not the one dishing it out.

Obviously, names and circumstances have changed in the past year. Our understanding of concussion-related risks, too.

So when Ron Artest…er, “Metta World Peace”…threw an elbow into James Harden’s temple on Sunday, I didn’t ponder whether it was intentional. I didn’t quip about “World Peace” committing the most violent act of the season.

I was terrified for Harden’s NBA future.
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[Ernie Grunfeld hoping to get lucky. Courtesy SportsPickle.]

The Wizards stink.

And that isn’t my grumpy reaction. It’s a sad, embarrassing fact.

In today’s Washington Post, Michael Lee warned that the Wiz are on track for their worst record in franchise history. (A related WaPo graphic captures the year-over-year misery.)

I love our NBA franchise. I’ve just hated watching them suffer. Although TAI readers weren’t thrilled about my suggestion that the league contract the Wizards, to save us all the pain.

So here’s what you think we should do instead.

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[A rare lead. Screenshot via Comcast.]

Sacramento. Golden State. Detroit.

Everyone beats the Wiz.

So I say—let’s join ‘em.

Break them up. Dismantle the court. Burn the uniforms.

Make the Wizards disappear.

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[Pierce showing his bounciness, flexibility in unique pre-Draft workout. Courtesy SI Vault.]

When the Wizards have the 10^th pick in the NBA Draft, we get a player like … Jarvis Hayes.

The Celtics? They get an All-Star like Joe Johnson—or even better, a future Hall of Famer like Paul Pierce.

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