Posts for category ‘chris webber’

The Wizards have zero chance of landing the fourth overall pick in tonight’s draft lottery. But the last time the team did have the fourth was in 1995 when they used it to select Rasheed Wallace out of North Carolina.

Those were the days when dreams were big and aims were high — ‘Sheed, Juwan Howard and Chris Webber, a murder’s row of bigs. But instead of success on the court, we are left cherishing the video clip below when Webber (not playing and suited) put a “I’m a rookie, kick me!” sign on Wallace’s back during a game (also not playing and suited). Ahh, the memories. Gheorghe Muresan is also shown not playing and suited.

[via A Stern Warning]

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This Sunday April 25th will mark the 13th anniversary of the Washington Bullets’ 1997 opening first round playoff game against Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. That game represented the franchise’s first playoff game since May 8, 1988 … or, the first in eight years, 11 months and 17 days to be exact.

The ’96-97 Bullets team featured the present-day likes of an ESPN NBA analyst (Tim Legler), a special assistant for the Golden State Warriors (Calbert Cheaney), an analyst for NBA TV/TNT (Chris Webber), a guy who is still playing in the NBA playoffs (Juwan Howard, Portland Trailblazers), a Kentucky Wildcats basketball assistant who was recently charged with a DUI (Rod Strickland), a guy who was last year fired as head coach of the D-League’s Fort Wayne Mad Ants (Jaren Jackson), a guy who is currently a community liaison of sorts for the Wizards (Gheorghe Muresan), a guy who attended the March 27, 2010 Wizards-Jazz game with a lady friend (Chris Whitney), and a guy who assists the DeMatha High basketball program because that’s where his sons played (Harvey Grant) … among other cats.

Recently Webber went on the Dan Patrick Show and recounted a story from the ’97 playoff match-up against Jordan’s Bulls (via Sports Radio Interviews):

“One time we played in Washington. We played a five game series against the Bulls. It was the year they won 72 games. We lose all three games by a total of seven points. I saw Michael Jordan come into our locker room with a cigar, while it was lit, and said, ‘Who’s going to check me tonight?’ And we looked at Calbert Cheaney and we were laughing like little school kids knowing that Calbert Cheaney was going to get him, we knew it wasn’t a game for Mike. He was going to be there and he was going to be playing like he said. Game Three we get off the bus and Juwan (Howard) is from Chicago and used to workout there. I’ll never forget, Jordan was sitting on his Ferrari and Pippen was right there and they have a cigar lit. We get off the bus and we have to pass them with a lit cigar. You want to talk about posturing? Forget Phil Jackson. You got Michael Jordan there behind the scenes smoking a cigar before the game, letting us know that he’s the Red Auerbach before the game even started. It was almost like, ‘I lit the cigar. I’m celebrating already. This is just a formality, you guys getting on the court tonight.”

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Chris Webber had a fair share troubles here in D.C., among other places. He once was caught with marijuana and pepper-sprayed by a cop for refusing to get out of his car on his way to practice as a Washington Wizard. Both his high school and college have removed memories he helped make from their record books because he took money from a Michigan booster as an eighth grader and beyond. Webber and Allen Iverson, although injured and not expected to play, didn’t even show up to Fan Appreciation Night on the Philadelphia 76ers’ last game of the 2005-06 season. He was once a spokesperson for FILA. He will be forever associated with the “Timeout.” He used to date that crazy lady Tyra Banks. All bad things. Well, perhaps not the bedding of Tyra Banks part. Webber was once featured on a large mural in D.C.’s Chinatown that stayed long past its welcome.

But now he is a television studio analyst, and a pretty good one if you ask me. When you’ve got personality, your sketchy past can be dimmed. Just look at Marv Albert, he got caught biting chicks, participated in two-guy, one-girl three-ways, and forced a woman to perform oral sex on him as if he were a white Ruben Patterson.

In any case, when I heard Tuesday night’s Wizards-Lakers game was elected to show on NBA TV’s “Fan Night,” I prepared myself for how the team would be trashed by Webber and co-analyst Kevin McHale (who probably wouldn’t be too harsh since he’s boys with Flip Saunders).

Webber pulled no punches, starting with calling Caron Butler and Antawn Jamison selfish.

From NBA TV’s Fan Night notes:

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I was doing some cleaning around the apartment yesterday, working on a project for Father’s Day (Happy Father’s Day to my dad all the real dads out there) and came across a clipping from the Washington Times that my pops gave me just over three years ago.

“What A Long, Strange Trip It’s Been,” was Tom Knott’s proclamation of purged bad karma for DC’s pro-basketball franchise just before game one against the Chicago Bulls in the ’05 NBA playoffs. It made me think, so much of that trip was spent bonding with my dad. We probably made the trek out to Landover, MD, and then downtown to Chinatown years later, at least 175 times together, witnessing years of futility and a lone playoff game pre-2005. To pass time with my father, to follow a hometown team together, it was all worth it.

I couldn’t help but get a chuckle out of Knott’s column. The long, strange trip continues and some would argue that Wizards fans still have not been exonerated of bad karma. Is this article to remind us how appreciative we should be for a four year playoff run, or have our expectations justifiably risen to the point where wanting more supersedes being spoiled by morsels of success?

The circus acts of yore are all featured: “Nervous” Pervis Ellison, Manute Bol, Boo-nard King (is that the best picture they had?), Mel Turpin, Rex Chapman (one of my all time favorites), Rod Strickland, Juwan Howard, Chris Webber, Jerry Stackhouse, and finally Old Man Jordan.

Knott, in his typical pessimistic fashion (I’d be a hippocrite to blame him) recounts dysfunctional tales; head scratching gaffes from yesteryear which have become sources of present day comedy. The lead story of Pervis Ellison getting into an auto accident because of a DWIWGCF (driving while incapacitated with greasy chicken fingers) seems like the perfect jump-off point.

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