[flickr/Keith Allison]

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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ShareBullets: (basically, they’re pixels)… but also, they’re bullet points from ’round the web about the Bullets Wizards.

Elevators, Dupont Circle N., D.C.

>> Ted Leonsis calls Michael Lee’s pixels ‘fair pixels‘ … Question mark pixels, I say. Either way, the Wizards and their direction under a relatively new owner, a ‘been there’ GM/team president, and a ‘wanna be there’ old school coach will be interesting to watch. I’m excited. Question is, will the team marketing slogan be up to par?

>> Again, not much to get excited about with summer pro-am basketball, but do check out new Wizards point guard A.J. Price putting in work at the Hartford pro-am… Nice dimes.

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ShareBullets: links, commentary, etc.

[Kevin Seraphin battles with Marc Gasol.]

>> So Nene and Kevin Seraphin are done in the Olympics and are going home without hardware, as Brazil and France got taken down by Argentina and Spain respectively in their opening medal round games on Wednesday. From the Wizards perspective, both players had positive Olympic experiences, plus the team doesn’t have to worry about either getting injured now. Seraphin’s minutes were limited against Spain (6:31), perhaps to France’s detriment, but some in the Wizards organization were overall impressed with his back-to-the-basket scoring throughout the tournament. Nene didn’t play heavy minutes over the course of the Olympics (27 against Argentina after not suiting up in the previous game) and was sometimes bothered by soreness in his left foot. Were the Wizards worried? Not according to a report fromt the Washington Post’s Michael Lee:

“…the Wizards have been monitoring the injury and remain optimistic that it will not be a problem when training camp begins on Oct. 2.”

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Seeing that pro basketball fans are essentially suspended from the NBA due to squabbling amongst millionaires and billionaires, passing time might be aided by chronicling all NBA and team suspensions of the Washington Wizards since circa 1995. Why? Well, because we humans love stories about crime and punishment, and to most, the NBA lockout fits the bill for both.  So away we go (with old basketball cards to accompany on occasion)…

[Note: This listing is incomplete and unconfirmed for accuracy; information has been gleaned, copied and pasted from eskimo.com/~pbender and prosportstransactions.com with the understanding that all suspensions and fines might not have been publicized or reflected.]

1/5/95
Bernard King suspended by team for altercation with head coach at practice.

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EuroBasket 2011 is going on and several current, ex, and loosely connected to the Wizards are involved. Let’s go…

Darius Songaila – Lithuania

[via EuroBasket 2011 profile]

Here’s the point: LOOK AT THAT BEARD!

Digest it, behold it, listen to it whisper to you.

In terms of D-Song, well, he’s doing D-Song things: He’s ranked second at EuroBasket in fouls with 4.2 per game. Otherwise, he’s shooting 48.7-percent from the field, surely on long pick-and-pop jumpers just inside the three point line. His 3.3 rebound average per 15.2 minutes a game would be 9.9 rebounds per 45.6 minutes. So typical of Darius.

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Pictures, bulleted links, commentary & other stuff…

What are Flip Saunders and Andray Blatche looking at?

Part of me thinks they are looking at a tiny lamb heart, sitting in the palm of Saunders’ hand, barely (magically) holding onto life, while Flip is poking it with a ball-point pin. But I’m probably wrong. They are likely looking at this baggy-clothed Chris Webber from the 90s, perhaps modelling a new concept in comfort garments that eventually led to the invention of the Snuggie or the Slanket. Either way, looks dire.

[via Up North Trips, h/t Your Man Devine]

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“Basketball in my country is not so popular, but after this night, I think — I hope, that the basketball will be more popular. I will do my best to help that.”
-Jan Vesely, Draft Night 2011

Jan Vesely wants to put Czech Republic basketball on the map. Good luck.

“The Czech media have been really lame covering the story,” direct-messaged Yon Pulkrabek via Twitter. I’d sent out a tweet wondering if any follower spoke Czech, and the instant world of the Internet connected us.

Pulkrabek says he’s lived in Prague permanently for the past decade, working as a translator, journalist, and editor. He grew up in upstate New York to Czech émigré parents and has been a fan of the Boston Celtics since the 1980s, keeping up with their recent success thanks to League Pass, streaming web video and his DVR. Now, Pulkrabek has taken an obvious interest in the Washington Wizards.

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A run-down of Tuesday’s home opening win with pictures, links and video …

NOTE: Rashad Mobley and I will be taking turns writing a weekly column on the Wizards for the DCist. Check out the first one by me here.

Cartier Martin celebrates the win after the final buzzer in OT.

Prelude to a meeting in the paint …

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This is Capt. Jeff Bower, been with the ‘force for years … too long to count. He was a Lieutenant forever, but then finally said, “I’m getting too old for this sh*t,” the prerequisite about of times and Bam! … he was promoted to Captain. You’ll never find him without a wad of chaw tucked in his cheek … Chattanooga Chew is the preferred brand, but he’ll settle for Brown’s Mule should the situation become dire. Cap’n Bower has often impressed with his ability to drink coffee and eat donuts while he’s working on a fat tobacci wad. Otherwise, he holds the distinction of being from Pennsylvania while also looking like he’s from Pennsylvania.

In another life, Bower is the current head coach/GM of the New Orleans Hornets and coached Rik Smits at Marist.

This is Rufus McKenzie. Rufus has looked the same exact way since the sixth grade — haircut, body-type and all — except that he’s now bigger, much bigger. Rufus was “discovered” outside of a Louisiana Wal-Mart where he was accepting a challenge to see how many shopping carts he could pick up at once. He could tell ya how many he lifted, but then he’d have to kill ya. Ever since, Rufus has been a bodyguard/roadie on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour. He’s also holds the Arkansas state record for amount of Lil’ Smokies consumed in one settin’ (that’s “sitting” for you city-folk). Again, he could tell ya how much he ate, but he’d have to kill ya. Read more »

I never hid the fact that I was a big fan of Darius Songaila when he was with the Wizards. I wouldn’t call it a man-crush, as Mike Miller once professed (via Twitter) for LeBron James, but let’s just say that I really hated to see Songaila go as part of the Mike Miller-Randy Foye/Etan Thomas-Oleksiy Pecherov-5th Pick (Ricky Rubio) trade with Minnesota this past summer.

Darius is an under-appreciated basketball player, and unfortunately, was under-appreciated by many Wizards fans. Not sure how people could not like a big man who set hard screens, displayed fundamentals that should make JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche jealous, hit outside jumpers, and who did pretty much anything asked without question.

Are injuries abundant and you need Darius to guard, say, Dwight Howard? No problem coach. Caron Butler also loved him some Darius Songaila … whatever that means at this point.

Thank god Songaila didn’t get stuck in Minnesota. A couple of months after acquiring him, the Timberwolves sent Songaila and Bobby Brown to New Orleans for Darius’ former teammate, Antonio Daniels, and a 2014 second round pick. New Orleans, an already financially strapped team, obviously thought highly enough of Songaila to acquire his extra year of contract ($4.8 million in 2010-11) for the expiring contract of Daniels. New Orleans also had a need for front-court depth.

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