1979

He was the All-Star leading scorer on the red, white and blue Washington Bullets, which won the NBA championship when I was 9 years old and went to the NBA Finals three times before I turned 11. Plus, his nickname was "The Big E," and there was this commercial. So, yes, Elvin Hayes was absolutely my favorite NBA player when I was a kid.

NBA27 Update

Cannot wait to read what The Washington Post sports section has to say tomorrow morning about today's big trade of Anthony Davis to the Wizards!

I am officially excited:

1-Trae Young, Bub Carrington, D’Angelo Russell

2-Bilal Coulibaly, Tre Johnson, Otega Oweh

3-Kyshawn George, Justin Champagnie, Zach Tow

4-Anthony Davis, Caleb Wilson

5-Alex Sarr, Skal Labissiére

Maybe Popeye Jones will come over with A.D. from Dallas to join the coaching staff.

Seriously, this projects as perhaps my favorite Bullets lineup since about 2002, when they had Popeye, Hoptown's Chris Whitney, Rip Hamilton and Michael Jordan.

NBA25 Update

Finally, not only did my favorite team in the World Series team and my favorite college-football team win last night, so did my favorite NBA team!

That's how you do it at the crib 🏡 pic.twitter.com/ZKpNOjxj5K

— Washington Wizards (@WashWizards) October 31, 2024

When all of the NBA previews at the beginning of the season had Washington projected as the league's worst team--and I mean all of the three or four NBA season previews I looked at had Washington projected as the league's worst team--I decided to just take a pass on this NBA regular season unless the Wizards ever got it to .500. Well, after two straight victories over the Atlanta Hawks, here we are, solidly in playoff position almost 5 percent of the way through the regular season.

Those are screenshots from the NBA website. It might be a few seasons or more before I post on the NBA again, so I wanted to go ahead and capture this moment for my scrapbook. Here's hoping Lawrence O'Brien, David Stern and everyone else in the league office let it slide.

NBA24: Preseason

Fashionable Wizards with a final walk on the runway pic.twitter.com/w98xt73MVf

— Hoop District (@Hoop_District) October 5, 2023

 

The 2023-24 National Basketball Association season is scheduled to open Oct. 24. I plan to root for the Washington Wizards.

NBA Update

The Wizards have traded for Chris Paul!

Wizards23 Update

Fourteen to go. Argh:

 

And now the new guy from Australia still has one more game to play down there.

NBA23 Update

I'm still watching Innsbruck 1976, but, now that NFL22 is over, I'm getting excited about paying attention to NBA23. I'm trying to remember who won NBA22. I'm going to look it up and confirm, but I think it was the Golden State Warriors. I'm pretty sure they are good again, but I will find out as I go through Zach Harper's "Power Rankings" for The Athletic, which I am thankful to get to read.

OK, I just checked, and I was right that the Warriors are good again, according to phenomenal Basketball Reference ...

You have to finish in your conference's top 10 to continue playing after the regular season. The NBA makes a big distinction between the "Play-In Tournament," which involves the seventh- through 10th-place regular-season finishers, and the "Playoffs," which involves the first- through sixth-place finishers plus the two Play-In survivors per conference. That's fine. I mean, it's all postseason/playoff stuff to me, but I'm fine with calling them whatever they want to be called.

Anyway, chase is that you want to be in the top 10 in your conference. The Warriors, at the moment, are. Even more importantly, the Wizards, at the moment, are! So I'm excited. If the Wizards fall out of the top 10, I probably will lose interest, but, for now, I'm excited.

Comments flow!

NBA23 Update

I intend to watch a lot more NBA this season, and there are two things I want to say about the league to get the 2022-23 ball rolling.

Number 1, the Washington Wizards have two players on their current roster with whom I share a birthday, and that's got to be a good sign. 

In 1995, I was living in Falls Church, Virginia, and around the time of Aug. 2 that year, someone attempted to break in to my apartment while we were all asleep upstairs. It was terrifying. Also at the time, my girlfriend and I were starting to split. And I had a pretty good little journaling discipline where I made myself write something I learned on that given day (in addition to listing everyone with whom I had an interaction, writing some memory and writing about where and how I would be spending that day if I could do so in however I wanted). Here's what I wrote for the "learned" prompt one of the days near Aug. 2:

continuing with page 701 of the dictionary in my cubicle:

•  eucharist - means communion.  it comes from a greek word meaning gratitude.

•  communion - an act of sharing of ideas, opinions or feelings; a religious fellowship; a group of christians with a common religious faith who observe the same rituals, a denomination; the christian sacrament in which consecrated bread and wine are partaken of in celebration of christ's last supper; the elements of the sacrament; the part of a mass or other religious ritual in which communion is received.

also, i learned - again, according to the pamphlet the u.s. government gave its soldiers - that in vietnam public displays of affection between men and women are widely frowned upon.  it is not uncommon, however, to see two male friends walking hand-in-hand.  also, indirect hinting is the best way to handle a request rather than being straightforward.  and, the common outstanding feature of vietnamese homes is an altar which holds a tablet bearing the names of all of that family's ancestors - at least as far back as the great-grandfather.  apparently, these altars can be as large as one-sixth of the floor space of an entire house.

Then here's what I journaled on my birthday in 1999:

A nice birthday. Spent it with my mom, my oldest brother, my sister-in-law, one of my nephews, one of my nieces. Broken-down car. No home. No girlfriend. Felt strange. Still focused on the haven'ts. My life is richer than for which I give it credit.

The car broke down somewhere in Tennessee or Alabama. I hustled and got myself a Greyhound seat that evening to Evansville and arrived in time for an impromptu birthday party with the fam. En route, the Greyhound made an extended stop on U.S. 41 on the north end of Madisonville for smokers on the bus to smoke in the parking lot of a hotel that no longer stands. It's a tenth of a mile from where my daughter is attending high school at this very moment. 

So, in summary, Number 1 that I want to say about NBA23 is, one just never knows. Season starts Oct. 18. Wizards tip next night, at Indiana.

Number 2, I really hope the Wizards sign DeMarcus Cousins.

Wizards!

Washington 103, Miami 100 ... Wizards, which had lost two in a row, break Heat's four-game win streak with come-from-at-least-13-behind to win at the Cap Centre in Landover (or thereabouts) ... now back to tied at second in the Eastern Conference with Chicago (my second-favorite NBA team) at 11-5, behind 12-5 Brooklyn ...

Wizards coach Wes Unseld Jr. was born Sept. 20, 1975, in Catonsville, Maryland. Wes Unseld Sr. had a lot on his plate in 1975.

1975

18 May 1975, Sun The Paducah Sun (Paducah, Kentucky) Newspapers.com

 

I don't know why I feel compelled to put myself through this.

Go, Washington Wizards!

I've been a really bad Washington Wizards fan this season. I thought the Russell Westbrook acquisition was a joke--that he'd end up just playing only a handful or no games in Washington--and I pretty much quit paying attention after the team's poor start. 

Well, at age 32, Russell Westbrook played 65 games for the Wizards this season and averaged 22 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists a game. Washington won 17 of its last 23 games and finished eighth place in the Eastern Conference. So I was absolutely wrong about this whole deal, and it was my loss that I watched only about 30 total game minutes of the regular season.

The 8 seed qualifies the Wizards to play at the Boston Celtics in the NBA's new "play-in" round of playoffs, which I think is a neat tweak. (Boston beat Washington in two of their three games this season—most recently, 111-110 in Boston on Feb. 28.) A Wizards win would advance them to a seven-game series with the Brooklyn Nets, while a loss would send them to an elimination game against either the Charlotte Hornets or Indiana Pacers. I’m planning to watch the Washington-Boston game Tuesday night at 8 on TNT, figure out who’s on my team and root for them.

NBA Preview

I predict that the Los Angeles Lakers, led by LeBron James and UK legend Anthony Davis, will be the NBA Champions for the 2020-21 season.

NBA21 Update

The Washington Wizards lost at home last night, 97-86, in preseason action against the Pistons. Russell Westbrook did not play. The boxscore indicates he was resting.

Here is a video of "bloopers and outtakes" from Washington's training camp.

NBA Update

I am very pleased to report that, based on my initial calculations, the Washington Wizards appear to be on track to be 37 percent better than in 2017-18 and the Eastern Conference-champion Cleveland Cavaliers appear to have gotten 43 percent worse.

Also, the NBA-champion Golden State Warriors have improved a bit.

Developing ...

NBA Update (1971)

Here were the players who participated in the 1971 NBA All-Star Game back on Jan. 12 at the San Diego International Sports Arena:

-- Lew Alcindor and Oscar Robertson of the Milwaukee Bucks;

-- Jerry Lucas and (Lexington Lafayette High's) Jeff Mullins of the San Francisco Warriors;

-- Bob Love and Chet Walker of the Chicago Bulls;

-- Lenny Wilkens of the Seattle Supersonics;

-- Wilt Chamberlain and Jerry West of the Los Angeles Lakers;

-- Elvin Hayes of the San Diego Rockets;

-- Dave Bing of the Detroit Pistons;

-- Connie Hawkins and Dick Van Arsdale of the Phoenix Suns;

-- Geoff Petrie of the Portland Trail Blazers;

-- Dave DeBusschere, Walt Frazier and Willis Reed of the New York Knicks;

-- John Havlicek and Jo Jo White of the Boston Celtics;

-- Gus Johnson, Earl Monroe and (Louisville Seneca High's) Wes Unseld of the Baltimore Bullets;

-- Billy Cunningham of the Philadelphia 76ers;

-- Lou Hudson of the Atlanta Hawks;

-- Johnny Green and Tom Van Arsdale of the Cincinnati Royals;

-- Bob Kauffman of the Buffalo Braves, and

-- John Johnson of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

The names that most surprise me here are the Van Arsdales (and the other Royal, Green). I knew that those guys were good players, but I wouldn't've guessed that the Van Arsdales had ever played in an All-Star Game together. It's really excellent that the uniform makers stitched "Dick" and "Tom" on the back of their jerseys for the game. Their parents must've been so proud!

A couple of months later, here's how the NBA round-robin qualifying round had worked itself out ...

And if you think that I'm being overly dismissive of the league's regular season, I would just point out that the episode of Action Highlights NBA covering the entire 1970-71 season wraps up its discussion of the regular season (and training camp) within the first 42 seconds of the 23-minute, 21-second program.

I can't believe I had never heard of "Alex the Bullet" (1957-1975, rest in peace):

Legally named “Von Brauhof,” a Baltimore Civic Center fixture affectionately known as “Alex the Bullet” entertained Baltimore Bullets fans not with thunderous slam dunks, but with cute canine tricks during timeouts. … ”Alex the Bullet” was a Baltimore Bullets team mascot from the 1968-69 through 1972-73 seasons. The energetic canine was joined by a dog named “Buckshot” to do intermission antics. When “Buckshot” died from allegedly eating too many acorns, “Tiny BB” was his able replacement. But all the while, “Alex the Bullet” was the headliner, outlasting human exhibitionist “Dancing Harry,” who paced the sidelines, casting an imaginary “hex” on opponents. When “Harry” followed Earl Monroe to New York during the 1971-72 season, “Alex” remained, loyal like a dog. ...

Each of the division champions and runnersup advanced to the playoffs, and--though Philadelphia and Chicago, as previously reported, gave it a real go--there were no upset series winners in the conference semifinals: Knicks over Hawks, Bullets over 76ers, Bucks over Warriors and Lakers over Bulls.

So, with Charlie Jones having taken over from Chick Hearn on the Action Highlights NBA mike, it's the Knicks and the Bullets squaring off in the Eastern Conference finals for the second straight year. My word, what a series this was for Baltimore! The Bullets played pretty much all of it without two of their starters, All-Star Johnson and fellow forward Kevin Loughery. They lost the opening two games, and then, after evening the series, they lost to slip behind, three games to two. But they extended it back to Madison Square Garden for Game 7, and, with about three minutes to go, the game is tied! A backup guard, Fred "Mad Dog" Carter, who was a second-year guy out of Mount Saint Mary's in Emmitsburg, Maryland, pushes the Bullets ahead, 93-91, in the late moments. With 11 seconds to play, the defending champs call time out:

(T)he Knicks … cluster around their coach, Red Holzman, who outlines the play he hopes will result in the tying basket. Holzman wants guard Dick Barnett to throw the ball in bounds to guard Walt Frazier. Center Willis Reed will set a solid pick, around which Frazier will drive to the hoop.

At center for the Bullets stands Westley Unseld. Mrs. Dickerson wouldn’t know him now. At 25, he is no longer clumsy and unsure. He stands six feet, seven inches tall and weighs 245 pounds.  

Barnett flips the ball in to Frazier as Reed comes out to set his key block. Willis is closely guarded by Unseld. So closely that the pick-off cannot be executed properly. In fact, as Frazier dribbles by, Unseld switches off to guard Walt—completing the move with a grace that belies his bulk. 

Thinking fast, Frazier knows he would not be able to shoot over Unseld, four inches taller than he is. So the Knick guard passes the ball to New York’s sharpshooting forward, Bill Bradley, in the far left-hand corner of the forecourt. Given any sort of time and room, Bradley is as deadly a shoter as there is in basketball.

But Bradley gets neither time nor room. Westley Unseld makes yet another mangificent switch. Almost as Frazier passes the ball, Unseld flows with it toward Bradley. As Bradley shoots from the baseline, Unseld leaps high, stretches higher, and deflects the ball away from the basket. Seconds later, time runs out and the Bullets have won the game. 

Jerry Sachs, executive vice president of the Baltimore team, still cannot quite believe what he saw. “We had to look at the films to make sure there wasn’t some mistake. It was that fantastic. Unseld took three men on one play—Willis, Frazier, and then Bradley.”

That’s all from a January 1972 Boys’ Life cover story by Dick Kaplan, “The Many Faces of Wes Unseld,” and the Mrs. Dickerson in Paragraph 2 is Unseld’s fifth-grade teacher in Louisville. We were a big Boy Scouts family, so my parents had a Boys’ Life subscription coming into the house for probably 25 consecutive years. I remember being thrilled to find that old Wes Unseld issue when I started collecting basketball cards and learning about the NBA later in the 1970s. But I don’t remember ever actually reading the story, which is quite good. It’s a lot about Unseld and his new wife having bought a house in Baltimore, volunteering in a local hospital and running a summer basketball league there. Also, the Unselds were sponsoring a child in Hong Kong. I love Wes Unseld, and I’m so happy he built such a fantastic, meaningful life for himself in Baltimore and Washington—but I can’t help but wish it had all been invested in Louisville instead. Kentucky could’ve benefitted from the presence of such a successful and remarkable man over the last five decades or so.

In the Western Conference finals, the Lakers, like the Bullets in the East, were injury-saddled. But the two guys that Los Angeles was missing were Elgin Baylor and Jerry West, and Milwaukee won the series in five games. The leading scorer in the Bucks' 116-98 victory in Game 5 was Greg Smith ("Captain Marvel with adrenaline in reserve") of Princeton Dotson High and Western Kentucky University!

So, with "Knicks Nixed, Bullets Ready To Buck Bucks," as the Baltimore Afro-American put it. Game 1 is today (April 21) 1971 at the Milwaukee Arena.

But, having typed that previous bit about Greg Smith, I realize that it's almost impossible that Hoptown 1971 me would've been rooting against the Bucks in these finals. Greg Smith grew up just to my west, and he went to my college just to my east--it figures that I'd totally be in the tank for him and probably the Bucks, no matter how long I've been rooting for the Tall Men of Baltimore. This is going to be an emotionally challenging series.

Jump, Jump, Slam, Slam

Gilbert's one reason I'm a Bullets fan. #Hibachi, indeed!

Man banned from county fair after winning all the prizes: Gilbert Arenas took his family to the Orange County Fair,… http://t.co/gFrUF2DRxG

— OKC Breaking News (@okc_news) July 27, 2015

Jump, Jump, Slam, Slam (1966)

Tall Men of Baltimore (5 stars, highly recommended) might turn out to be my favorite movie of 1966.