Contributors

Name: Christopher Colaninno
Alias: Think Hibachi
Age: 25
Occupation: Office Worker, Communications
Team: Washington Wizards
Blog: WizardsWire.com

I’ve followed basketball at all levels for while now. I got into the wizards when they traded for Chris Webber and briefly seemed like they could be a good team. I remember watching Richard Hamilton, Ben Wallace and Rasheed Wallace and thinking they could really do some damaged in the playoffs someday.

Name: Derrick Kenny
Alias: ThaWiz
Age: 34
Occupation: Marketing Manager
Team: Washington Wizards
Blog: WizardsWire.com

First of all. I am a Washington Bullets fan. I was born and raised in

Washington, DC. I remain a proud

Washington area resident and a big-time basketball fan. I have over ten years experience in public relations, about 7 years in multimedia production and about 20 years of playing street ball.  I love playing, watching and talking about basketball, especially the drama filled goings-on of the Washington Wizards. I became aware of the Washington Bullets years after their winning ways of the late 70s. For most of my love affair with the Bullets, they were chronic losers. I loved them, but a chronicly losing freak show.  Abe Polland had a knack for not getting good players, but he would always get nice guys, and very interesting guys. We fought to get and keep Kevin Duckworth, Manute Bol… LOL. That was funny. We hosted some of the sweetest shooters Harvey Grant (the soft brother), Jeff Malone, and the over the hill version of Bernard King. 

We drafted and acquired some guys with great potential as bullets, but they ended up being very average - Calbert “Just Ok” Chaney, “Ever-nervous” Pervis Ellison, and a host of other NBA busts. When we changed our name to Wizards as a result of the violent undertones of the nickname Bullets became a not so good thing, we got an opportunity at a new life. Hopefully, a winning one. Our draft pics got substantially better. We drafted some of the best big men to ever help other teams get to the finals. I would talk about how we drafted Chris Webber who helped us become a brand name franchise with a super star player that wanted to be just that. Whose presence seemed to signal a new era in competent GMing. We picked up Juwan Howard who was an awesome chemistry addition to C-Webb. Both Flourished. However, this begins another era of poor GMing. 

Influenced largely by allegations of Marijuana use and some moderate indiscretions the Wizards elected to send the only superstar on the team to Sacramento for another past his prime player, Mich “I don’t pass and don’t shoot so good no more” Richmond.  I could go on for days but you know the rest. We had C-Webb who single handedly created a renaissance era for

Sacramento. For years, people all over the country would know that the city of

Sacramento existed and had a basketball team. Of course, I would go on about how we traded away Richard Hamilton, Rasheed Wallace, and Ben Wallace. Also known as, three of the starting five World Champion Detroit Pistons. I could go on, but this is a new time. And along the way, the organization found a way to screw over the NBA’s greatest retired player Michael “I made you profitable… finally”

Jordan. Anyway, on to our contemporary version of the Wizards. We finally had a coach that knows how to coach contemporary players.., Eddie Jordan. We have an exciting style of play (but no D). We also finally had a coach recognized as an All Star coach. We made the playoffs two years in a row. We have a few All-star caliber players, including the high scoring Gilbert “Agent Zero” Arenas. However, we are still the weirdo Wizards and can find a way to Jack things up. In a year that we have a couple of players and a coach blazing through the regular season and heading in the all-star weekend, we find out that Gilbert has a knack for saying something stupid at the wrong times. He is a great player and has a wonderful story that grew him into a great humble, likeable, marketable player. But, when he second guessed the coaching approach of his all-star coach, he took away his street cred and team cred. Thus signaling yet another disappointing year for Wizards fans. 

Eddie Jordan had one of the worst showings of any All-star game coach I’ve seen. The Wizards began to flounder and Arenas in All-star on a questionable team fashion was soon lost for the season with injury. Well, its a new year. We still have talent and coaching. Maybe this year, when a team that routinely scores over the century mark and loses by 5 - 10 points has a coach that says they need to focus more on defense their star player won’t say uhhh, duhhh, and question the direction.  Anyway, now that I got all of that off my chest. I look forward to seeing the Wiz fight and win this year. We have just a few bits of advice. Play defense. Keep playing outstanding offense. And please don’t live down to the Wizards history of jacking up the best situations. If you are a fan, watch closely the relationship between Eddie Jordan and Arenas. I am sure he is still sore because of the undermining before the all star break.  Anyway, two questions will answer whether or not we can be successful this year. Can our big men play big and mean? Can Arenas’ find the humility and single minded focus that made him the formidable Agent Zero, the silent assassin? Can Antoine Jamison play a little defense… just a little? Go Wiz!!!!!