Where I thought we would be / where we are

[badinage]

I had thought, going into the season:

* that Poole was going to have a breakout, and be akin to Harden
* that they would win 26-28 games
* that Coulibaly would have a pretty bad rookie year, but with some flashes
* that Deni would take a leap: 15, 7, 3
* that Kuz would have been traded by now

The positives, coming out of 23-24:

* Dawkins found 3 rotation players. 3. I wasn’t expecting that.
* Vukcevic is a revelation. I imagined a stiff who could shoot. A Bertans. But: he can pass! He can drive! He has bounce! He has a knack! Super exciting future.
* Butler might be something. He might prove to be one of those PGs who figures it out later than most, a la Chauncey Billups.
* Deni didn’t take a leap; he took a major leap. And he didn’t do it by becoming a selfish player. His bully balling, his ballhandling, his shooting from range, his middy game (!) … it’s impressive, and he’s still only 23.
* Coulibaly needs work, but I would say he showed more than flashes, until he hit the rookie wall. The defense is going to be even better, and if he can get stronger and learn to tighten his handle, he’s going to be a player.
* Keefe has shown me something. Many somethings. Not saying he’s Spoelstra, but you can tell he’s prepared and he thinks the game, and you can also tell the players listen.
* We have 2 first-rounders to add. If Dawkins hits big on 1, that turbo-charges the rebuild. If he doesn’t hit big on either, but both turn out to be good, rotational pieces, also good.
* They have a player, Kuz, who can be used to acquire more draft capital.

Overall:

They’re not as good on paper as I would have thought they would be at this point. And of course, what I envisioned turned out to be very wrong. But they’re actually in better shape, foundationally. There’s a pretty good base for going forward — better than I had feared.

[Zonkerbl]

My brother was visiting for the eclipse and likes to follow sports so he listened to a Wizards podcast (because he knows I still follow them) out of curiosity. He was surprised they were just talking about normal NBA stuff (this asset is better/worse than expected, maybe we could improve if we made x trade) instead of the elephant in the room, that the Wizards are arguably the worst NBA franchise in the history of the NBA and will never, ever break 50 wins. I thought it was a little unfair but there is some truth to it, in the sense that our super sucky fanbase that consistently roots for the other team in the building probably costs the team at least 5 "home court advantage" wins a year, which over time is really crippling.

Cleveland is a city of 300,000 people and has a franchise better than DC's, even without LeBron. The DMV has what, 8 million people? And hasn't sniffed home court advantage in the playoffs in literally decades? Inexcusable.

[pancakes3]

Oh, given the age of our franchise coupled with the on-court performance and apathetic fan base, I think we're comfortably the worst franchise in the league.