OPINION:
And then there was one.
With the New York Knicks winning the NBA championship with their 94-90 victory in Game 5 Saturday night over the San Antonio Spurs, there is just one team in the league that has suffered a longer gap between championships than the Washington Wizards.
The Knicks’ last title came in 1973, also a five-game series victory against Wilt Chamberlain, Jerry West and the Los Angeles Lakers.
Saturday’s win ended 53 years of frustration. Now the Portland Trailblazers, who last won the league championship in 1977, have the monkey on their backs. Washington has been waiting almost as long, though. The then-Bullets hoisted the trophy for the last time one year after the Trailblazers. Washington went back to the finals in 1979 only to lose to the Seattle Supersonics.
There are worse lists the Wizards could be on. Like having never won a league championship. But that list is filled with former American Basketball Association franchises and teams that didn’t exist the last time Washington won, save for the Los Angeles Clippers, who had just moved from Buffalo to San Diego and became the Clippers and who have never appeared in the NBA Finals, and the Phoenix Suns, who have won three conference championships.
What makes Washington’s drought so pitiful is that they haven’t even been in spitting distance since 1979.
The Knicks had two Eastern Conference titles during their dearth of NBA championships – 1994 and 1999. So there was a generation after New York’s two titles in 1970 and 1973 that at least got a taste of competing for a league championship.
Washington fans, as we well know, have been starving, fed only the illusion of the occasional second-round playoff appearance. There have been no watch parties around the city or dancing in the streets for NBA basketball here.
Would the city celebrate like New York fans did – without the fighting in the streets? I think Washington NBA fans would rise to the occasion. We saw the fan frenzy on the streets during the 2018 Capitals Stanley Cup and the 2019 Nationals World Series.
But a championship may be the only thing to make that so-called sleeping giant rise.
The Wizards fan base has been called a sleeping giant by some. I think zombies would be a better description.
I get the notion that the District is a high school basketball hotbed. That won’t necessarily translate into a passion for the Wizards when they become competitive again. They’ve seen that act before and weren’t impressed.
The John Wall Wizards teams made it to the Eastern Conference semifinals in 2014, 2015 and 2017, reaching a seventh game in 2017 before losing to the Boston Celtics. The Gilbert Arenas teams only made it to the conference semifinals once in 2005, losing 4-1 to the Miami Heat.
There was a lot of excitement and attention to the basketball team in the playoff runs of the Wall era. But there were empty seats in home playoff games that wound up becoming part of the story – evidence of the damage done by years of failure and fraudulent success. And that was nearly 10 years ago. Since then, Washington basketball fans have had to endure a 254-454 record, including three tanking seasons of 50-196.
It’s a far more damaged fan base than the one that failed to fill the home arena during playoff games the last time around.
Washington is likely on the verge of another playoff run. We are constantly told they have a core group of good young players – Alex Sarr, Kyshawn George, Tre Johnson and others. They are about to choose their future with the first pick of the NBA draft on June 23. They acquired two veterans with both All-Star credentials and bad baggage – Trae Young and Anthony Davis – that may or may not play a role. The front office has done a good job of amassing draft picks for the future.
But until people are dancing in the streets with a New York state of mind, NBA basketball in this town will be broken.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
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