MJ's Back & The Wizards Are Missing The Lottery

[Joubert[$]]

I've said it before on these pages, and I'll continue saying it until the season ends. Michael Jordan returning to play for the Wizards is at once the greatest and the most destructive event in that team's history.

Using this year's number one pick, Kwame-san, the Wiz were likely to finish in the running for another lottery pick next year. Then, with two top picks and some smart management, the team could head to the playoffs and become a force to be reckoned with.

Now, with MJ back, they're good enough to beat the bad teams and play the others close.

Jordan scored 41 points tonight, 24 in the last game. He is slowly building his minutes, but the Wizards aren't necessarily a better team. For starters, they're banged up enough to make Doug Collins worried. That's bad in pre-season. Then there's the star factor. Today's Washington Post reported that Jordan simply dominates the action so much that his own team watches him for signals and signs on what they should do next. His presence is actually distracting the team.

And now, instead of winning 20 games, they'll win 30. They'll miss the lottery. And Jordan, while reinvigorating one of professional basketball's most tired franchises, will also have robbbed it of its opportunity to rebuild.

Who knows if they'll even win 20 at this rate, let alone 10. The Memphis/Vancouver Grizzles are the only ones looking worse than these fools.

[Joubert[$]]

File, I actually thought about this thread while I was reading the article in this morning's paper about the awful Cleveland loss. They outscored the Bullets, um Wizards, 25-2 in the third and into the fourth.

Jordan is demanding the ball and missing. 24 of his last 72 from the field. Doug Collins is coaching him in the press - says he's going to cut his minutes.

So what happens?

They go into Philly and beat Iverson and the Sixers by 7. Yes, Iverson scored 40. Big deal. Jordan scored 30. Big deal. The difference? Hamilton scored 28 and pulled 9 boards. Philly wasn't deep enough to contain MJ and Hamilton so he had a terrific night.

Oh, and Iverson was distracted because of that billion dollar shoe deal.

All this makes me wonder how much of it was Jordan and how much of it was Jackson all those years. Sure, the years Jordan stayed away the Rockets took two rings... but then the roster had been put together and trained together with Jordan in mind. If a core player on the Lakers bails, like Shaq or Bryant, will Phil Jackson have adapted his pretty deep bench to handle the tiangle so well that they can get more rings without them?