FanPost

28 Games Later: The Wizards are in free-fall

Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

After thirty games, the Wizards record stood at 22-8. A lot of things were going right. The Wizards got themselves into trouble against lesser opponents but scored in bunches, erasing troubling deficits with little apparent effort.

Jason Reid feted Ernie Grunfeld in the media. Rasual Butler was touted as the best possible use of a second round pick. Pancakes for days.

Mike Prada stated the Wizards were good, but not 22-8 good. I got an unsettled feeling when I read that, thinking 'he's right'. 22-8 felt like a tipping point. It was.

Here we are, twenty-seven games later and the Wizards have posted an 11-16 effort since the high-water mark. Plenty that went right has gone wrong. Injuries. Players regressing to the mean. Locker room chemistry is souring as losing takes its toll. The coach is calling out players and passing the buck after a failed come-to-jesus meeting. The owner has gone quiet. The Wizards are in free-fall.

There's blame for the players, for the coaches, for the general manager, for the owner. Ted Leonsis is the kind of businessman who affords his employees every opportunity to succeed. Where does the Wizards trajectory track with respect to the kind of success they're looking to achieve?

Ernie Grunfeld has surrounded John Wall and Bradley Beal with a cast of seasoned veterans while retaining cap flexibility for the Summer of Durant, consistent with his method assembling the Knicks Finals squad and Ted's directive to build through the draft. Randy Wittman has installed a complicated offense designed to create mid-range jump shots with a high-octane transition game, consistent with his history and Ted's directive to run with John Wall.

Young players have not developed, despite a mass acquisition of first-round draft picks early in the rebuild. Sizable contracts have been handed out to Andray Blatche (China), Martell Webster (not healthy enough to mitigate the Wizards' woes on the wing), and Marcin Gortat (who no longer plays during the fourth quarter). A dysfunctional mid-range game held afloat by the Wizards' excellent three-point shooting has been underscored by their recent slump from beyond the arc.

No one is talking about get-well games any more. Fans are talking about whether the team will fall to the sixth seed and don't dare allow themselves to talk about falling farther. But who hasn't thought about it?

It sounds silly on the surface, that a team boasting John Wall, Bradley Beal, Paul Pierce, Nene, and Marcin Gortat as its starting five could fall to the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference after a 22-8 start. It sounds silly, until the reality of free-fall really hits you. Who knows where the bottom is?

Tonight's tilt against the Timberwolves is the twenty-eighth game since the high-water mark. A win tonight could be rock bottom, or just one more piton giving way. Or perhaps the organization will remain in free-fall. Fans are left watching Ted's rope disappear over the edge and wondering how much slack Ernie's product and Randy's team have left.

Enjoy those ticket price hikes.

This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.