Top Stories of the Week: The Wizards are still winless

Halloween has passed and we have less than one week until Election Day! Let’s get to this week’s top stories, which weren’t fine. At all.

The Wizards are starting slow ... as usual

The Wizards are 0-3 after a pair of losses.

On Sunday, the Wizards lost to the Grizzlies in overtime, 112-103. Washington certainly looked better than they did against the Hawks in the season opener. But Marc Gasol showed us his long-range shooting game to beat Washington down the stretch in regulation and extra time.

Then on Wednesday, they lost their home opener to the Raptors, 113-103. The positive note is that Otto Porter showed us his craftiness on offense where he shot 10 of 11 for the night despite having few plays designed for him. The negative is the bench play. Yes, they have four rookies, but none are first round picks, and three are undrafted. In other words, don’t expect to say any rookie not named Tomas Satoransky to do much this season.

The Wizards host the Hawks today and visit the Magic tomorrow. Next week, they’ll have a trifecta of tough home games against the Rockets on Monday, the Celtics on Wednesday, and the Cavaliers on Friday. If the Wizards don’t get it together, they can very easily be 0-8 in a week.

Ted Leonsis finds himself in a rut with Wizards fans after addressing criticism and the long term future of Verizon Center

The owner spoke with Washington Post reporters on the future of Monumental Sports. You can read the articles here and here.

Most of it focused on his media properties and his ambition to see the company become a media and real estate leader. But he also talked about the Wizards’ early season struggles, referring to click streams as “fantastic.” He also griped about some unfavorable mortgage payments he has to make for the Verizon Center.

Albert Burneko of Deadspin has a harsh and profane take on it, while I have mine here, which isn’t profane.

For more reading on it, Rajan Nanavati of Hail to the District has his take that the Wizards have the “most hopeless” fanbase in major professional sports. After all, Cleveland won a title for the first time in awhile, and the Chicago Cubs broke their curse so we can’t be far behind.

Karen Goff of the Washington Business Journal has another one which focuses more on the possibility of the Wizards and/or Capitals moving out of Verizon Center.

Wizards Player and Team Analysis

• Bradley Beal is the big man on campus thanks to his contract. But he’s also had the slowest start. Jake looked at some trends that came about from it.
• Wall said that he is still committed to the Wizards despite all of the bad news. That may be reassuring, but what good does it to say anything to the contrary publicy — assuming he does want to leave?
• We saw a bit of this on Wednesday, but after the Grizzlies loss, Scott Brooks talked about mixing up his lineups more.

And more links

• Candace Buckner of The Washington Post wrote about Trey Burke, who was benched on Wednesday after some early subpar play. This allowed Satoransky to play a little more and perhaps win the backup point guard role.
• Buckner also wrote that the Wizards’ players feel like they are better than 0-3. But they are. Beal was quoted in that piece saying that he believes the Wizards could easily be 3-0 instead. Ummmmmm...... I dunno about that. Sure, the Wizards work hard in practice, etc. But when they have repeated miscues and when the bench spots the opposition 10 points in a jiffy, that’s not a description of a 3-0 team. I think 0-3 describes the Wizards quite accurately to be honest.
• Ben Mehic of Wiz of Awes asked out loud whether it’s too early to panic. Jake would concur with that. Here are four reasons why the Wizards are on track to be better.
• Last, but not least, we recapped five of the top moments from the Mystics season here.

There are certainly more links besides these stories I showed above. If you have one you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments or in a FanPost.

Enjoy your weekends — and an extra hour of sleep — everyone!