Every year, the NBA hosts a celebration to honor the best of the best in the league, though events like the Skills Challenge, Three-Point Shootout, Dunk Contest and the All-Star Game.
But what if there was a weekend devoted to honoring the worst of the worst? Specifically, what if we created a hypothetical weekend devoted to honoring the worst players in franchise history since the team changed their name to the Wizards? It would be a very #SoWizards All-Star Weekend.
Together with Adam McGinnis of Truth About It and the Pixel & Roll Podcast, we crafted a weekend of All-Star events featuring the least qualified players in Wizards history to compete in said contests. Your job, as the reader, is to decide which player or team would be most likely to lose the competition.
Here are your participants and their qualifications:
Skills Challenge
JaVale McGee - During his time in Washington, McGee showed off a wide array of half-developed skills that almost looked promising but didn’t come together the way many fans hoped they would. There’s also a chance he could run the course in the wrong direction, because we’ve seen stuff like that happen before.
Michael Ruffin - It would probably be more challenge than skills if Michael Ruffin participated. Case in point:
Three Point Contest
Andray Blatche - Blatche was a stretch four before stretch four was a thing. Problem was, he wasn’t a good stretch four. He attempted at least 10 three pointers during six of his seven seasons in Washington, and never shot above 29.5 percent on them during his time in Washington.
Popeye Jones - After only attempting 20 three pointers over four seasons with the Raptors, Celtics, and Nuggets, the Wizards let him shoot 17 during his two seasons in Washington. He only made five of them.
Dunk Contest
Darius Songaila - Former Wizards coach Eddie Jordan once said the big man “probably couldn’t jump over the Sunday newspaper.”
Oleksiy Pecherov - He flew through the air with the grace of a newborn ostrich and almost the same amount of fly time.
All-Star Game
The starting lineups are below. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to hear the reasonings behind each player, but if you’re a real Wizards fan you’ll probably understand most of the choices without much reasoning:
| Express | Cherry Trees | |
|---|---|---|
| PG | Eric Maynor | Dee Brown |
| SG | Quinton Ross | Felipe Lopez |
| SF | Bryon Russell | Darvin Ham |
| PF | Charles Oakley | Ronny Turiaf |
| C | DeJuan Blair | Oleksiy Pecherov |
You can listen to the podcast where Adam and I crafted the #SoWizards All-Star Weekend below. (Warning the language may get a little coarse at times.)
Many thanks to Robby Kalland and Bo Churney, who inspired this event with their Anti All-Star Weekend Podcasts. If you enjoy the podcast, make sure to subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher or wherever else you get your podcast fix.