Top Stories of the Week: John Wall clears the air, Bria Hartley’s pregnancy, and Kirk Cousins’ jersey

Can you believe that it’s already September? Though the kids are back in school, it also means we’re now about a month away from NBA training camps and the preseason. IT can’t come soon enough!

Unfortunately, things still aren’t going quite as well as we would like this past week. So let’s go through the weekly roundup.

John Wall begins to clean up the mess that was last week

Photo by Patrick Smith/Getty Images

Last week, we had House of Guards-Gate, where Wall and Bradley Beal were open about needing to patch up their on-the-court relationship. Though being open about this wasn’t a bad thing, it’s still not an ideal situation when the Wizards were coming off an underwhelming year. Plenty of guys took their shots on Wall and his apparent disdain about others’ salaries.

Wall cleared the air by posting some videos on Uninterrupted over the weekend. First, he denied being jealous of Beal and James Harden’s latest big money deals. Then, he released a video in the wee hours of the morning claiming that he’ll be in the best shape of his life this season. It’s nice to see him clear the air, but the damage has been done. People are going to scrutinize Wall a lot this season since he now has a lot of teammates who work well with his strengths. It’s not a bad thing.

We certainly weren’t the only ones who talked about this at length. SB Nation NBA’s Mike Prada and Ben Epstein were on the Limited Upside Podcast this week and talked about it at length.

Bria Hartley is pregnant. But the pregnancy didn’t prompt the Mystics’ recent moves

Stewart W. Small

The other bombshell in D.C. basketball affected the Mystics when they announced that Bria Hartley was pregnant and would miss the rest of the season. They also announced a few other personnel moves, such as the signing of Leilani Mitchell and the release of Tianna Hawkins due to a lengthy concussion recovery. Earlier this week, Mike Thibault explained that Mitchell’s signing specifically had nothing to do with Hartley — and he didn’t know about the pregnancy until quite recently.

It’s important to note that Hartley and Hawkins — the two players who were out for the season — were both involved in the same transaction back in 2014. They were acquired from the Seattle Storm in exchange for Crystal Langhorne, who was their starting power forward before then. And were some rumblings out there insinuating that the Mystics should have never traded Langhorne to the Emerald City.

Well, I disagree with anyone who believes that Langhorne should have stayed in Washington all these years. They needed to build a new core AND though we have hindsight today, the organization probably viewed Meesseman as a long term option in D.C. well before most fans and pundits would.

The Mystics are 10-16 after splitting last weekend’s games against Indiana and San Antonio. They play the Minnesota Lynx tonight. Don’t be surprised if they win.

Et tu, Redskins?

Washington Redskins quarterback Kirk Cousins got a jersey from the San Antonio Spurs which the team promptly shared on social media.

The Wizards weren’t pleased.

I don’t like it either.

It’s not the first time we’ve had an “Et tu” moment on one of Monumental Sports’ teams.

Bria Hartley — the same Bria Hartley whose crossover I fell in love with a bit too much and the same Bria Hartley who is out for the season — had hers, albeit with the Capitals when they lost to the Penguins in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and ultimately won the whole thing.

Better yet, she plays on a Monumental team! (sigh) Just see below:

To be fair, she gave a mea culpa.

It remains to be seen whether the Redskins are going to pull off the same, even though this is probably much ado about nothing.

Either way, you know your team’s having a rough offseason when another local team does this. Jake has more insight here.

Other stories from here and elsewhere

Photo by Andy Lyons/Getty Images

• Jake summed up the winners and losers of the Wizards’ offseason. So far.
• Jesse wrote that Jan Vesely is the worst pick in Wizards franchise history, partly because of the players they missed out on. Can’t disagree.
• A number of NBA writers and pundits gave their predictions on a 2020 Olympic team lineup. Wall made one writer’s list. Beal made none of them. Yes, the Tokyo Games are four years away, a long time from now. But it also is a symbolization of the national media thinking that Washington isn’t a team where there is much to root for.
• Jake spoke with Candace Buckner of The Washington Post in our latest podcast. Buckner was in Indianapolis last year where she was the Pacers’ beat writer. So they talked a lot about Ian Mahinmi. They also debated about whether cake is bread.
• Ben Mehic of Wiz of Awes talked about Scott Brooks, who hasn’t been under the spotlight too much since the summer. In his piece, Mehic mentions that Brooks will be earning his paycheck this season. Though he may really want to coach this team, Wall and Beal aren’t Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant.
• Not every Wizards and Mystics player is having a bad week. Emma Meesseman just got her “Bradley Beal moment” as she signed a two-year extension with UMMC Ekaterinburg in the Russian Premier League and EuroLeague Women, according to Sporza. The link is in Dutch.
• Dan Steinberg of The Washington Post talked about Caron Butler and Gilbert Arenas, who have cleared the air after some remarks Tuff Juice wrote in his memoir last year.
• On Thursday, the D.C. Sports Bog celebrated its 10th Anniversary! So you know, ours is will come up soon as well!

These are far from the only links from the past week. If you have another link you’d like to share, feel free to do so in the comments or in a FanPost. Enjoy your Labor Day Weekends everyone!