Top Stories of the Week: The Wizards start 2018 mostly on the right foot

Hello 2018! The winter’s coldest weather has hit us, but the NBA season is now about to hit its halfway mark. I skipped last week’s links to focus on the Top Stories of 2017. Our StoryStream on that is right here.

So here are the main stories from the holidays and the New Year.

The Wizards are 4th in the East

The Wizards have played mediocre basketball for much of November and December. The biggest thing hurting their record is losing to many sub .500 teams.

But they have started to turn things around, especially after a public tongue lashing by Christy Winters-Scott when Washington lost to the Hawks. The Wizards tied their longest win streak of the season (four) which included a big win against the Houston Rockets, and two straight wins against sub-.500 teams like the Chicago Bulls on New Year’s Eve, New York Knicks last Tuesday and the Memphis Grizzlies last Friday.

Unfortunately, they couldn’t extend their streak to five when they lost to the Bucks yesterday. And Otto Porter missed the last couple games due to a hip strain, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that.

But Washington won seven of its last ten games and is now 23-17, just 3.5 games behind the Cleveland Cavaliers for third place. There is a hole left to climb, but it isn’t insurmountable either.

Wizards falter in the All-Star ballot returns

Earlier this week, John Wall and Bradley Beal found out they were 5th and 9th in the first round of All-Star ballot returns, respectively. Given that the Wizards have disappointed this season, that isn’t surprising. However, seeing Victor Oladipo have more votes than Wall and a past his prime Dwyane Wade have more votes than Beal is troubling.

As for the frontcourt, no one made the Top 10.

Sometimes, that’s when players think of creative ways to help their cause. For example, Bradley Beal made a panda video go viral and snag a few votes.

So go out and retweet these, or go to the NBA’s site to vote!

Chris McCullough goes for a G-League spell while Mike Young is waived

This is a relatively minor move from earlier this week, but McCullough is getting some more playing time for the Wisconsin Herd, the Bucks’ affiliate. Young was on a two-way deal, but now the Wizards have another spot available for another player whom they wish to give it to.

And more links

• Two FanPosts made the Best of BF’s FanPost section this past week. Expatde wrote about how this month is the time for the Wizards to make up some ground. Gabriel Brady wrote about a trade idea with the Lakers here.
• Shea Serrano of The Ringer had an article on John Wall’s many faces.
• Kevin Parrish wrote about Marcin Gortat’s New Year’s Resolution to be a better teammate. He acknowledged hat he could be better in that regard.
• Tomas Satoransky is a great in-game dunker, but generally doesn't do that in traffic. In the Rockets game, he “welcomed” Zhou Qi to the NBA.
• Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington had this interesting piece on what players do during halftime. Younger players are checking their phones!
• Todd Dybas of The Washington Times writes that the Wizards haven’t felt that different about the grind of an NBA season, even with the season starting two weeks earlier to avoid four games in five day stretches.
• Kelly Oubre got some new Supreme branded Adidas kicks. He could wear them in a game one of these days.
• Osman Baig wrote about how John Wall can get back in form after a sluggish start to his 2017-2018 season.
• Kyle Weidie of Truth About It wrote a detailed analysis on how the Wizards almost blew the Grizzlies game away.
• Candace Buckner of The Washington Post wrote a column earlier this week about why the Wizards haven’t played well on the first half of back-to-back games this season so far.
• And finally, if you were checked out BF at Midnight on New Year’s Day, I wrote about all the other circumstances where you can hear the “Auld Lang Syne” tune in addition to the usual Happy New Year pleasantries. You can hear the tune from a patriotic song here in America, to a cheer for the Netherlands’ soccer teams, to a farewell song at a school graduation in Japan.

That is all I have. If you have another link yoh would like to share, feel free to do so as a FanPosts or in tge comments. Enjoy the rest of the weekend!