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Washington Wizards forward Deni Avdija is not happy with the arena at Capital One Arena crowd after the Wizards’ loss to the New York Knicks last Friday. He specifically took issue with the number of Knicks fans rooting for the road team and said it wouldn’t have happened at Maccabi Tel Aviv, his team before getting to the NBA.
H/T to Neil Dalal of Hoop District for the clip.
Deni Avdija not a fan of road fans taking over Cap One
— Neil Dalal (@NeilDalal96) November 18, 2023
"Gets me angry sometimes, honestly. Playing in your city and having the whole stadium cheering ‘Let’s Go Knicks’ … Not something you’ll see in Europe … This stadium needs to chant ‘Let’s Go DC’, that’s how it needs to be." pic.twitter.com/IcfdU5BBNh
On the one hand, seeing road team fans take over a game because of a blowout isn’t the worst thing in the world. The Knicks are expected to be a playoff team and the Wizards are expected to be the NBA’s worst.
But Avdija still has a point, because NBA games at Capital One Arena are overrun by road teams regularly, well before yesterday. It has been this way in the regular season for many years. Even during Washington’s playoff seasons in the 2010s, the Wizards still couldn’t fill the stands completely.
The only solution to fix this is for the Wizards to create a team that can consistently win 50 or more regular season games and go on a deep playoff run. Washington hasn’t done that in 50 years.
Fortunately, the Wizards’ front office is on the right page with starting a rebuild to get there in a few years. The tough part is that Avdija and his teammates right now are at what everyone hopes is rock bottom.
I am confident that this season will be rock bottom and that we as Wizards fans won’t have to deal with this for a long while once the Wizards reach their goals.
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