AHHHH!!!
1st glorious day of antoher opffseason. Geez, all that pressure to "win" really soured things around the wizards camp these last few weeks. It was great to see Salieri step down, and the Wizartds play some FUN ball for once. Kwame clocked 40+ minutes!! His limbs playfully akimbo, turning it over, putting back scraps with JDix. The Wizards got back to the fun brand of ball we love!!! Ill believe this stuff about the thrill of winning when I see it, because like a good bullets fan, I have been raised to love the sideshow my friends.

And MJ ended his career with two free throws, which is a poignant and furtive analogy for his last two seasons with the Wizars: free throws!

This espn article takes a interesting lo0k at the last 24 hours of MJ. Some interesting bits:

On his way through the bus, Jordan gets a knuckle knock from several fellow Wizards, including head coach Doug Collins and assistant coach Patrick Ewing.
COllins "knucle knocking" MJ? SHeesh. Plain embarrassing.

Jordan reveals himself for the first time, during pregame warm-ups.
Wizrds executives tell sources MJ had "a below average Penis"

Quick George McCLoud update!!!!!!!!!!!!!!: the former Wizard swingman invested his brothers substantial profits from crack cocaine! McCloud would be a great street name for Cocaine dont you think?

So lots of Jordanaires made pert pronouncements at the beginning of the season, with some even picking the Wizards to win the east! Another projection that flickered and died, was the widely accepted notion that MJs return to the NBA would take the spotlight of the young guys aka "the Kids" aka Grandchild Brown and The Fervent Five.

Oh so wrong that proved to be, because with every Steve Buckhantz "dagger" in the wizards season, the spotlight wasa turned very much on the sandlot boys. They shouldered the blame for everyhting: they were not desirous enough, or lacked respect or were not willing to learn. Not only did the Kids learn how to lose, they learned how to blame themselves for it too.

The future of Phantom Collins is under much debate right now. Coach Collins, the wizznutzz agree, is like a progressive Slave owner with abolitionism at his door..
Hes a decent master, struggling against the foreseeable forfeit of the the only lifestyle he has ever know.
He just cant understand why his slaves want freedom so bad.
"Im a fair master", he says "what is so great about freedom? You will see next year, slaves, when you get all that freedom, how you will rue the day you wished it, in your freedom loving chaos and disorder and lawless japery. We have a good order right now. It works. Why are you not happy? Am I not a good master? I feed and clothe you, and in exchange you put in a hard days work for me. I whip you just enough to remind you who is master and who is slave, those are the roles we have always had, its what keeps the everything together."

But as we said, Collins is a progressive Slave owner, and he WILL make the transition, as painful and incomprehensible as it is.
Now that his house negro Salieri is no longer able to carry the burden, he must do what is realistic to survive.

And boy next year looks to be a riot. Lots of learning and exploring of bodies and getting comfortable with the man next to you. Hopefully a big free agent will land here. Maybe even LeBron. Maybe Tracy Murray will come back home, for a farewell tour. Somehow, we only have a few million dollars under the cap.
Even with the LORENZO CLOCK winding to a close!!!

BNack to projections, lets have a look back and see what we here at the Wizznutzz predicted, in this very diary:

Anyway, SO how is the season looking? Mike Wilbon has the Wizards winning the Division. ESPN has us coming 4th in the division, and SPorts Illustrated has us 5th in the COnference. They also gave CHristianj Laettner a PVR of 179, but Im not sure what thats all about.

And so its time for the WIZZNUTTZZ to step up, and make a few predictions of our own. I offer these:

Jerry Stackhouse: hell be getting 24pts a game, 2.9 apg, 3.9 rpg, and shooting 43% from the floor
MJ: 17.5 ppg, 3.8apg, 4 rpg, 40%
Juan Dixon: 4.2 ppg, 1.5 apg, 1.8rpg
Kwame: 9.8ppg, 8.6 rpg, and 1.7 bpg
Larry Hughes: 15ppg, 3apg, and 2.5 rpg
and Brendan Haywood: 7ppg, 7.1 rpg and 1.8 bpg

The Wizards will finish 45 and 37 good enough for the 6th spot in the playoffs!!!!!!!!


Hey, Not too bad I would say, except for that last part, but the season was young and so were we!
We will soon be revealing our OFFSEASON predictions for the wizards, and wow, we see some extraordinary things inn our magic balls, especially after a nose full of McCLoud!!!!