Nobody will be more happy to see that the preseason end than the Washington Wizards; if it had gone on any longer, they’d have run out of healthy bodies entirely.
With Martell Webster already on the shelf after his third back operation in four seasons, the harms just kept coming.
Bradley Beal fractured his wrist, Glen Rice Jr. wrapped his ankle, Kris Humphries ripped open his arm on the rim (since when are these items sharp?) , requiring surgery. Even John Wall was restricted with knee tendinitis.
The Wizards’ oldest participant was able to survive the display record unscathed. Paul Pierce, place to begin at small forward for the Wiz, provided some veteran perspective on the parade to the trainer’s table, per Jorge Castillo of The Washington Post:»It’s been tough. It has been challenging. We haven’t had a full squad most of the preseason. The key is understanding it’s a long season. The key is to become healthy.»
If the collective swelling recedes and the stitches hold, Washington can nevertheless make great on the lofty expectations it set last season. Forty-four wins got people thinking in D.C., and now the Wizards face a world where anything less than a top-four seed will constitute a disappointment.
Demands like that are as sterile as they’re daunting, especially for a company with little success in its recent past. At 33-1, the Wiz are not completely out of the championship picture, but they are still a notch beneath the East’s elite.
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