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Editor's Note: And so it begins.  Here's part one of our summer Bullets/Wizards oral history from the fan's perspective project, via hotplate.  A description of the project, along with a list of landmark events in Bullets/Wizards' history, can be found here.  There are still many, many openings left.  -Mike

Our story begins in 1989. I was a big Bullets fan and along with a buddy and his brother had a 10 game ticket plan. That was a fun year to root for the Bullets. During the off season, we let Moses Malone go to free agency. I was ok with the move as he was clearly on the decline. But we had no one to replace him so it was difficult to imagine that the team could get better. But we did, especially at home. Led by Jeff Malone, Bernard King, and my namesake John "Hotplate" Williams the team played inspired ball for Coach Wes Unseld that year. The ended at 40-42 and barely missed the playoffs. At home, the team was almost a powerhouse. The record was 31-10 (I don’t even want to think about what that says about the road record) and included wins over all of the powerhouses including the Celtics and Lakers. Nothing thrilled me more than to watch my overmatched Bullets silence the opposing fans with a close well played victory. It was a great basketball watching year for me and the excitement carried over into the summer

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Every year, basketball fans approach the NBA draft like a child at Christmas. Just as a Christmas toy looks the best just after opening it, a player's reputation is never so shiny as it is on draft night. And just like our Christmas toys are shoved into storage within a month, most fans soon realize the limitations of their draft pick. This phenomenon made me curious as to what the real success rate is for each of the draft picks. So starting with the Lebron draft of 2003 through last year's Derrick Rose draft, I rated each first round draft pick on a scale of 0 to 6. The categories are:

6 - transcendent! Guys who can truly make a difference by themselves. Currently I rank only 6 players in the league as sixes. They are Lebron, Kobe, D Wade, Garnett, Duncan, and Dwight Howard. Shaq used to be a 6 but not anymore. Howard is borderline.

5- perennial all star.

4- borderline all star

3- solid starter

2- contributor/role player

1- journeyman

0- bust

I was interested in finding out what a realistic expectation is for a draft pick based on his relative draft position. I had the toughest time deciding between 2 and 3 and 3 and 4. For the 2003 and 2004 drafts, separating the 0's from 1's was easy. If you are no longer in the league, you're a 0. Otherwise, you're at least a 1. Internationals who have never come over are rated 0. Here is my summary of each of the last 5 drafts. If you want my rankings for each player, just send me an email.

• 2003  2 sixes, 2 fives, 1 four, 4 threes, 8 twos, 6 ones, and 6 zeros.    average player rank: 2.34
  
• 2004 1 six, 0 fives, 2 fours,10 threes,5 twos,3 ones, and 8 zeros.       average player rank: 1.97
  
• 2005 0 sixes ,2 fives,1 four, 7 threes, 9 twos, 5 ones, 6 zeros             average player rank: 1.93
  
• 2006 0 sixes ,1 fives,0 four, 5 threes, 3 twos, 13 ones, 8 zeros           average player rank: 1.3
  
• 2007 0 sixes ,1 fives,0 four, 7 threes, 10 twos, 8 ones, 4 zeros          average player rank: 1.8
  
• 2008 0 sixes ,1 fives,2 four, 4 threes, 10 twos, 9 ones, 4 zeros         average player rank: 1.93
• 
  
• Now by draft position:

Top 10: 3 sixes ,7 fives,3 fours, 25 threes, 8 twos, 8 ones, 6  zeros  average player rank:  2.73

11-20:  0 sixes ,0 fives,3 fours, 4 threes, 18 twos, 24 ones, 11  zeros  average player rank: 1.4

21-30:  0 sixes ,0 fives,0 fours, 8 threes, 19 twos, 12 ones, 19  zeros  average player rank: 1.28

All told, there have been 178 first round picks between 2003 and 2008. 3 sixes, 7 fives, 6 fours, 37 threes, 45 twos, 44 ones, 36 zeros

2003 was far and away the best draft class of the last 6 and 2006 was awful.

The top players selected have been:

6's Lebron, Wade, Howard

5's Chris Paul, Deron Williams, Brandon Roy, Carmelo, Bosh, Kevin Durant,Derrick Rose (projected)

4's David West, Danny Granger, Al Jefferson,Michael Beasley (projected), O J Mayo (projected),Devin Harris,

The 6 top ten zeros are: Mike Sweetney, Shaun Livingston,Rafael Araujo, Luke Jackson, Patrick O'Bryant, Saer Sene

Of the 16 all star or better selections: all but 4 (Roy #6, Granger #17, West #18, Jefferson #14) have been top 5 selections.

So the lesson is most picks are going to be just so-so at best. If you want an all star, get a top 5 selection. And get it in the right year.

For any player selected after that, be happy if he becomes a regular rotation guy. Do not plan on him being in any all star games. 

Wizards picks: 2003 Jarvis Hayes  1  (probably should be a 2 but I've got some lingering bitterness), 2004 Peter John Ramos (second round): 0, 2005  Andray Blatche(second round) 2, 2006 Pecherov 0, 2007 Nick Young 2, Taser (second round)  2, 2008  Javale McGee 2

I'm a Wizards season ticket holder. I keep my ticket book in the backpack that I use in lieu of a briefcase. I also drive a 1999 Toyota Corolla that's about to hit 150000 miles on it.  Most of the time, I just leave the backpack in the car. Recently, I stopped locking my car when I park it because its old , dirty, and I don't keep anything of value in it. Well, except for my tickets.
Which brings to mind the late Newsweek columnist  Pete Axthelm.  In addition to his column, Ax served as the prognosticator/tout for the NBC NFL pre-game show in the early '80s  hosted, then as now, by Bob Costas. He was NBC's answer to Jimmy the Greek.  Axthelm had a strange term for those meaningless late season match ups between 2 dog teams. He called them "Smashed Windshield games" because if you left 2 tickets visible on the dashboard, you were likely to return to your car to find your windshield smashed...and 2 more tickets left on the dash.
Sadly, the Wizards are now a smashed windshield team. And I live in terror of returning to my car one evening and finding even more Wizards tickets.

OK, Its early to start stirring the pot, but how long should we wait? Slow starts have been a problem thus far during the season and preseason. Without Gilbert and Haywood, there's been a lack of firepower starting off games thus far.  The one player who has exceeded expectations has been Nick Young. He's shown the ability to create and hit his own shot and seems to be playing in control for the most part. Is it time to move him to the starting lineup? Its tough playing most of the game 10 down and having Nick in the lineup could open things up for Caron and Antawn from the opening tip.

The reason that I'm bringing this up so early in the year is that Comcast  Sportsnet showed an interesting graphic last night. Currently, Tayshaun Prince has a streak of over 300 consecutive games started. This leads all active players. Number 2 is Deshawn Stevenson who has STARTED  243 (or so) consecutive games. So making this change will involve much more drama for Eddie Jordan than the usual lineup switch. Does Eddie have a plan for moving Nick Young into the starting lineup? Would Deshawn accept the demotion in a non-disruptive manner? Is it the right move?  Too soon to tell?

My own feeling is that if the streak weren't involved, I would give it a try. But since the streak is involved, I don't know how I would handle it. There's potential for drama and pouting which could hurt the team. So I'm glad I'm not a coach. But Eddie needs to do something to get us more than 18 first quarter points.

I apologize that this will read like a Wizards press release. Its not. It just a deal that I don't think many people are aware of.

Just want to make sure that all in the DC area are aware that the Wizards have a season ticket deal for $16 a ticket for an upper deck seat this year. I've been buying them for 5 years now and its the best deal around. I'm not a Wizards sales person, but I'd love to see more true Wizards fans at the game.  The total price comes out to about $650 and at that price they are easy to sell (if you can only go to a few of the games).  Face value on them is $48 (I think). The best part is that  once you're a season ticket holder, they treat you like a vip even though you bought the cheap seats. You have your own account rep and get invitations to pre-game happy hours, an open practice, and things like that.

Here's the link:

Season Tickets

Its not quite year end report card time for our roster but I want to clear my conscience as soon as possible. I was against resigning Deshawn Stephenson. While I wasn't a Juan Carlos Navarro backer, I felt that we could replace Deshawn with a better shooting journeyman for cheaper. I was disappointed in the cost and length of Deshawn's new contract.

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[editor's note, by Pradamaster] Seeing as how I wasn't there, this will act as the postgame thread. Thanks to hotplate for sending in his thoughts. -PM

General impressions of the game from my vantage point in the upper deck:

Evidently there are Black people in Lithuania, although they all seem to have shortened their names. The starting guards were named Dujuan Collins and Marcus Brown. And a key substitute was named Tanaka Beard. Collins in particular, had a good game.

Andre Blatche is the MAN. I am amazed at how mature his overall game seems to be. He seems like he can be one of the rare players whose very  appearance on the floor leads the entire team to play better. He shot well, made several nice passes, made a couple of nice defensive plays, and started a couple of nice fast breaks after taking down the defensive rebound. But more than that, he seems to have great court awareness and to be a genuine presence on the floor. I heard radio man Glenn Consor compare him to Danny Manning, but I'd like to go back further for a comparison. He reminded me a bit of my namesake, John Williams (later nicknamed "Hot Plate"). Taller and thankfully much skinnier. Williams did everything well except perhaps shoot. He could influence the game without scoring. When Williams was on the court, the team's offensive spacing and ball movement was much better than when he was off. I think that Blatche could have similar impact and it may be as soon as this year.

Dominic McGuire had at least 4 assists. These were all excellent passes that led directly to an easy layup or dunk. He really sees the court well. In 2 years, he and Blatche could be an amazing tandem with their all around skillz.

Pecherov is too enamored with his jump shot. He shoots every single time that he has an open look from the 3 point line. He missed them all tonight. He needs to realize that one reason he has that open shot is that the opponent doesn't particularly mind him taking it.
Butler played a solid game including a dunk in which he sent a Lithuanian defender into the goal post.
Haywood also was solid and showed a lot of hustle.

I hate myself for it, but I find myself doing a "Donnell Taylor watch" as soon as he comes on the floor. I check the score in order to track his plus/minus which I know is going to be a minus. I start counting the number of missed shots and turnovers. I see how quickly he can pick up fouls. He had a rough start during the first half although he settled down when AD came into the game. His second half showing was uneventful, but I think the potential is there for him to become wildly unpopular with the fans.

The Wizards promotion staff led by the annoying man at the mike Chris Stiles and mascot G-Wiz/GMan seemed genuinely annoyed by the presence of a large contingent of very enthusiastic Lithuanian fans. The fans were seated in 2 lower level sections behind their team's bench and were all clad in green. They cheered and chanted throughout and didn't appear concerned that their team was losing. From my distant vantage point they seemed very good natured and looked like they would be fun to hang out with. But during 1 time out, G-Wiz went over and got one of the green Lithuanian t-shirts. He then tossed it on the ground, stomped on it, picked it up and pretended to use it as toilet paper, and then tossed it back down on the ground and stomped on it about a dozen more times. He continued this for about 30 seconds after the game resumed. I thought that he might be doing this in fun, but once he was finished, he simply walked off the other side of the court rather than return to the Lithuanian section and hanging out. It seemed mean spirited, humorless, and almost offensive. Had he engaged in a t-shirt exchange and sat amongst the fans clowning around, he would could have gained new fans for the 'zards. Similarly, Stiles and the promotions crew carefully avoided those 2 sections during the t-shirt tosses and the give aways. During one t-shirt toss, Stiles said into the mike "Don't make me go there" referring the the Lithuanian sections. Honestly why not act like HOSTS and practice sportsmanship? These fans were cheering for their national team. They don't play in our league and don't directly compete with the Wizards. Its not like they were rooting for the Cavaliers. They knew their team was going to lose but stayed cheerful throughout.  Instead of ignoring them, the promotions group should have lavished special attention on them. Give them extra t-shirts. It seems like it would be good business and kind of cool to have people in Vilnius wearing Wizards t-shirts. Why not have G-Wiz sit among the fans and party with them for a time out? Why not have a brief interview with one of the fans? Just petty and short sited. I was very surprised as the Wizards public relations seemed to have really improved over the years.