Tank the Season? Not So Fast

For those wondering whether or not the Wizards will try to tank the rest of the season for a higher draft pick, wonder no more.

The Wizards pretty much summed up how they felt about that idea last night after they manhandled the Charlotte Bobcats by nearly 30 points and improved to 3-0 in their season series against the NBA’s worst team.

In a not-so-marquee game featuring the league’s cellar dwellers, Washington took command from the get-go, scoring the game’s first 8 points and setting the tone for the rest of the way.

After taking a 20 point lead at halftime, the Wiz Kids never looked back and steadily built the lead to as many as 32 in the fourth quarter, thanks mainly to a blistering 67-point performance by the Wizards’ bench led by none other than James Singleton and Cartier Martin.

Let me just get this out of the way: the Charlotte Bobcats suck. Seven in the win column is enough to justify that statement, but actually observing this team for a full 48 minutes will display a totally different realm of basketball - one that shouldn’t exist. They have some of the least recognizable players in the league, they're nonexistent in transition, lethargic on defense, terrible at shooting and simply inattentive on all ends of the court. Let’s just say there aren’t enough NBA memes on Facebook to characterize the incompetence of this team.

These factors played in effect very well for the Wizards, who were due for a replenishing performance after dropping 10 of their previous 11 games, not to mention coming off their second back-to-back-to-back stretch of the season.

No discredit to Singleton and Martin, who played wonderfully, but the Charlotte MJ’s just made two players who were recently jobless in the NBA look like Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter.

Just a week ago, Singleton was overseas in China as a member of the Guangdong Southern Tigers probably eating steamed duck feet as a pre-game meal. Today he is back in Washington relishing an 18 point, 12 rebound, 3 assist, 2 block and 2 steal game, vouching him to be inked for the rest of the season.

Martin contributed 19 points including four tre’s and added six rebounds, continuing to impress during his short two week stint with the team.

The Orlando Magic are in town tonight and they’ll have Clark Kent – not Superman – on the bench nursing back spasms. Dwight Howard’s absence should come as a break for the Wizards’ depleted front line, which has been abused by the Magic’s big man all season. Howard averaged nearly 22 points and 17 rebounds per game this season against the Wizards.

With the Magic sans their all-star and the Wizards coming off a momentum building debacle of the Bobcats, I think it may be safe to say that the thoughts of “sucking for Davis” can be forgotten.

As intriguing as the thoughts of "The Brow" in D.C. are, these guys don't seem too concerned. They're riding this one out.