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What the Hell are the Washington Wizards?

The Washington Wizards were lousy in the second half and their best player has five broken bones. Naturally, they somehow have a shot at making the NBA Finals.
Photo by Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

John Wall is currently working toward trying to dribble a basketball, which seems good. His injury status is my hand and wrist are so fucked up that I can't perform one of my chosen sport's essential motions. According to ESPN's Chris Broussard, it's "highly unlikely" Wall will return to action at any point during these playoffs, but Randy Wittman is holding out hope, speaking publicly about the swelling in Wall's left hand going down and the possibility of getting him on the practice court sometime soon.

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Like everything about the Wizards, there's a strange, sad, and perhaps misplaced hopefulness to this saga. If precedent is any indication, Wittman will either prudently sit Wall, then see his point guard further injured when Marcin Gortat dives into the bench for a loose ball, or Wall will hand out 12 assists in a series-clinching Game 6 while dribbling right-handed the entire time. These are the Washington Wizards, which means everything is in play.

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The NBA is a relatively legible league. Contenders and basement-dwellers grow and collapse and transmute as the seasons pass, but it's generally somewhat clear where every team is in its respective trajectory. The Warriors, Clippers, and Cavs are trying to win now; the Pelicans and Celtics are youngish and improving; the Knicks and Sixers are in the middle of teardowns. These things go in slow, chartable cycles. Teams generally don't come out of nowhere to join the title chase, nor do they suddenly bottom out without suffering catastrophic injury luck.

This is to say that the Wizards have had one weird season. They were ascendant in 2014, with the John Wall and Bradley Beal backcourt looking like it might be the very best in the league sometime soon. Then they bogged down after the calendar flipped, with Randy Wittman's choked, ponderous non-offense spitting out contested 15-footers, bafflingly but quite possibly by design. It seemed, as the Wiz were heading into the playoffs, that they were a franchise on the brink of moderate change. They'd flame out early, Wittman would be fired, and the team, maybe slightly rejiggered and with a new basketball brain holding the dry-erase board, would try to figure out what worked well in December and what went so rancidly wrong by February.

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More like Potto Orter imo. — Photo by Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports

Instead, the Wizards are trying to remain optimistic about Wall's injury because, holy shit, they could go deep into these playoffs if he can give them anything. Whether they will, and whether Wall heals enough to play are for prognosticators and source-working journos to worry about, and even they aren't even pretending to know anything yet. But it's remarkable, regardless of what happens over the next week or several weeks, that the Wizards are in this position at all, staring down a weak Eastern Conference field and thinking we can take any and all comers.

The Atlanta Hawks were the best team in the conference for much of the season, but are presently a finely tuned automobile with an out-of-whack suspension. The Cavs are down one star already, and Kyrie Irving's foot problem is getting worse by the game. The Bulls are great when Derrick Rose is in top form but mediocre when he isn't, and Rose is as inconsistent as he is handsome. The Wizards would already be out of the postseason if they played in the West; they might not have made it in the first place. They don't, and so here they are.

It's difficult to tell if their fans should be happy about this. Obviously, everyone that cares about the Wizards should enjoy the playoffs while they can. Paul Pierce is going to be a majestic geyser of shit-talk forever, but this might be the last time he has anything of substance to brag about. ("I called game" is an immortally ridiculous statement, but also a pretty solid epitaph.) Otto Porter's transformation from a busted rookie into a do-it-all bench player has been fun to watch. Bradley Beal, when he's on the court, is one of the smoothest two-guards playing. There's stuff to appreciate here, but what the Wizards are doing feels and mostly is exceedingly flukey. They're contenders by succession, not because they're particularly good.

This reality isn't bad by itself—Wall is 24 and Beal is 21; there's no rush—but owner Ted Leonsis seems to go out of his way to maintain the status quo, which means this cute run could encourage him to sink another season into this exact group, with this exact coach, when it's clear to anyone with eyes that some adjustments need to be made. Marcin Gortat quietly had a pretty lousy regular season. Nene is 32 and looks like he's in decline. Ramon Sessions and Drew Gooden play meaningful bench minutes for this team, which is not any better than it looks. Wittman might not be as imbecilic as he sometimes appears—he's been coaching reasonably well over the past couple weeks, at least—but surely, there are better candidates out there. The Wiz are as likely to go backwards next season as forwards if they don't make a few changes. If management can't see that, they're in trouble.

In the meantime, they remain the NBA's oddest half-success. The Wizards are up 2-1 on a crumbling Hawks squad; there's no juggernaut waiting for them in the Eastern Conference Finals should they pull off the upset. Where they're headed, both in the short- and long-term, remains up in the air. All there is to do now is push concern for the future to one side and enjoy this improbable and supremely goofy ride.