Washington Wizards

Team information

• Inaugural season: 1961
• Home arena: Capital One Arena, Washington, DC
• Owner: Ted Leonsis
• Team colors: Red, navy blue, silver, and white

Overview

The Washington Wizards is a professional basketball team that plays in the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) Eastern Conference. The franchise originated in Chicago in 1961, where its team name—the Packers—did not go over well with the city’s football fans. The franchise briefly became the Zephyrs before heading east to Baltimore. Now dubbed the Bullets, the team became a perennial playoff contender when it drafted center Wes Unseld, who won two of the NBA’s major awards in his first season in the league. A decade after moving to Baltimore, the team headed south to Washington, DC, where it won the NBA championship in 1978. Despite another trip to the Finals in 1979, Washington slowly drifted into mediocrity during the 1980s. In 1997, the team’s owner decided to replace Bullets as the franchise name to avoid being associated with the city’s gun violence. However, the Washington Wizards did not fare any better with a new name, struggling to find playoff success well into the twenty-first century.

History

After contracting from seventeen teams in 1949 to eight teams in 1955, the NBA expanded by one in 1961 with the addition of the Chicago Packers. The team played next door to the Union Stock Yards and was named after the city’s thriving meatpacking industry. However, Packers was also the name of Green Bay’s NFL team, a hated rival to the hometown Chicago Bears. Despite the presence of NBA Rookie of the Year Walt Bellamy, the Packers finished with the worst record in the league and ditched the unpopular name after one season. The new name, the Chicago Zephyrs, may have sounded better to Bears fans, but the on-court result was the same.

In 1963, the franchise moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and changed its name again to the Baltimore Bullets. The name was a tribute to an old Baltimore Bullets team that was formed in 1944 and played in the early NBA for a few years before folding. The original franchise either chose its name because the team practiced in a nearby ammunition factory or from a locally produced sneaker brand called the Bata Bullets.

In their first five years in Baltimore, the Bullets failed to post a winning record but did make two playoff appearances. The team’s outlook began to brighten in 1967, when the Bullets selected guard Earl “the Pearl” Monroe with the second pick of the NBA Draft. The next year, Baltimore again had the second overall pick in the draft and chose center Wes Unseld. Monroe’s shooting and Unseld’s presence under the basket propelled the Bullets to a division title and a berth in the playoffs. Unseld was especially dominant, winning both the NBA Most Valuable Player (MVP) Award and the Rookie of the Year Award. He joined all-time NBA great Wilt Chamberlain as the only player in history to accomplish that feat.

In 1971, the Bullets advanced to the NBA Finals, where they lost to a Milwaukee Bucks team that featured two future Hall of Famers in Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Oscar Robertson. At the start of the 1971–1972 season, Baltimore traded Monroe to the New York Knicks; however, after the season, they added forward Elvin Hayes in a trade with the Houston Rockets. Prior to the start of the 1973–1974 season, the Bullets relocated again, this time to Landover, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. For one season, they were called the Capital Bullets, before changing to the Washington Bullets in 1974. In their first season as the Washington Bullets, the team won a franchise-best sixty games and returned to the NBA Finals, losing to the Golden State Warriors.

After two more playoff exits in 1976 and 1977, Washington advanced to its third NBA Finals of the decade where they faced the Seattle SuperSonics. Washington rallied from being down 3–2 to win the series in seven games. At the time, the Bullets were the only team in history to win Game Seven of the NBA Finals on the road. However, the championship would be the only one in franchise history. Washington did return to the Finals in 1979 where they lost a rematch to Seattle, but that would mark their last trip to the NBA championship series.

The Bullets had made the playoffs for twelve straight seasons from 1969 to 1980. Although Washington made the playoffs in 1979–1980, the team did so with a 39–43 record. During the 1980s, the Bullets would finish above .500 just three times, although they would make seven playoff appearances, losing in the first round six times. The 1990s would be even worse, as the team would make the playoffs just once and post eight losing seasons.

In 1995, then-franchise owner Abe Pollin announced that he would be dropping Bullets as the team name because of what he said were its violent overtones. At the time, gun violence in Washington was considered a major issue, and the city had one of the highest homicide rates in the United States. A fan contest narrowed down the choices for a new name to Dragons, Express, Sea Dogs, Stallions, or Wizards. In 1997, Pollin announced that the team would be known as the Wizards starting in the 1997–1998 season. That same year, the franchise relocated to a new arena in downtown Washington. Originally called the MCI Center, the facility was renamed the Capital One Arena in 2018. The new logo featured a basketball-playing wizard and a color scheme of blue, black, and gold. In 2011, the team changed its colors to red, white, and blue. A new logo was introduced in 2014 that featured a silver star on a red, white, and blue basketball in the center of a circle surrounded by the team name.

However, the new identity did not solve the franchise’s old problems. Washington still struggled to win games on the court. In 2001, the Wizards attracted the attention of the NBA world when superstar Michael Jordan decided to come out of retirement to play for the team. Jordan, who is considered by many to be the best player in NBA history, had been part of the Wizards’ ownership group since 2000. Jordan was thirty-eight when he returned, and while he led the Wizards in scoring in 2001–2002, he was unable to provide much help in the standings. In his two seasons with Washington, the team finished with identical 37–45 records. For the remainder of the 2000s and 2010s, the Wizards’ experienced some moderate success, making the playoffs four times from 2005 to 2008 and four more times from 2014 to 2018; however, each playoff ended well short of the conference finals.

Notable players

During the franchise’s first decade of existence, the team was home to three NBA rookies of the year and five future Hall of Famers. Walt Bellamy won rookie honors with the Chicago Packers in 1961–1962 when he finished second in the NBA in scoring and third in rebounding. Bellamy played with the franchise until being traded in 1965 and made his four All-Star appearances with Chicago/Baltimore. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1993. Forward Gus Johnson played for Baltimore from 1963 until 1972. He made five All-Star teams with the Bullets and was named to the Hall of Fame in 2010. Earl Monroe won Rookie of the Year honors in 1967–1968 and made two All-Star teams with Baltimore until being traded in 1971. Monroe entered the Hall of Fame in 1990. Bailey Howell, a 1997 Hall of Fame inductee, played in Baltimore from 1964 to 1966 and made one All-Star team during that time.

Wes Unseld played his entire thirteen-year career with the Bullets, making five All-Star teams and winning both the 1969 Rookie of the Year and MVP awards. He was also the MVP of the 1978 NBA Finals. Unseld’s 13,769 rebounds are the most in franchise history and the twelfth-most in NBA history. He entered the Hall of Fame in 1988. Unseld’s teammate on the 1978 championship team, Elvin Hayes, played with the Bullets from 1972 to 1981. He made eight of his twelve career All-Star appearances with the team and, as of 2020, holds the franchise mark for points scored with 15,551. His 9,306 rebounds are second in team history, and career rebound total of 16,279 is fourth in NBA history. Hayes was named to the Hall of Fame in 1990.

In the 2000s, guard Gilbert Arenas made three All-Star appearances and led the Wizards into the playoffs from 2004 to 2008. Point guard John Wall was drafted by Washington in 2010 and is the franchise leader in assists with 5,282. The five-time All-Star is also fourth in scoring with 10,879 career points. Shooting guard Bradley Beal was a first-round selection in the 2012 NBA Draft and made the All-Star team in 2018 and 2019. As of 2020, Beal is second on the franchise list in points scored with 11,425.

Bibliography

Anderson, Jerran. “Washington Wizards: 30 Greatest Players in Franchise History.” FanSided, 2020, wizofawes.com/2018/09/06/washington-wizards-30-greatest-players-franchise-history-wes-unseld-elvin-hayes/. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

“Bullets and Wizards History.” NBA.com, 2020, www.nba.com/wizards/wizards-history. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

Hughes, Chase. “The Big Twenty: The Michael Jordan Era With the Wizards.” NBA Sports Washington, 5 Feb. 2020, www.nbcsports.com/washington/wizards/big-twenty-michael-jordan-era-wizards. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

Lee, Albert. “How Did The 1977–78 Bullets Win the Championship and Where Are They Today?” SB Nation, 24 Mar. 2018, www.bulletsforever.com/2018/3/24/17151768/washington-bullets-1978-championship-team. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

Petkac, Luke. “The Origin Stories of Every NBA Team’s Name.” Bleacher Report, 9 Feb. 2013, bleacherreport.com/articles/1523132-the-origin-stories-of-every-nba-teams-name. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

“Washington Wizards.” Basketball Reference, 2020, www.basketball-reference.com/teams/WAS/. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

“Washington Wizards.” Sports E-cyclopedia, 16 Apr. 2018, sportsecyclopedia.com/nba/dc/wizards.html. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.

“Washington Wizards Team History.” Sports Team History, 2020, sportsteamhistory.com/washington-wizards. Accessed 21 Apr. 2020.