- The
Washington Wizards have lost all four of their bubble games and are now 24-44 on the season. - Their .353 win percentage actually puts them lower in the standings than the 23-34 Charlotte Hornets, who were not even invited to the bubble.
- The Wizards are without their top two scorers in the bubble, but many thought they were needlessly invited to resume the
NBA season.
The Washington Wizards were given a chance to make a run at the playoffs in the NBA bubble, but it has not gone well so far.
The Wizards are 0-4 in the bubble and have fallen to 24-44 on the season. Their .353 win percentage puts them at 10th in the Eastern Conference, a hair below the Charlotte Hornets, who at 23-43, were not even invited to the NBA's bubble.
The fall lends further support to critics' arguments that the Wizards should not have been invited to the bubble in the first place. Some have felt that the NBA invited too many teams back, with each additional person representing further risk of COVID-19 in the pandemic.
The NBA brought back 22 teams to resume the season, 13 in the Western Conference, and 9 in the East. While the Wizards were 5.5 games back of the eighth and final playoff spot in the East, they were also just 24-40, hardly competitive for the duration of the season.
However, the NBA also introduced a play-in "tournament" for the eighth seed, so bringing nine Eastern Conference teams back created the possibility of a tournament in the East.
The Wizards were only further hurt by Bradley Beal and Davis Bertans, the team's top two scorers, opting out of the bubble. That left rookie forward Rui Hachimura as the team's top scorer still on the roster.
And it's not as if Washington has been particularly competitive so far. Through four games, the Wizards have been outscored by 41 points and have a -10.3 net rating (score differential per 100 possessions).
It only gets worse from here for the Wizards: three of their next four games are against the Oklahoma City Thunder, Milwaukee Bucks, and Boston Celtics, three of the top nine teams in the NBA.
FiveThirtyEight gives Washington less than a 1% chance of making the playoffs.
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