Wednesday, September 2, 2009

Should the Wizards Go Back to Being the Bullets?


Over at Mr Irrelevant, they been dogging the Wizards name and uniforms for quite some time. In a post about a possible name change, I've gotten on board with them. I hated that the Bullets became the Wizards. It makes no sense.

First off, I don't care about the Wizards/Bullets. I don't. But I like the Washington Bullets much better than the Washington Wizards. Yeah, the Bullets logo and uniform style were a bit bland but it just felt right.

The name was changed because team owner Abe Pollin decided that "bullets" was too violent. Okay, so why pick Wizards? Black magic and the occult are okay? Having a team's name also a high ranking of the KKK is cool? Nicking the name down a bit more gives us the "Wiz" ... which makes me think of making water in the toilet. Some people even go with the "Zards" card.

I didn't think "bullets" meant much more than the team was fast as a bullet. When you play in the same town as a team nicknamed the Redskins ... "bullets" doesn't look too bad.

Also, the Wizards era hasn't been too kind. They've won exactly one playoff series in the 12 seasons since the name change. Of course, there wasn't much in the seasons leading up to the change either. In the last 27 seasons, the Wizards have gotten past the first round of the playoffs just once.

Still, the Bullets won a NBA Championship in 1978 and returned to the Finals in '79. The Wizards have won a total of eight postseason games. With the Bullets, I think of Wes Unseld, Earl Monroe, Gus Johnson and Elvin Hayes. With the Wizards, I think of an old Michael Jordan and a too-young Kwame Brown. The Bullets had those retro cool red, white and blue striped jerseys. The Wizards have some sort of gold and black jerseys of a team that plays the Harlem Globetrotters.

I say go back to being the Bullets. Screw the PC agenda and do what makes you happy!

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