Welcome to Layup Lines, For the Win’s basketball newsletter. Subscribe here to get it delivered to your inbox every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Have feedback for the Layup Lines Crew? Leave your questions, comments and concerns through this brief reader survey. Now, here’s Mike Sykes
Happy Friday, folks! Welcome back to Layup Lines. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope you’ve had a great week and have a better weekend ahead of you.
Mine? Oh, it going great until Thursday night. I watched my Wizards fumble away a win against LeBron James and the Lakers.
This has got to be the most painful season I’ve ever endured as a fan of this team. And y’all know me, man — I’ve been through some stuff with this team. That Clippers comeback. The John Wall thing. Spencer Dinwiddie. Just…ugh.
Somehow, though, this season sits on a pedestal of suckitude alone. The Wizards are a laughingstock. Only having nine wins so far this season already felt like rock bottom. It certainly is. But, as it turns out, things are only getting worse.
Washington didn’t win a single game in February — the team went 0-12. You have to call the team the Ashington Izards now. The Ws are gone. I would say throw some Ls in front of that but I also feel like actual Lizards might be insulted.
I don’t know when the next Wizards win might come. There’s no “get right” game on the schedule. The Wizards are the “get right” team everyone looks forward to. The team can’t play itself. If it did, it’d obviously lose. Yes, it’s that bad.
We’re still quite a bit away from the Wizards potentially breaking the Piston’s streak, but I’ll tell you what: It does feel possible.
It’s hard to pinpoint where the team’s next win will come from.
Washington’s next five games are: @ L.A. Clippers, @ Utah Jazz, vs. Orlando Magic, vs. Charlotte Hornets @ Miami Heat.
Of those five, maybe the Hornets’ game can be a win? The Jazz also aren’t playing the greatest, though that’s a road matchup. The Wizards might be able to steal a game or two from one of these teams during this stretch.
But nothing here is clear. None of these games are guaranteed. And, if Washington doesn’t get one here, we could be looking at another all-time losing streak like the one we saw from Detroit earlier this year.
The basketball gods, man. They’re so cruel.
The 40-20 rule
Robert Zeglinski is using an old Phil Jackson rule to determine which team might win the championship this season.
The rule is this: Generally, the NBA champion is going to be a team that wins 40 games before it loses 20 games. He explains more here:
“The 11-time champion coach with the Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers once said that for a team to be a true “elite” championship contender, it must win 40 games before losing 20. Now, that might seem like a random barometer that Jackson thought up out of thin air. But when you look at NBA history, it’s actually a fantastic indicator of who has a realistic chance of winning the title.
That’s because 27 of the last 30 NBA champions won 40 games before losing 20. Dearest readers, that is 90 percent of all title winners in recent memory.”
If we’re going by 40-20 rule logic, we’ve got four legitimate contenders: The Celtics, the Timberwolves, the Nuggets and the Thunder.
We’ll revisit this once we get to the Finals.
Shootaround
— Here’s Bryan Kalbrosky with the latest mock draft. Of course, the Wizards are picking at No. 1.
— Shaq trying to bait Charles Barkley into giving an OnlyFans shoutout on the air is incredible content. Here’s Charles Curtis with more.
— Prince Grimes has the best bets for division winners in the NBA. That Southwest division is going crazy right now.
— Here’s the latest Morning Win on Caitlin Clark and the false idea of a pay cut waiting for her in the WNBA.
That’s a wrap, folks! We’ll be back on Monday. Until next time! Peace. We out.
-Sykes ✌️
