Where Are They Now?: Washington Wizards Cult Heroes

Over the years, many basketball players of varying skill and ability have worn the Washington Wizards jersey. Some of them have been All-Stars. Many more of them have been bit players, making a few appearances and moving on to possibly greener pastures.

In rare cases, some of these short-timers can make an indelible impact on the minds of Wizards fans – hell, we still talk about Othyus Jeffers and Big Game James Singleton today. By and large, these players were journeymen, and many of them are still active today around the basketball world.

The aforementioned Jeffers is still beloved by Washington Wizards fans who remember him.

Jeffers was an instant jolt of joyous energy in his 16 games with the Wizards in the 2010-11 season, but injury ended his time in the nation’s capital.

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Jeffers made a brief return to the NBA at the end of last season with the San Antonio Spurs, but he’s spent most of his time since his days in DC in the D-League, where he was voted league co-MVP last season.

However, he currently finds himself out of work after failing to make an NBA roster this season, his last court action coming in a brief stint in the Philippines at the end of last year.

Lest we forget that the Wizards extended him a qualifying offer after the end of the 2010-11 season, but rescinded it after he tore his ACL in the offseason… what might have been, Othyus.

Meanwhile, after taking last season off, James Singleton is back in the D-League. Singleton thrilled Wizards fans with his rebounding and tenacity in two nonconsecutive stints with Washington, but Singleton spurned DC’s offer of a minimum contract and went to China, where he played with Guangdong and Xinjiang (the latter of whom employed Andray Blatche this season, who ended up averaging 31 points and 15 rebounds per game).

After some time away from the game, Singleton is now a member of the D-League’s Canton Charge, where he’s averaged just under 10 points and 8 rebounds in nine games mostly off the bench. Singleton is 33-years-old, hasn’t played an NBA game in almost three years, and would fix zero of the Wizards’ problems, but I still would lose my mind if the Wizards signed him for that open roster spot. Free Big Game James.

January 22, 2011. The Wizards vs. the Celtics at the Verizon Center. A rookie John Wall led the way with 16 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists, but it was his backup that night who made the most noise. An unknown D-Leaguer called up that very day, Mustafa Shakur took the court for the first time wearing one of the most bizarre jerseys ever seen on an NBA court, a slap-dash job done at the last second when he arrived right before the game.

Funnily enough, it would probably be his best night in the NBA – Shakur played an excellent 10 minutes, scoring 5 points and dishing out 5 assists to help the Wizards to a big upset win over the 33-9 Celtics.

Just like that, Mustafa Shakur was part of Washington Wizards lore. He would get a real jersey for the rest of his 22-game stint in Washington, but never repeated the great form of his debut. Shakur has played all over the world since then – from France to Italy to Lebanon, with several D-League stops in between – and even made an NBA return with three games as a member of the Oklahoma City Thunder last season.

Today, Shakur finds himself as the starting point guard for the Lithuanian team Neptunas, a rising squad that reached the Euroleague group stage for the first time in their history this season. Shakur has done well in leading Neptunas to a 23-4 record, second-best in the Lithuanian league – they’re breathing right down the necks of former Wizard Darius Songaila and traditional superpower Zalgiris Kaunas for the top spot.

We finish our tour with one of the largest men to wear a Wizards uniform. A 7-foot-3 giant from Puerto Rico, Peter John Ramos looked like a steal when the Wizards took him 32^nd in the 2004 NBA Draft, especially after he helped Puerto Rico to their stunning upset win over the USA in the 2004 Olympics. In the end, however, Party John was only destined to be a living reminder of the hubris of the early 2000s Wizards, and was cut loose after playing in only six games with the team in the 2004-05 season.

Ramos never got another look in the NBA, despite his size and youth – he was only 19 when he was drafted and 21 when the Wizards cut him. Ramos’ post-Wizards career has naturally been played mostly in his native Puerto Rico, with occasional stopovers in places like China and South Korea.

It appeared earlier this year that he would be teaming up with another former Wizard, Al Thornton, for the Brujos de Guayama (ironically, “brujo” is Spanish for “wizard”) in the Puerto Rican league, but that appears not to have lasted long – they both flew the coop before the season started signing in the Philippines.

Al Thornton’s Wizards career peaked when he threw down this monstrous dunk that nearly shattered the Hawks’ Zaza Pachulia into a trillion pieces.

He’s now averaging over 30 points a game for the NLEX Road Warriors in the Philippines, a basketball-mad nation where American imports have the chance to put up extremely gaudy numbers.

Meanwhile, Party John is plying his trade with the Kia Sorentos (most team names in the Philippine Basketball Association have sponsors in them, like the Rain or Shine Elasto Painters or the Talk ‘N Text Tropang Texters), an expansion team owned by sometime-boxer, sometime-Congressman, full time national icon Manny Pacquiao, who occasionally plays for the team as well.

To give you a sense of the relative skill level of the PBA, Ramos is averaging 32 points and 20 rebounds for Kia, a team that doesn’t have a single other player over 6-foot-6. Party John is still partying on.

Next: Grunfeld and Wittman: Analog Players in a Digital World

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Former Washington Wizards (Where Are They Now?): The Cult Heroes

By David Statman | Mar 1, 2015