The Wizards are adding insult to injury for two failed contenders

The Washington Wizards are 5-7 since the calendar flipped to February. 

That record certainly isn’t setting the world on fire, but for a team that has endured multiple 16-game losing streaks within this season, near-.500 basketball for a month is a welcome change of pace — especially considering some of the conversations the Wizards found themselves in.

The Wizards’ 5-7 record since Feb. 1 is 17th-best in the league in that span, tied with the New Orleans Pelicans and Atlanta Hawks. Eleven teams have had it worse than the Wizards this month, including two should-be contenders. So who is flailing?

Houston Rockets (5-8) and Orlando Magic (5-8)

The Rockets are coming back down to Earth. Their 5-8 record since Feb. 1, however, is a product of their recent six-game losing streak, their only losing streak this season of more than two games.

The Magic, meanwhile, are being ravaged by an all-out infestation of the injury bug. Paolo Banchero, Franz Wagner, and Jalen Suggs have only played 97 total minutes together so far this season, according to ESPN’s Shams Charania. Moritz Wagner and Suggs are out for the remainder of the season as Orlando clings to an outside shot at the playoffs with a 29-33 record.

Miami Heat (5-8) and LA Clippers (4-8)

The “Zombie” Heat, as Bill Simmons famously called them, were once the team every top seed wanted to duck in case Jimmy Butler left his body in the first round of the playoffs again. Without Butler, Miami’s teeth have been pulled, and it looks like they’ll once again be farting around in the play-in with the Hawks and Bulls for the forty-seventh year in a row — this time without the fear factor that’s defined their decade to this point.

The Clippers were never really “contenders,” but this sneaky good team has dropped five of its last six games, including two close ones against their cross-town rival Lakers. The Clippers can never have anything nice.

San Antonio Spurs (4-10)

This season could have gone so much differently for the Spurs had Victor Wembanyama not been lost for the season with blood clots. They had staggered a bit in the weeks leading up to Wemby’s diagnosis, but a Spurs team that once looked like a terrifying potential first-round matchup is now diving head-first into the lottery.

Toronto Raptors (4-9), Utah Jazz (5-9), Chicago Bulls (3-9), Charlotte Hornets (2-12)

Now here are the Wizards’ true contemporaries. The “Sag for Flagg” tier, if you will. 

At this point in the season, I have very little insightful analysis to share about any of these teams, so I will not waste your time. Start taking spins on Tankathon.com.

Phoenix Suns (3-11) and Philadelphia 76ers (2-10)

The respective seasons the Suns and Sixers are enduring are both so catastrophic that it genuinely may not be possible to sensationalize them. These two teams are such trainwrecks that they have been drawing comparisons to other historic failed “superteams” all season long, and it certainly doesn't help that they've been cleanly outperformed by the Wizards for over a month now. 

One crucial factor separates this season’s Suns and Sixers from other notable failed superteams — the persistently maligned ‘13 Lakers, the KD-Kyrie-Harden Nets, the ‘04 Lakers, and the Hakeem-Barkley-Pippen Rockets all made the playoffs. The Suns and Sixers will not.

Let’s start with Phoenix. That anyone even believed in the “three volume scorers headlined by Kevin Durant” model for team building in the first place is laughable considering Durant arrived in Phoenix midseason from the blowup of the aforementioned Nets team.

Phoenix’s theoretical recipe for success is bitter on offense and downright inedible on defense. How could it ever have worked? 

Consider the Donovan Mitchell-Rudy Gobert Utah Jazz: Utah’s defense was routinely exposed in the playoffs as Royce O’Neale couldn’t hold off every quick guard and athletic forward on his own. Now imagine that exact scenario playing out down to the personnel, but instead of a four-time Defensive Player of the Year protecting the rim, it’s… Nick Richards? That’s the defense Phoenix is wheeling out.

It simply is not working. Luckily a Durant trade is beyond inevitable, so Phoenix can recoup some of their sacrificed assets when they deal him this summer. Booker will also fetch a haul if they decide to move him (they should). 

It could be worse. They could be Philly.

Philly is in the exact same situation as Phoenix but without the escape hatch of trading their top two stars. Whereas Durant and Booker still produce at All-Star levels, Paul George just does cardio to the tune of $50 million per year, while Joel Embiid’s body is so broken down that Keith Smith floated the idea of medical retirement.

George and Embiid are both already distressed assets, and they’re both on the books for $50-plus million annually through at least 2028.

Philly is completely locked into the two players, neither of whom has been particularly effective this season in the off-chance they’ve taken the court. I’m not sure we’ve ever seen a salary cap squeeze this severe — it’s like Philly has two separate boa constrictors choking them to death at the same time.

Tyrese Maxey and Jared McCain are the future. But how can Philly blow it up to build around them when the assets due to be shipped out are completely and utterly untradeable?

All this and both teams are playing worse than the Wizards.