How to Raise A WizKid: Tips for Teaching Your Kids to Love the Wizards

It’s hard to be a protective parent of young children in the year 2020 – what, with Paw Patrol and Peppa Pig constantly bombarding our kids with sex and materialism, and Nike feeding them the lie that Kevin Durant has the heart of a champion.

ESPN can keep spinning this change in NBA culture as the “player empowerment era” until it can’t walk straight, but those of us who’ve been following basketball since before Twitter recognize this as one of the oldest evils in the game: bandwagoning. The only difference now is the players are getting in on taking the easy way out too.

Yes, I knew what I was getting into when I chose to have children outside of a major basketball market, but at the very least it used to be it was left to the parents to decide if and when to have the “talk” with their kids about the ESPN/TNT national broadcast schedule, All-Star fan voting, and referee superstar treatment. Nowadays, however, I can’t take my boys to a park in MD without some knucklehead 12-year-old with absentee parents scandalizing my kids’ innocence by rocking a Steph Curry jersey, flaunting his new Kyrie 6’s, and practicing James Harden step-back threes from the half-court circle. “F*** you, kid! Don’t you know second-hand hero ball is extremely hazardous to young children!?!”

Declining fandom fertility (fervor-tility) isn’t a problem unique to the DC basketball fan. All over the country, NBA fans who don’t reside in the Northeast, LA, or Texas go through the same struggle of keeping their kids above the influence of basketball players who are their own brand.

For us in the DMV though, the imperative of passing on our Wizards fandom goes deeper than trying to avoid raising a kid you’ll resent every Christmas Day during the NBA marquee games. For us, transmitting faith in the Wizards is a matter of survival vs. extinction – because if we fail in this calling, our kind will go the way of G-Man, never to be seen again. Capitals owner Ted Leonsis couldn’t build a fanbase if he purchased a Vornado Air Mover from Lowe’s with no assembly required. And the legions of spineless copycats that comprise NBA Twitter certainly won’t be joining our bandwagon any time before we land Lebron ‘Bronny-Bron” James III in the 2045 NBA Draft. It’s clear then that the only viable way to preserve our tribe is to dutifully indoctrinate our sons and daughters in the history, culture, and rituals of Washington Wizards basketball.

I’ve fathered two human beings to date, and from the moment the older one drew his first breath three years ago, my highest priority in this world has been the fulfillment of my parental obligations: to protect and provide for my sons, to teach them, and to make damn certain they Rep the District. But these days just talking to your kids isn’t enough to keep them subscribing to the First Take podcast, or from succumbing to the temptations of the Duke Blue Devil.

We need to be more vigilant. Being a parent of a #DCFamily is a full-time job, and it takes a full Capital One Arena to raise a WizKid. With that in mind, I’m outlining some tricks-of-the-trade for my fellow Wizards moms and pops (and future Wizards moms and pops too) of how to help your young children grow up to be the best Wizards fans they can be.

1. Enhance your kids’ memorable milestones with Wizards gear: People claim all the time that they’re lifelong fans of whatever team, but do we really believe they were worried about repping a particular sports squad when they were still nursing at mom’s chest and pooping in their pants? Give your kids ammo to stake that claim credibly by making sure that when the pics of their big firsts get posted across ten different social media sites they have them sporting the Wizards logo. Hey Facebook, here’s baby coming home for the first time – and look! he’s got on a Wizards newborn onesie. 110 Likes. Look Instagram, here’s a video of baby exploring his first snowfall, and of course he has a Wizards hat keeping his head warm! Memory complete with a snazzy caption and Wizards hashtags.

2. Tailor holiday traditions to be Wizards specific: Every holiday, we parents go through a lot of trouble and elaborate backstories to spoil our kids with new toys and candy, so we might as well leverage all that undue stress to stoke their love for our basketball team. In my house, it’s John Wall not Santa Claus, who brings gifts on Christmas (honestly, isn’t a an All-Star with a $40M salary generously giving back to the community more believable than an old guy flying around on a sleigh?); people give us candy on Halloween to commemorate the anniversary of Bradley Beal’s first points as a Wizards; and since last year, the 4th of July fireworks are a celebration of our independence from Ernie Grunfeld.

3. Implement your own Wiz50 promos at home: Food promos like Papa John’s Wiz50 do well to give fans an extra incentive to root for team success – I for one never order pizza unless the Wizards won and scored 100 points the previous night. Why not take that tactic a step further and start conditioning your children to enjoy it when the Wiz win? For my boys, if the team wins, we get ice cream. If the team wins against Kyrie Irving or the Celtics, we get ice cream AND brownies. And if the Wiz ever win the championship, we’ll be going to Disneyland, Disney World, and Disneyland Paris.

4. Figure out how to explain to your toddlers what exactly a wizard is (“It’s like a man who can move rocks and things by twirling a stick..”) and why it’s totally badass and awesome (think Gandalf and Voldemort, not Wizards of Waverly Place): It would be much easier for kids to understand what our mascot was if it was something easy to grasp like a Bull, or a Hawk, or even a Sun. My two-year old says “wizards” all the time, but I’m pretty sure he thinks the word means 6’ 65 black guy.

5. Teach your kids how to dougie and groove to Mambo Sauce’s “Welcome to DC.”

6. Sign your kids up for the Wizards Kids Club: Not because it will help them become better fans, but because they sometimes give out exclusive bobbleheads that you’ll want to add you personal collection (which is obviously kept out of your kids’ reach.)

7. Get your kids to the arena early and often: This past MLK Day, I took my two toddlers to their first Wizards game and my immediate takeaway was I should’ve taken them sooner. We have the Wiz on at home all the time, but until my boys witnessed a contest in person, I’m not sure they really understood that what they’ve been seeing on the television represents live events taking place elsewhere in the world. Also, kids under 3 don’t need a ticket, so you should start building up their fandom resume while it’s free.

A couple tips, based on my recent experience, for parents taking their little ones to Capital One Arena:

– The player introductions are loud. With the blasting go-go music, the intense light display, and the flames shooting out of the backboard, your kid might get hit with sensory overload before the game even starts. My oldest hid in his face in my arms and my youngest fell into a wide-eyed trance. Depending on how your kids do with things like fireworks or police sirens, consider taking your seats after tip-off.

– Pick your seats to maximize space. If your kids are anything like mine, the only thing they’re going to sit still for two hours for is a Pixar movie on Disney +. So, when planning your Wizards excursion, try to find seats that are going to allow for your tots to move around a little. We managed to sit in the first row of a section, allowing our boys to play on the stairs without having to worry about anyone passing by. Also target games that might be more sparsely attended – we got lucky in having four empty chairs next to us and the extra space helped a lot.

– At the game we went to the Pistons were wearing their alternative red jerseys, which led some to confusion for our boys who were wearing red Wizards shirt and therefore uncertain of why their parents were cheering the team in white. Ideally, you can take your kid to a game where the opponent’s green, purple, or orange jerseys clearly delineate the good from the evil.

– Nothing is going to settle your kids down when they get antsy better than some ice cream, but after halftime, the line for Rita’s was over thirty minutes. Plan your soft-serve run ahead of time, whether it’s drawing lots for which parent goes to pick it up and bribing a teenager near the front of the queue to let you cut in line.

John Wall Press Conference/Get John Wall His Goddamn Billboard

Earlier today, the Washington Wizards held a press conference to formally announce the signing of All-NBA guard and franchise cornerstone John Wall to a supermax extension that locks him in as the foundational piece of DC professional basketball through at least the 2021-2022 season. With no disrespect to running mate Otto Porter, the Wall news was the marquee free-agency headline and the one that re-energized Wizards fans’ title aspirations in an otherwise uneventful and borderline disappointing summer.

 

 

It can’t be understated how monumental (no pun intended) signing the WallStar to that extension was for this team.  We’ve seen a franchise cupcake use free agency to join the biggest bandwagon in sports (KD), another perennial star traded for nickels on the dollar before the get the chance to leave (PG13), and on the very same day that the Wall news broke, a more-hyped but less-talented point demand an exit from the situation that gift-wrapped him a ring and three straight trips to the Finals (the flat-earther from Duke).

 

A similar exit by John Wall would’ve had far more devastating effects on the franchise that drafted him. When you have a shallow roster and a GM who’s best move was lucking into the #1 pick after a season of unintentional tanking, it’s a safe bet your team is going to be pretty miserable for years to come if you lose that #1 guy. That’s why Wizards twitter was getting anxious when John didn’t sign the extension right away and we were forced to endure a litany of hypothetical trade proposals and Wall2LA conspiracy theories from obnoxious Celtics fans. Personally, the thought of this team without it’s WallStar was enough to send me into a miniature existential identity-crisis that forced me to fathom a future where I no longer pledged allegiance to the #DCFamily.  Fortunately for me and all the Wizards faithful, John quelled all the doubts and proved his commitment to the city by signing on to lead this team for the foreseeable future.

 

In his press conference today, John said a bunch of things that he’s said before, but that we were still more than happy to hear him affirm: “This is the team I want to be with for the rest of my career and I won’t stop until we get to hang a banner in the rafters.” With John in the fold for the long-term, and Eastern Conference rivals on the decline, us Wizards fans are for the first time feeling confident enough to consider that a championship in the nation’s capital could be a realistic possibility. Considering where this team was before the franchise savior arrived, the $170M Ted Leonsis will be paying over the life of the extension to retain his point god might be a steal.

 

This week, another Wizards blog wrote a piece chronicling the Wizards journey over the last ten years. It was a good piece, but it could have been summed up quicker. The Wizards sucked, they lucked into John Wall, John got better every year while making his teammates better each year, Wall helped establish the Wizards as a contender, John Wall kept Wizards championship hopes alive into the future by signing his supermax extension.

 

I know I’m coming off as a John Wall fanboy, but at this point it’s impossible to be a Wizards fan and not be. That isn’t a bad thing; there are much worse people to rep than a guy that shows loyalty, gives back to his community, and puts the city on his back. Today’s press conference was a celebration of that: a four year extension of the privilege to don jerseys with the number 2 stitched on the back, to hashtag tweets with #WallStar and #WallWay, to chant “MVP” at the Verizon/Capitol One Center, to enjoy and be proud of D.C. basketball.

 

Today, John Wall solidified his commitment to bring another Larry O’brien trophy to D.C. The only question that still remains as pertains to John Wall’s legacy in the district is where is his goddamn billboard? 

 

Back in early 2016, John was feeling under appreciated and marveled at the lack of exposure he was getting. “I was everywhere (in Kentucky),” Wall said. “I ain’t got no billboards in D.C.” Well, Ted Leonsis, can you please give this man the billboard he wants? 

 

The temporary mural he shared with during the playoffs with backcourt mate Bradley Beal was nice, but I think we can all agree he needs something a bit more permanent. How much can a billboard possibly cost? Doesn’t the Verizon Center have space on an external wall that can be spared to honor the player that dominates inside the building? Shouldn’t the Verizon center just be named the John Wall center and turned into one giant billboard? Shit, John Wall needs five billboards, one for each All-Star appearance. Plaster his face on the Washington Monument, and then update the alternative logo to match. Come on Ted, get the man his billboard.

 

John Wall gives the team the cache to get media attention and nationally televised games.  He produced the most memorably triumphant playoff moment in the last 40 years of the franchise. He already has the franchise record for assists and steals, and by the time his extension expires he’ll probably also be the leader in points, and regular season games played. The man could retire today and go down as the best player in team history. 

 

Now, somebody get this man his goddamn billboard already.

 

Wiz-Warriors: Let’s All Boo Cupcake Kevin Durant

This past weekend, Kevin Durant, the one-time NBA darling turned bitter front-running villain, returned to his old home court to a much-deserved, nasty homecoming.  His welcome-back presents were a chorus of boos and profanities from his old fans, and a bevy of hard fouls and harsh words from his old teammates.  The antagonistic reception was to be expected, regardless of Durant’s lengthy resume of past exploits for the team, after the biggest superstar in franchise history abandoned ship to join the one squad that had prevented the franchise from returning to the NBA Finals.

Kevin Durant and his supporters will maintain that KD’s only obligations in his free-agency decision were to himself and to his family, and that he had the right to go wherever he pleased.  This is certainly true and it’s difficult to imagine how anyone could argue this point. It’s also true, however, that those betrayed OKC players and supporters are similarly only obliged to support members of their own franchise, and they maintain a right to react to KD’s abandonment however they please. Considering the self-serving decision that Kevin Durant made, one that bucked every tenet of the spirit of competition, as well as the circumstances in which he made that cowardly choice, it would be surprising if KD is ever able to return to Chesapeake Energy Arena without getting heckled and chastised.  If that was my team, and sixty years down the line Kevin Durant came back to town for a Throwback Thursday night, I’d be sitting front row donning a cupcake t-shirt, with a “F*** KD!” sign taped to my walker.

Fortunately for me, I’m not an Oklahoma City Thunder fan. Nope, I’m a Washington Wizards fan and I’m rooting for John and Brad and Jason Smith right now as write this while watching the two teams match up tonight. (BTW who would have thought when OKC was 1 game away from returning to the Finals and the Wizards had been out of contention since early April, that just 9 months later it would the WizKids who had the brighter future??)  But even though I wasn’t personally betrayed by Durant teaming up with the basketball equivalent of the Galactic Republic, I was completely repulsed by the choice all the same.

Two weeks from tomorrow, Kevin Durant is scheduled to visit another one of the towns he previously called “Home” for his first time as a Warrior – in what is currently 2nd to only Kobe’s last game in DC for the most ridiculously over-priced basketball ticket in Verizon Center history (It is beyond me how anyone can justify paying $200 for the worst Lower Level seats when the same seats consistently go for under $20 at other games!!) With the exception of the boos he induced last year with his comments deriding the #KD2DC fervor, Kevin has generally enjoyed a warm reception when he’s  returned to his native DMV to play professional basketball games. But just as KD is no longer welcome anywhere in the state of Oklahoma, the image of the Bay Bridge on the front of his jersey should also preclude KD from being treated as anything less than an enemy at the Phone Booth. Durant has been beloved as the basketball pride of the region, and therefore it’s easy to imagine that arguing to heckle the man could be considered a hot take. But here are some quick thoughts on why it should instead be considered an obligation for any true Wizards fan.

Shame the Bandwagoners

As anybody who’s been to a Wizards game knows, the city is full of fans from other NBA teams. No matter what game you go to, from a tilt versus the Memphis Grizzlies to one against the Portland Trailblazers, there will always inevitably be a sizable contingent of fans in the Verizon Center rooting for the road team. Being that DC is a mixing pot of folks from all over the country who move to the city to work in government or politics, the presence of away fans is a fact of life.

When this becomes a problem is when sports fans born and raised in the District jump on the bandwagon of the day rather than root for the hometown team. Over the past decade, the Wizards have seen its fan base dwarfed by the likes of the Lakers, then the Cavs, then the Heat, then the Thunder, then the Cavs again, and now the Warriors. (Why do you think these tickets are so damn expensive?) The band wagon obsession is more than a problem that has afflicted our city; it’s a virus. Bandwagon n***as marry bandwagon b*****s and have bandwagon kids. Now, Kevin Durant, who is supposed to be our hometown hero, and whose presence on the Thunder made it the one team outside of the DMV acceptable for DMV residents to root for, is following the same trend as all the pathetic flakes who buy themselves and their kids jerseys that say Curry and Thompson on the back rather than Wall and Beal. Us Wizards fans don’t accept this behavior from our fellow basketball fans, so why should we accept it from the biggest basketball figure to come out of this area? What’s worse, it’s all too obvious that bandwagon fans from DC will conveniently site their support for KD as the reason they suddenly support the most talented team in NBA history. The same way that we use the jumbotron to tease those DC fans with too little inner fortitude to rock with the home squad, we need to mock the NBA player too scared to fight for a championship with anyone but the most stacked team ever.

Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City?

While DC has always showered Kevin Durant with much love and respect, he’s never exactly returned the favor. And now, his latest decision shows how little concern he truly has for this town and its fans.  As Wizards fans, we can’t begrudge Durant for not coming home to play for the Wizards. Having lived here, he must know all too well how quickly promising dreams turn to dashed hopes within this city’s sports scene. It happens every year and in every sport. That’s precisely the reason why every self-respecting Wizards fan is enjoying every moment of the team’s recent success, but not yet visualizing even a game past the first-round of the playoffs. Still, couldn’t KD give just a little bit of acknowledgement of our support for him? You mean to tell me that he couldn’t even take the time to take a meeting with the Wizards, even if it was just to politely say no thanks? If for nothing else, than to validate that all the time we spent tagging our tweets with #KD2DC was not totally in vain?

Nope. Durant had no time to entertain the dreams of his hometown fans. In fact, the only comments we ever got about his view on playing for the Wizards was a rebuke of the fans around here.  Not only that, as an extra insult to Washington fans, Kevin opted instead to hear the pitch from the Boston Celtics, the recently buried, new DC rivals.   Seriously, KD!? That’s how you feel? You’d wear that ugly green jersey, sell your soul to Tom Brady, and go play for those Massholes before you’d play for the city that raised you? Damn, bro.

Partially, this is our fault for always being a little too eager to reunite with Durant; for being a little too available. Just like juvenile boys like Durant have been doing to naïve girls since the beginning of time, KD teased our interest, soaked up our affection, and then ultimately left for the sexier suitor, leaving us heart-broken with nothing to show for all the time we spent trying to make this relationship happen. If Kevin isn’t going to realize what he had with our support until it’s gone, then let’s show him how far gone it really is: with boo-birds every time he touches the ball.

Not My Precedent

The final reason that fans of the Washington Wizards have a duty to deride the Hell out of Kevin Durant when he visits in two weeks is a self-serving one. The example that KD is setting for NBA players, one of taking pay cuts to leave the teams that drafted them in favor of diminished roles and pressure on super teams, is a dangerous one for second-tier franchises like our own.

The Wizards have a former lottery pick up for a new contract this summer in Otto Porter. A few years down the line, it will be John Wall’s turn to test the waters of free-agency. Looking even farther ahead, we’ll eventually draft another franchise player who will one day have to decide between taking the harder route of pursuing a championship in Washington or opting for the easy route of joining a team full of All-Stars. Granted, our players like John and Otto are too valiant and have too much pride to make the same gutless decision that Durant did. Still, with our sports luck, we can’t rule out any tragedy, and we have to do what we can to get ahead of such an unfortunate situation.

Therefore, it is imperative that we set the tone now for how our fans are going to reproach the players who ditch this team versus how we’ll reward the players who make a commitment to our fans and to our city. Every player in the league, and especially those that wear the letters “dc” on their shorts, needs to see first-hand how the nation’s capital reveres athletes who stay loyal to the city and abhors endlessly those who do the opposite.

That all starts with Kevin Durant in two weeks’ time. When everyone sees how mean we are to a player who turned his back on a team that isn’t even ours, they’ll start getting the picture for how serious we take loyalty in DC.

Conclusion

There you have it. That’s my plea for why we have to make Kevin Durant’s next return to DC one of his most combative encounters yet. This goes further than simple discontent with KD’s free-agency decision. This is more about protecting our turf and demanding to be taken seriously as NBA fans.

Now, I’m not saying KD should be doomed to eternally be derided whenever he comes to DC. But though Durant is the DMV’s native son, like all children, he needs to be disciplined. Maybe one day, KD, like Lebron did for Cleveland, will realize his transgressions against his hometown and work to right them. If and when that day comes, I’ll be the first to say we should forgive him and welcome him back into the DC fraternity. After all, hand in hand with parental discipline, comes the opportunity for mercy and redemption.

That being said, for the time being, every Wizard fan with tickets to the Wizards-Warriors game on February 28^th should be rocking a red and blue cupcake t-shirt and a stockpile full of insults and boos for Kevin Durant.

Fan Challenge: Who’s Got the Dopest DC Basketball Jersey Collection?

Yesterday I got a new John Wall 2016 All-Star jersey in the mail in time for the last home game of the season.  That brings my collection to nine jerseys, most of which I think are pretty dope.  This got me thinking, what Wizards fan out there has the best DC-exclusive jersey collection?  Check out my growing collection below, and let’s see who can top it.

Jersey Descriptions: (Clockwise from top right corner)

John Wall Home White– This is the obviously the cornerstone of any fan collection: the home jersey of the franchise player.  I got this badboy as a Christmas present from my parents back when the team first changed its colors.

Kevin Durant USA– The #KD2DC dream isn’t dead yet! I’ve worn this jersey to two OKC games at the Verizon Center and pretty much every Fourth of July since 2012.

John Wall Rookie Road Throwback– I wasn’t a big fan of these colors, but you can’t go wrong with a jersey from John’s rookie season.  This one is a good choice for a Throwback Thursday.

Wes Unseld Bullets Road Mitchell & Ness– These are my favorite jerseys in the franchise history.  The blue on these is super clean, the Bullets logo is fresh, and it’s a throwback to the team’s one championship trophy.  I was really lucky to find this jersey for cheap o Ebay.

John Wall 2016 East All-Star– This team has one All Star, so it’s cool to give him props by rocking his All-Star jersey.  The jersey itself is not terribly good-looking, but this one is clearly better than John’s 2014 and 2015 All-Star jerseys, which were hideous and bland, respectively.

JR Wizards Rec League(reversible)- I’m not exactly sure where I got this.  I actually think my mom bought this from a thrift store or else it was handed down to me from a cousin.  In either case, I’ve been balling in this for years and like to pretend that I played for the JR Wizards Rec League.

Michael Jordan Wizards Road– Like every other male my age, I was obsessed with MJ as a kid.  And when he came to the Wizards is when I really became a fan of the team.  I got the jersey along with tickets to my first NBA game for my birthday when I was in sixth grade, and I probably wore this once a week for the full year following that.  Today, I have mixed feelings about Jordan’s legacy as a Wizard, but it’s almost required to have for any Wizards jersey collection.

Nene Brazil National Team– To be honest, this is just a generic Brazil jersey and it’s not even Nene’s number when he plays for the National team.  But nobody knows that, and I’m going to get his name screen-pressed onto the back anyway.  This is going to be a great wear if we ever get a game on St. Patty’s Day and when I visit my classmate in Brazil.

Chris Webber Bullets Road– Chris Webber doesn’t have much of a legacy as a Wizards player, but he actually was one of my favorite players when he played for the Kings.  This jersey is pretty good looking too with the bright red.  I had a choice of picking up Webber’s jersey with #2 or #4.  I went with #2 as a homage to the WallStar.

Next Up:

My next jersey purchases (if my fiancé doesn’t read this and stop me), is a Marcin Gortat Road jersey, a Bradley Beal alternate blue jersey, and a Gilbert Arenas Zephyrs Throwback.  After that, I’ll feel like I have a pretty complete collection.