Commentary : Bullets Have Look of Lottery Team

They’ve lost seven in a row, and shot 42 percent doing it -- one percent less than the Miami Heat, who may not win until it snows on Collins Avenue. For the season, they’re being outrebounded by an average of five per game. They’re more than one-fifth through the 82-game schedule, and they have four victories. The Nets have eight, the Clippers have seven, and don’t tell a soul, but Charlotte has five. This is what a Lottery Team looks like. Ladies and gentlemen, your Washington Bullets.

Imagine how long ago Frank Layden would have quit if he was coaching here.

This probably won’t come as a complete shock to you, but the Bullets have a few severe problems:

They can’t shoot.

They can’t rebound.

They have no center.

They only get to play Miami and Sacramento twice each.

The Boulez sont morts.

(You realize if the Shenandoah game had fallen through, John Thompson would have scheduled the Boulez.)

All the better teams in the NBA have at least one “go-to guy,” someone they depend on either to get the bucket or get fouled when they need two points. The Lakers have Magic Johnson. Detroit has Isiah Thomas and Adrian Dantley. Atlanta has Dominique Wilkins and, increasingly, Reggie Theus. Philadelphia has Charles Barkley. Utah has Karl Malone; Ouch! Please don’t say that name around here. As of now the Bullets don’t have any go-to guy, they’ve got a go-to guy wish list, Stacey King and Danny Ferry.

(I’m going to write this list of names just once: Kenny Green, Karl Malone, Muggsy Bogues, Mark Jackson, Michael Adams. Now let it drop, okay?)

The Bullets aren’t a talented team. They don’t come back next week on “Star Search.” At three positions, they’re starting people who should be backups. They lose games on merit, not because a referee jobbed them, or some guy off the end of the bench went nuts and murdered them. Starters murder them. The Bullets are at least three players away from being a contender, and two of them are Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing. As Huey Lewis says, “Sometimes bad is bad.”

To the Bullets’ credit, they haven’t stopped hustling or trying. Scouts will tell you that there isn’t a harder-working team in the NBA. This is night after night. You take this past five-game Western swing for example. The Bullets went out and played their best game of the season against the Lakers -- who they’ve got no right being within 25 points of -- got beat on an unconscious shot, and instead of going into the tank for the rest of the trip, they play Portland and Golden State close enough to beat. What you have to love about hustle is that it will keep you in games for three quarters. Unfortunately, they play four quarters.

Close games against quality teams who might be looking past them, like the Lakers or Portland, are the games the Bullets have to steal if they’re going to find more than 25 victories. Face it, the Bullets only have three players their opponents have to show concern for -- Jeff Malone, Bernard King and John Williams. Altogether, they’re averaging 54 points. Yet for the Bullets to win, those three must exceed their averages. In the four games the Bullets won, Malone, King and Williams scored 58, 59, 60 and 71 points. The Bullets have lost all nine times Malone, King and Williams failed to score more than 54 points. (Ironically, the trio’s seasonal high, 86 points, came in the Bullets’ most excruciating loss -- to the Lakers.)

You can’t win if you don’t score. The Bullets don’t get much scoring out of their point guards or big forwards, and they don’t get any scoring, period, out of their centers. A huge night for Charles Jones, a season’s high for heaven’s sake, is six points. Dave Feitl had 14 against Golden State -- which was five more than Ralph, who’s on his way to becoming the greatest center in the history of the CBA -- and even with that outburst he still averages four points a game. Feitl rarely plays; when he does, he seems to be wearing ankle weights. Jones has been here forever; the Bullets grew so fond of him they hired another Charles Jones, who doesn’t score either. When the Bullets go with their best scorers up front, playing King, Williams and Terry Catledge together, they’re pitifully outmanned on defense and off the boards. It’s not hockey, you can’t get a line change on the fly. Early on, Ledell Eackles left footprints worthy of a big time scorer, but during the losing streak he’s shooting a painful 32.6 percent. This happens to mid-sized rookies. Last year Reggie Williams shot 35.6. So far Rex Chapman’s shooting 35.8. The basket’s the same size it was in college, but the people defending it are so much quicker.

Yet for all their troubles, the Bullets aren’t much worse off than they were at this time last year: 4-14 now, 5-13 then. You can argue that Moses Malone is a big loss. (But don’t argue how Bol and Bogues are big losses, because neither would help this particular team. Defensively, Bol’s a revolution, but here he’s another non-scoring center. Bogues is another non-scoring point guard, whose great asset, running the break, is worthless to a team that can’t rebound.) But ask yourself: How many of those 40 years did Moses have left to lead the Bullets out of the desert? Are the Bullets better served by barely making the playoffs, like they did with Moses? Or by landing in The Lottery, which they will without him?

While you ponder that, consider that as low as the Bullets have sunk, they nonetheless have a good chance Tuesday night against a team that’s under .500 overall and 2-6 on the road, a team the Bullets have already beaten, a team in transition, a team -- like the Bullets -- struggling to compensate for the loss of a star. Not in a million years would anybody guess the Boston Celtics.