NBA games of the week: Wizards enter the gauntlet

This edition of the NBA games of the week is brought to you by a tough, tough week for the Washington Wizards.

Welcome back! I hope you enjoyed your All-Star break by finally watching that show everyone keeps telling you about or caught up on all the replays of the games you missed or wanted to see again.

The second part of the NBA season is only five days old, yet we’re treated with a plethora of storylines. The bottom half of the lottery is awful. Which team will win the next game? Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban was fined $600,000 for admitting to tanking, which, in the era post-Sam Hinkie, isn’t that big of a deal. If you want to shock me, tank for five straight years.

Whether or not the seemingly more awful bottom of the NBA standings is a product of this being the final year under the current lottery rules will never be clear. What’s clear is a lot of teams stink and a lot of teams need a superstar in a deep draft. What is clear is how much the NBA hate hate hates what teams do around this time of year. So much so they’re thinking of adding their own version of Bill Simmons’ Entertaining as Hell Tournament. 

But I digress. Adam Silver, NBA commissioner and avid reader of the games of the week, emailed me and said to not make a games of the week theme around awful teams and when their next win would be. Fair enough. You owe me one Adam!

Besides, with the second part of the NBA season looming large over potential playoff seeding, considering the top two spots in either conference are pretty much locked, there is a ton of fluidity in the final six spots. One of those teams with a gauntlet of a schedule, especially this week, who needs to keep playing well — the Washington Wizards. Here are the games of the week.