Mike Wise: Most recent columns

Washington Wizards should move their pick in upcoming NBA draft

Mike Wise — Wed, 22 May 2013 02:01:50 GMT

The worst thing the Washington Wizards could do at this moment is give in to public sentiment and view their unexpected surprise of a No. 3 pick in the NBA draft lottery as a nameplate above a cubicle in their locker room next season.

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Boxer Lamont Peterson avoids the spotlight, except when he’s in the ring

Mike Wise — Thu, 16 May 2013 21:24:11 GMT

There is no entourage present when Lamont Peterson reaches into his car’s trunk Tuesday night in a Southeast Washington parking lot. No crush of fight fans wait for his autograph as he slings his duffel bag over his right shoulder and ambles into the Bald Eagle Recreation Center for his last workout in his home gym before the ring announcer bellows “It’s Showtime!” on Saturday night in Atlantic City.

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Capitals stars no longer young, certainly outgunned

Mike Wise — Tue, 14 May 2013 04:09:00 GMT

This is more than a concern, more than a beat-down in a win-or-go-home game. This is a fear, and the fear is this: Alex Ovechkin, Nicklas Backstrom and Mike Green are going to wake up one day and realize they look more like old maids than young guns, and their NHL careers are going to be a monument to unfulfilled promise.

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Bryce Harper: A 20-year-old for the ages?

Mike Wise — Sun, 12 May 2013 00:46:21 GMT

According to video analysis, Bryce Harper has been bestowed the Sultan-of-Swat’s legendary swing. That’s right: Bryce Harper hits like Babe Ruth. This important discovery comes months after it was learned the Nationals’ young slugger has Mickey Mantle’s swagger and Mel Ott’s morning breath. Further, it clearly illustrates the need to stop putting this kid into a box and comparing him to merely otherworldly 20-year-old baseball players, which only serves to reduce expectations.

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Washington Capitals’ starring role in NHL’s passion playoffs

Mike Wise — Thu, 09 May 2013 17:40:00 GMT

A friend once landed the coveted assignment of hanging out with the Stanley Cup. It was after the New York Rangers had won in 1994, and for the next 24 hours he went where the Cup went: with Mark Messier to “Late Show with David Letterman,” to an NBA Finals game and finally to Messier’s Upper West Side ’hood, where the chalice was tucked in past 4 a.m. and the Rangers’ captain would let neighbors sip from it on the steps of his brownstone the next day.

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Derrick Rose, by any other name, is making the right call by not playing for Chicago Bulls

Mike Wise — Tue, 07 May 2013 23:51:54 GMT

To the electrician who last played in high school, to the gym teacher who once played small-college ball, Derrick Rose appears “gutless,” a “coward” for failing to lace up his sneakers the past few weeks. Even as Rose’s Chicago Bulls teammates and coaches continue to support his decision to allow his surgically repaired knee to heal fully, the chorus continues:

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Jason Collins says response to coming out has ‘been remarkable’

Mike Wise — Sat, 04 May 2013 20:22:00 GMT

He knew some of his former teammates would have his back, but he didn’t see the litany of support from his NBA peers coming. Kobe and Shaq, tweeting how proud they were. Charles Barkley, calling him a “courageous brother.” Jason Collins also could not have imagined being told, cell phone pressed to his ear, “I’m proud of you and I support you,” by Tim Hardaway, the former player who six years earlier had said, “I hate gay people.”

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2013 Stanley Cup playoffs: Capitals goaltender Braden Holtby bests Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist in Game 1

Mike Wise — Fri, 03 May 2013 04:04:00 GMT

At the tail end of a boomingly loud night at the home rink, the officials kept replaying a review of a possible New York Rangers goal. But there was one problem. They couldn’t see the puck because Braden Holtby’s sleight of hand — and stick, glove and pad — had obscured whether it had crossed the line.

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Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin shows he’s a captain worth following

Mike Wise — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:01:00 GMT

Alex Ovechkin has heard constant rumbling that maybe naming him the Washington Capitals’ captain in January of 2010, the year he became the third-youngest player in the NHL at the time to have the “C” stitched onto his jersey, was not the brightest idea.

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Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin shows he’s a captain worth following

Mike Wise — Thu, 02 May 2013 01:01:00 GMT

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Jason Collins’s religious critics need to practice what they preach

Mike Wise — Wed, 01 May 2013 01:03:22 GMT

With Jason Collins clearing one of big-time team sports’ last barriers to equality, it’s time to extend an olive branch to some of the other people who also came out Monday: Let’s give it up for the heterosexual religious zealots, some of whom let us know their true, authentic selves.

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Steve Oleksy makes Washington Capitals and NHL playoffs after grinding for years

Mike Wise — Sun, 28 Apr 2013 00:44:43 GMT

Hockey organizations since 2005 for which Steve Oleksy has played: Hershey Bears, Toledo Walleye, Port Huron Icehawks, Las Vegas Wranglers, Idaho Steelheads, Bridgeport Sound Tigers, Lake Erie Monsters, Traverse City North Stars, Lake Superior State University Lakers.

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Too soon to panic about the Nats, but it’s fine to be concerned

Mike Wise — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 21:12:00 GMT

I often talk to in-the-know baseball people, who for the purpose of this column will be called “John” and “Frank” (not their real names; their real names are Thomas Boswell and George Will). Anyhow, John and Frank say to stop worrying, to remember a season is a biathlon or a biennial or a millennium, I forget. Whatever, the point is it’s Ken Burns long; 162 games is not a jog on the towpath. Therefore, if any team appears to be having a cardiac event after 21 games, don’t worry. There are weeks and months to put in a stent and have open-heart surgery before September.

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Capitals look all grown up as they clinch a spot in the Stanley Cup playoffs

Mike Wise — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 03:48:00 GMT

Before Alex Ovechkin’s Hart-worthy rocket to put the game away made the building erupt with the sound of “M-V-P! M-V-P!,” something strange, almost foreign, had taken root in the Washington Capitals’ locker room at Verizon Center. Hockey players addicted to drama were learning what every good team on their way to great eventually learns: how to make it easy on themselves.

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NBA playoffs: What’s worse, Heat repeat or Spurs tedium?

Mike Wise — Fri, 19 Apr 2013 21:59:50 GMT

Before a torn Achilles’ injury prematurely ended his season last week, Kobe Bryant had been scheduled to be our annual sentimental pick for . . . Old Man We Really Want To Win One More Before He Calcifies.

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Alex Len, Otto Porter could have used more schooling, but NBA is to blame for early departures

Mike Wise — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 22:37:39 GMT

Every April, my hoophead friends call or text with basically the same message: “He’s not ready.” Or, “If he doesn’t stay in school one more year, that kid is just flat-out stupid.” These are also the same unpaid talent evaluators, by the way, who thought Hasheem Thabeet was going to be the next Dikembe Mutombo. They also once sold me on high-flying Harold Miner. Unfortunately, “Baby Jordan” wasn’t in the league long enough to be Infant Julius.

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Boston Marathon: Tragedy strikes a sport’s crown jewel

Mike Wise — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 01:21:31 GMT

You hear the race announcer calling out the names of finishers one second. The next — clearly audible — comes the blast, ripping through one side of the course, dropping a runner to the ground, killing at least three people, maiming so many more.

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Lorenzo Alexander: The Redskins’ truly special teamer

Mike Wise — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 01:15:01 GMT

In the early afternoon of March 12, the day NFL free agency started, Lorenzo Alexander sat in his room at the Atlantis resort in the Bahamas, where he was taking part in the NFL Players Association’s annual meetings, running up a phone bill of almost $1,000 on calls back to the States about his football future.

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Adam Oates might be just what Alex Ovechkin needed

Mike Wise — Thu, 11 Apr 2013 20:03:18 GMT

Success in pro sports being so star-driven, Adam Oates had no misconceptions when he got the job. If the Washington Capitals were ever truly going to be part of the Stanley Cup conversation again, if hockey was going to still matter in Washington — if Oates was going to last in his first NHL head coaching job — he knew he had to find a way to develop what Dale Hunter could not and Bruce Boudreau lost: an authentic connection with Alex Ovechkin.

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LeBron James, Miami Heat saved NBA regular season, so they deserve a rest

Mike Wise — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 20:35:00 GMT

It’s no secret perennial NBA playoff teams use the loophole of “nagging injuries” to ensure their best, big-minute players take off meaningless games at the end of the regular season. Hence, it’s a good bet LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, possibly Chris Bosh and another valuable role player or two won’t play for the Miami Heat on Wednesday night, when the defending champions make their final visit to Washington this season.

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Dolph Sand has been with Wizards franchise through thick and mostly thin

Mike Wise — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 02:04:00 GMT

For the past 35 years, a well-dressed, stumpy man with a full, organic mustache has owned the same model of championship ring worn by Hall of Famers Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes. Gold-embossed — replete with Dick Motta’s “The Fat Lady Sings” quote engraved on one side and the NBA logo of Jerry West squeezed between 19 and 78 on the other side — the ring was given back to the man by his son last week in anticipation of the Bullets’ title reunion Saturday night.

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Washington Wizards are right to play out the string with purpose

Mike Wise — Wed, 03 Apr 2013 03:21:12 GMT

In pure basketball sense, Randy Wittman announcing that the Wizards have set a goal to finish ninth in the Eastern Conference — one spot out of a playoff berth — makes, well, no sense. Same as his Yogi-like proclamation that “it ain’t over yet,” moments after his Wizards beat the Bulls, 90-86, on Tuesday night at Verizon Center.

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Robert Griffin III is Mike Shanahan’s ticket to Canton, and his job in Washington

Mike Wise — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 17:54:00 GMT

In this past week’s episode of “My Miraculous Offseason Recovery,” we entertain the question, “What’s in a text?” Really, what do the tea leaves mean when Robert Griffin III texts ESPN host Trey Wingo: “My first NFL season and my injury that ended it showed me a lot about the league, my team and myself. i know where my responsibility is within the dilemma that led to me having surgery to repair my knee and all parties involved know their responsibilities as well.”

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Syracuse relies on bruising Big East style to dispatch Indiana from NCAA tournament

Mike Wise — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 01:09:00 GMT

Former NBA star Derrick Coleman was in the house — D.C. in D.C., if you will — to support his Syracuse Orange, the Big East and, in general, in-your-grill basketball.

“Gotta say, it’s kind of weird that a couple of teams from the Big East are representing on Georgetown’s court,” Coleman said.

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March Madness: Recalling the Verizon Center magic of George Mason in 2006

Mike Wise — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:24:34 GMT

“Whenever you talk about the Final Four, you have to mention us. This is history. We changed the face of college basketball.”

— Lamar Butler Jr., 2006

The shooting guard in the George Mason green and gold, who smiled so big and played even bigger — his joyful mug splashed on the cover of Sports Illustrated seven years ago — returns to the scene of the most jarring upset in NCAA tournament history this week.

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