Abe Pollin

Sad to hear about the death of Abe Pollin, the long-time owner of our hometown Washington Wizards.  Pollin led a long and productive life, and should be celebrated for what he did for DC and especially downtown Washington. 


The old Washington Bullets won him one NBA championship, the 1978 team led by Wes Unseld and Elvin Hayes, but Pollin will long be remember for his citizenship rather than his team ownership.  Or for hiring then firing the greatest basketball player of all time from the front office, a gutsy move at the time that paid off in the win and loss column.


When I moved to DC in 1993, much of the area where the Verizon Center stands was empty, literally a vacant lot (a parking lot) that had not been rebuilt in the wake of the 1968 riots.  Prime real estate in the capitol of the free world - within walking distance of the White House - stood empty and abandoned for 25 years. That part of town was an ugly, empty monument to suburbia, a cynical reminder that folks in our area had abandoned the non-federal part of DC.


As many of you know, using mostly his own money Pollin built the 'phone booth' there, and overnight the neighborhood between Pennsylvania Avenue and Massachusetts Avenue became the center of a new downtown - complete with a chic urban nickname, Penn Quarter.  


That part of town has too many chain stores for my liking, but it is also full of cool and very good restaurants - Zaytinya, Jaleo, Rasika, Austin Grille, etc. - and has become a destination.  Bottom line, it brought and kept people in DC and was the catalyst for some pretty dramatic urban renewal.


All of that was made possible by Abe Pollin.  And though they never won Pollin another championship, at least the Wizards were worth watching the last few years.  It was great to see the Wizards win tonight in a small salute to Pollin (and what a coincidence that the opposing team, the 76ers, were coached by DC-native Eddie Jordan, the coach who helped make the Wizards a consistent play-off team the last 5 years).  


Here's to Abe Pollin and his contributions to our fair city.  Everlasting be his memory.

NBA Playoffs Blog

One way to treat (but not cure) my post Final Four blues is with a nice playoff run by the hometown Washington Wizards.  I'm so excited I'm going to do something I have never done - TiVO a Wizards game, today's first round game versus Cleveland that runs up against back-to-back kid soccer games.  

I blogged this a week or so ago, but I think the Wiz will go to the Eastern Conference finals. They match very well with Cleveland and Boston and will pull back-to-back upsets.  The Big Three for the Zards are healthy - at least Jamison and Arenas are - but I think it will be my man Brendan Haywood that puts Washington over the top in both series.

Haywood may have more trouble with Cleveland that with Boston. He is coming off his best season as a professional, and generally plays very well against Cav center Zydrunas Ilgauskas.  But last year, Z dominated the first round sweep of the Wizards.  If Haywood rebounds he should out play Ilgauskas this year.

The Wizards have beaten the Celtics three times this season, and Haywood has been a big reason.  In each win, he has kept KG in check, even getting in his face a few times. For whatever reason, the Cs bring out the best in the Wizards.  As critical as Haywood will be, I think this will be Arenas' series. Look for Agent Zero to use this series to redeem a season lost to injury, AND to remind the rest of the league that he is one of the NBA's elite players.

Not much else happening in the East - the Pistons will march to the conference and NBA finals with only a few speed bumps against inferior competition.  The Wizards will probably be the most and probably the only intriguing story in the East.  

That is not the case in the West.

It's still hard to accept that the Spurs play the Suns in the first round! The Suns appear to have figured out the Shaq thing, going 15-5 in their last 20 games.  Stoudamire has really excelled with Shaq around, but I have trouble seeing the Spurs losing this series.  My bet is that Shaq and Duncan, and Nash and Parker, cancel each other out. It will come down to who plays better - Stoudamire or Ginobili.  As much as I like Stoudamire I have to go with Ginobili (one of the three most exciting players on the planet).

Though not as marque as the Suns-Spurs series, there are other great first round match ups.  I see the Jazz taking down the Rockets and Tracy McGrady.  My guess is that Jerry Sloan will figure out how to dismantle Houston in a seven-game series.

The Lakers will handle the Nuggets, but the other first round match up - between the Hornets and Mavs - is a toss up.  I'm still not a believer in the Hornets, though Dallas does not inspire much confidence either.  This series, like much of the playoffs actually, is full of talented players,  but many of whom do not have IT.   KG, McGrady, Pierce, Allen, Kidd, Nowitzki, are all veteran stars whose teams - for whatever reason - never seem to win the big game.  Calling them 'losers' is too harsh, but when in doubt pick against their teams.

Nats Notes

Nice win for the Nats last night, mainly because they finally got a big hit.  Hopefully, Nick Johnson's bases loaded double will ignite more clutch hitting from the Nats.   Zimmerman got two hits last night, and has hit in three straight so he may be getting his stroke back.  Let's hope that Kearns and Pena start hitting soon too.

Sean Hill got called up by Washington yesterday and makes his 2008 debut today against Florida.  He's got the stuff to be a number one starter if he stays healthy.

As bad as the Nats have played they are only 5 back with 145 games left to play!