CJ McCollum erupted for a career-high tying 50 factors to steer the New Orleans Pelicans to their sixth win of the season in opposition to the Washington Wizards on Friday evening. And whereas giving up half-a-Wilt to a participant that had solely scored greater than 25 factors in a sport 5 occasions beforehand this season may seem to be a miserable sufficient reality by itself for Wizards followers, it’s not the saddest stat of the night.
That honor as a substitute goes to this factoid from our pal Greg Finberg of Bullets Ceaselessly, who famous that of the NBA’s 50-point video games allowed this season, half have come in opposition to the woeful professional basketball workforce primarily based in Washington.
There have been eight 50-point video games within the NBA this season.
4 have come in opposition to the Washington Wizards.
D. Fox: 60
G. Antetokounmpo: 59
N. Jokic: 56 (vs. WAS)
J. Brunson: 55 (vs. WAS)
C. McCullum: 50 (vs. WAS)
V. Wembanyama: 50 (vs. WAS)
L. Ball: 50
P. Banchero: 50— Greg Finberg (@GregFinberg) January 4, 2025
The Wizards additionally let him get that many factors in 31 minutes, two lower than he’s averaging this season:
A workforce that’s 6-26 being unhealthy on protection isn’t precisely breaking information, however sooner or later you’d suppose some stage {of professional} delight would kick in for the Wizards; that they may rally across the concept of, like, “let’s no less than cease this man at 49.”
That mentioned, “skilled” or “prideful” hasn’t been a phrase typically used to explain these Wizards over the past two seasons, so perhaps that is form of a becoming (dis)honor for deeply unserious Jordan Poole/Kyle Kuzma-era Zards. And there are no less than causes for his or her followers to have hope for the long run given the event of younger gamers like Bilal Coulibaly and the truth that the workforce is lastly, mercifully making an attempt a real teardown and rebuild that they’re solely within the second season of… however man, it might be a protracted couple years for basketball followers in D.C.
Or perhaps this era might be nice, if considered via one other lens. In any case, for followers of different NBA stars primarily based within the U.S. capital, no less than in the event that they purchase a ticket to see their workforce play the Wizards, they’ve an honest likelihood of watching them get a career-high whereas the house workforce performs carnival basketball! Washington’s gross sales employees ought to put that on a few of their adverts.