OPINION:
Over the NBA All-Star weekend, Commissioner Adam Silver gave a preview of how artificial intelligence will soon impact his league’s product.
He talked about how fans will be able to use AI to turn an NBA game into their favorite movie.
Anything to avoid having to watch actual games, I guess.
The NBA showcased its unwatchable product Sunday night with its annual All-Star Game, where the league’s superheroes displayed little intelligence, artificial or otherwise, in an absurd 211-186 Eastern Conference win over the Western Conference.
Hall-of-Famer Larry Bird, who exhibited unparalleled intelligence — none of it artificial — when he played 40 years ago, had urged players to take some pride in the NBA product when they took the floor for the All-Star Game.
“I think it’s very important when you have the best players in the world together, you’ve got to compete, and you’ve got to play hard and you’ve got to show the fans how good they really are,” Bird said.
They chose none of that.
If Sunday night’s All-Star Game was converted to an AI movie, it would be “Dazed and Confused.”
Then again, AI may finally bring a new age for long-suffering Wizards fans. This may be what Transparent Ted Leonsis had in mind when he claimed during his pitch for his new arena in Potomac Yard that he expects his basketball team to be competing for championships when the building is projected to open in 2028.
He’s big on fantasy and visions for his basketball team — not so much on results.
You have to wonder if Transparent Ted would be abandoning the District if the Wizards had been more competitive during the 14 years he has owned the franchise.
As we have been told many times, Washington is a basketball town, and a run of competitive teams might have turned Capital One Arena into the place to be for NBA games, other than when a visiting superstar came to town.
Instead, Transparent Ted’s basketball team has a record of 428-580 since he took over the team after Abe Pollin passed away in November 2009.
They’ve been in the bottom third of the league in attendance every year, and last year finished last in seats sold in their home arena, filling up Capital One 84.1%.
The building has a large capacity — reportedly 20,356 — but if you put a consistent winner on the court, a building with a lot of seats to sell is a good problem and not a negative for your business.
I guess if people come to the Potomac Yard palace and put on a pair of Transparent Ted’s AI goggles, they may see some competitive basketball at last.
There is a new plan to employ human intelligence to accomplish this goal, with the hiring last year of Los Angeles Clippers general manager Michael Winger as president of Monumental Basketball and Will Dawkins, who was the Oklahoma City Thunder’s vice president of basketball operations, as the Wizards’ new general manager.
They were asked to preside over the breakdown and rebuild of the franchise, and Transparent Ted issued the latest of the apologies he has offered over the years for his product being so bad.
“To be honest, I feel like I failed the fan base the last three or four years because I didn’t see the upside (of rebuilding), so we had to make these radical changes,” he said in a pre-game interview on his Monumental Sports Network earlier this season.
Those radical changes have led to a 9-45 record — seemingly going according to the plan to be so bad the team increases its chances of securing the top picks in the NBA draft, not just this year but for several years to come.
But part of that plan is to acquire all the draft picks they can from other teams because there are no guarantees that the new Wizards brain trust will pick the right guys in the draft. There never are. So, to increase the odds of success, you try to increase the chances of success with more picks.
So why didn’t the Wizards pull the trigger on the proposed trade that would have sent veteran Kyle Kuzma to the Dallas Mavericks for two first-round picks, as reported by ESPN?
Washington did get a first-round pick, via Oklahoma City, in a trade with Dallas for Daniel Gafford. But it would seem two first-round picks – even low ones from a winning Mavericks team – is the point of this 9-45 exercise.
Turns out there is a love story behind it. Kuzma loves being a Wizard, and Winger loves Kuzma for committing to resigning with Washington after they traded Bradley Beal and Kristap Porzingis and became a dumpster. So he let Kuzma decide if he wanted to be traded.
“Kyle’s an important player for us and (a) significant contributor to our developing culture,” Winger told The Athletic. “His commitment is necessary for us to achieve our competitive and environmental objectives.”
Kuzma, who is under contract with the Wizards through the 2026-27 season, told The Athletic that he “wanted to stay and continue to build something.”
From all accounts, Kuzma, 28, who is averaging 21.8 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, is a stand-up player and a team leader. But let’s try to use some intelligence here, artificial or otherwise — Kuzma chose to stay with a team that has won nine games this year and, optimistically, if things fell into place, is two or three years away from being playoff competitive, let alone compete for an NBA title. And new brain trust or not, this franchise, with different decision-makers along the way, hasn’t won more than 50 games in 44 years.
He may have chosen to stay in a place where no one is watching, no one expects anything, and no one cares. If you already have an NBA championship ring like Kuzma does (he won one in 2020 with the Los Angeles Lakers in the bubble playoffs), scoring 20 points a game without stress or expectations is not a bad way to earn $25 million a year.
I’m not sure that’s a great role model. But, with his wardrobe, Kuzma would make a great character in a Wizards AI movie.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on The Kevin Sheehan Show podcast.
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