The Wizards have set the bar higher than any of them have probably yet realized. They are now, officially, in this millennium, a real-life, honest-to-God, playoff team. Yes, by the time you read this they will be sitting at home, wondering if anybody thought to get the license plate of that championship-bound semi out of Florida that just pancaked them on the highway of post-season basketball like so much road-kill.

(By the way, I didn't get the plate number, but I saw the guy driving; a little half-pint wearing number three. This is his second full year in the league. His name's Dwayne Wade, and for those of you just emerging from hibernation, he's in for the long haul.)

Back to the Wiz… Abe's boys have clearly made their splash. Now, the hard part starts.

Nobody will accept another decades-long slide into the stinker. They've got to back it up, next year, the year after that, and into the foreseeable future. Theoretically, they'll even improve. Washington has a solid core, some solid, though inconsistent, bench-players, and a coach who clearly knows what he's doing.

Better than all of that, though, they have Kwame.

I kid you not. Kwame Brown may be the best thing the Wizards have going for them right now. Remember last off-season, the front-office wanted to sign him to an extension? Remember Kwame didn't like the terms (aka, dollars) and decided to play his way into the big bucks? Well, when you've played you're way into a team-imposed, season-ending suspension, during the playoffs, it's a fair bet you ain't getting the big-bucks.

So the Wiz find themselves in the actual drivers seat with a gifted, can't-miss type of talent, who, remarkably, keeps missing. Usually, the Wizards pick these guys up, much to the amusement of whatever snake-oil-selling agent / opposing GM / charlatan is pulling the strings that week. No more, however. Not with these Wizards. There are plenty of deep-pocketed teams that would kill for a talent like Brown, and even more that are convinced they could turn him around where the Wiz have failed.

So fine, ship him off to New York, Dallas, LA, Minnesota, wherever. Get some decent talent for him, and wash your hands of the whole episode, If he succeeds elsewhere, more power to him.

If not, if, as is more likely, he remains an enigma, never quite playing that full season, never quite averaging the numbers to match his physique, well, better there than here.