The Wizards keep D.C.'s sports clock running on injury time

"Sometimes it's just frustrating," Brendan Haywood said last week, when Caron Butler hurt his knee. "It feels like we're cursed."

That was last week. Then came Wednesday night's loss to the Heat, when Mike Miller went down with a sprained AC joint in his left shoulder. That means that within the season's first six games, 60 percent of the team's starters will have missed at least one game with an injury. The two who have been spared? Gilbert Arenas, who missed most of the past two years with rotted knee, and Haywood, who was sidelined for 75 games last season. Talk about a health care crisis.

(Note: Nothing here about any curse. That shtick took the buyout or something.)

"Any time somebody goes down for our team, you get a little scared," Haywood said Wednesday. "If you would have seen my injury in training camp last year, there's no way you think I'm out for the season. That's like a routine blocked shot. You know, a couple years ago when Gerald Wallace falls into Gil's knee, it doesn't look like he really falls into it that hard, but he ends up being gone for a year and change. So these type of things keep happening. Even Antawn's injury, first you see it, you're like, 'Okay, it's a sprain.' Then he's out for the first month of the season or however long he's out. So these type of things keep mounting up, and you just ask yourself why."

Welcome to the life of the D.C. sports fan. There's a lot of time spent asking yourself why.

Alex Ovechkin and Chris Cooley are two of the city's three most popular athletes; both are sidelined with injuries. Tony Plush (a.k.a. Nyjer Morgan) might have been the Nats' most popular player by the time he got shelved for the year. Chris Samuels was the most popular offensive lineman; he's done. I'd challenge you to name a more popular Redskins special teamer than Hunter Smith; he's out. And 40 percent of the Wizards' starters aren't playing Friday night in Indy.

"It's always frustrating, scary," Butler said. "You know, I just hope for the best. Say a prayer for him . . . and I'm pretty sure the whole city doing that."

(Okay, this might have been hyperbole. Parts of the city likely are not praying for Mike Miller. But in Butler's defense, a lot more people are paying attention than were last year.

Through four games, the Wizards' broadcast ratings on Comcast SportsNet were up 93 percent from a year ago. The 2.5 household rating in the D.C. market translates to about 57,000 households, or about four times the TV audience for a typical Nats game. Most incredibly, this week's Wizards-Cavs game attracted a larger TV audience than last spring's playoff opener between the Caps and the Rangers.)

(Speaking of, well, numbers, I stumbled upon a 1994 Washington Post poll conducted among registered D.C. voters. Respondents were asked whether they had a favorable opinion of certain celebrities. Jack Kent Cooke earned a 17 percent favorable response, well below figures like Marion Barry [46] and Louis Farrakhan [29]. It's tough out there for Redskins owners, even without John Riggins skewering them via radio, TV, YouTube, classified ad and messenger pigeon.)

Anyhow, the Wizards.

"I think we still can be a top 10 team in the NBA," Haywood said. "Right now, we're not at full strength. . . . But it's very early in the season, so I think D.C. should be excited about what we're doing. And we're going to continue to try to give them a product to be proud of."

Just bring band-aids.