Wizards coach Flip Saunders is right to criticize team's performance

Finally, there was Davey Johnson, who said his role model was his father. Why? When his dad knew he'd be captured by the Nazis, he hid a knife up his rectum during the strip search, then killed a guard, escaped and got back to his unit. Peter Angelos just never felt comfortable around Davey. Too edgy. Too bad for the Orioles.

It doesn't take wartime courage for a rich NBA coach to call out rich players. But it's a start. Saunders gets extra points because this puts Ernie Grunfeld right in the cross hairs. Maybe the Wizards' team president was doing what his late owner wanted, but his fingerprints are all over a roster that can't keep 54-year-olds from going to the rack. So now, thanks to Saunders, the rest of the Wizards' season is going to be interesting because it is finally going to be honest.

Last year I asked a friend who's been an NBA coach and executive how he evaluated the Wizards. Talent level aside, how many winning players did they have -- hard-nosed, strong, defense-first, bust it every minute, workaholic, team attitude and mean, too?

"Maybe Dominic McGuire," he said. Nobody else.

One guy off the bench, without too much raw ability, was the only person he saw who could have been an old Celtics sub or a bad-boy Piston or a role-playing Rocket. The rest, in a word: soft.

Long ago, I asked Gene Mauch what was his worst day was as a manager. Random question. But Mauch actually thought about it, then said, "The day you realize you care more than the players do."

Saunders knows the feeling. Now we have the truth about the Wizards out of the mouth of their own coach, bless his infuriated heart. Some of us have felt this bubbling disgust for many of the last 30 years as Wizards players, who were always loved and treated as personal friends by the late Abe Pollin, had it too easy. Their "curse" may have been that they weren't cursed (at) enough.

Saunders only needed 30 games to get sick of it and blow the whistle -- on the whole Wizards culture. A new sheriff, Ted Leonsis, is almost certainly coming soon. When he gets there, maybe he should have the players' names taken off their jerseys. Why not stitch "No D" on all their backs. When Saunders thinks they deserve it, let them put their names back on -- one at a time.

After all these slacker years, how much can the truth hurt?