By Tony Kornheiser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 22, 1994

John Nash stood on the stage that overlooks the basketball court at Bowie State University yesterday and watched the Bullets practice. It was something Nash had done hundreds of times before. But this was the first time Chris Webber and Juwan Howard were in Bullets uniforms, and Nash knew the stakes had been raised.

"Without any player movement at all we might have been able to quietly improve our record this year," Nash said, looking out as Webber and Howard squared off on the low block, as they had so many times at Michigan's practices. "But now the expectations are real."

And what are those expectations?

"Playoffs, I'm sure," Nash said. "And beyond."

Nash quickly struck a cautionary note. "Like all young teams we need to gain experience; Orlando didn't win a playoff game last year due to inexperience. We will struggle before we get it together. This week of practice is a blessing for us."

But even as Nash spoke, Webber was grabbing a rebound, dribbling confidently with his head up, like a guard, and throwing a 30-foot, look-away to Don MacLean for a dunk. The next trip down the court, Scott Skiles tossed a floater in the lane, and as it bounced high off the rim Webber took off quicker than everybody else, and his hand soared higher, and he snatched the ball and slammed it home backward. There was a brief second of awe, an arching of eyebrows, when everyone stopped and stared as Webber bounded back down the court to play defense.

On the stage, someone asked Nash, "It's going to be his team, isn't it?"

Nash smiled and nodded, and said: "And nobody's going to object to it. His presence will cause everybody to puff out their chests a little bit."

So we enter the peacock phase, where the road on which you strut your stuff is paved with great expectations. This is new here. This is uncharted territory. How are they going to cope with this? Nobody ever expected the Bullets to win more than 30 games before. Washington was the NBA's Brigadoon. Players came here and disappeared into the mist.

Mitchell Butler, for one, is energized. "It's going to be great around here," he said. "These two guys bring a level of excitement that's contagious; we can't help but feed off it. We had great talent, and we were just learning how to win. With them, we go from learning to win to expecting to win every night."

Scott Skiles has been through this in Orlando. He was an original member of the Magic. He played on teams that won just 70 games in three seasons. Then they got Shaquille O'Neal, and everything changed. "The main difference is that we had time to prepare for Shaq. We knew he was coming from the moment we won the lottery. This was -- boom! They're here! And both of them know how to play. I expect us to be a good team. Sixteen teams make the playoffs, and I don't think you're that good if you don't. I think we are."

Skiles has firsthand knowledge of how expectations affect a team. "Some guys say, 'Oh, no, now everyone expects us to be good.' I'm not like that. I think this is what you should play for -- pressure and attention." Skiles gazed out at the court to where Webber and Howard were taking foul shots together, as they'd done so many times at Michigan. "They've played under pressure. They've had attention. They're comfortable with it. They've played on teams where other guys have gotten lots of attention too. We don't have to worry about them."

(Looking at their games, their demeanor, and the attention each receives, you might wonder if Howard feels overshadowed by Webber. Howard says: "Not at all. I announced for Michigan first, and when Chris said he was coming, I said, 'Great.' When he went pro, people asked me if I felt I was out of his shadow. I never felt I was in Chris's shadow. Being Chris's teammate was the best thing that ever happened to me. I feel like he's more than my teammate; he's my brother.")

Howard and Webber are used to expectations. At Michigan, they were analyzed, categorized, inspected, bisected and dissected. ("Best years of my life," Webber said appreciatively. "It was the worst media onslaught imaginable -- but it was fun!") Expectations don't scare either of them. "It's not the pressure from the fans or the media that worries me, it's the pressure from myself," Webber said. "If our fans want us to make the playoffs this year, I want to win the championship this year. If I fail, so what? God is not going to give me more than I can bear. I called timeout, and I failed. I've also succeeded. I'm not scared to fail -- that's my biggest plus."

It's the same with Howard, who is as workmanlike as Webber is flashy. "I always wanted to be the best in whatever I do. If I didn't, I wouldn't have gone to Michigan, I'd have gone to a place like Colgate. But I wanted to be seen on TV, to play against the best competition. There'll always be expectations for Juwan Howard, I can't hide from that."

Nobody on the Bullets can hide from expectations now. The moment Webber and Howard signed on was the beginning of their Brave New World. Calbert Cheaney remembered driving in his car on the day the trade was made and experiencing "a tremendous feeling of possibility." For many of the Bullets -- for those who've spent their NBA careers here, like Cheaney, MacLean and Butler, and certainly for Rex Chapman, who has never played on a .500 team in six seasons here and in Charlotte, let alone been in a playoff game -- this is distant memory; they haven't felt anything like this since college: Cheaney at Indiana; MacLean and Butler at UCLA; Rex at Kentucky. All big-time programs with big-time expectations.

"The other night, against Boston, when we had that big crowd -- that reminded me how much I missed playing in college," MacLean was saying after practice ended. "I love playing in big games. I loved it when Duke or Arizona came to play us at Pauley. I loved the hype around the games, the attention from the press, the fighting for tickets. You played 30 games in college, and each one was life or death. I missed that the first couple of years in the NBA. I think we're going to get that back now."