![\"Wizards](\"https:\/\/platform.bulletsforever.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/52\/2026\/03\/gettyimages-2263944857.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100\")
<\/a><\/p>\nWizards guard Sharife Cooper with a paint touch and kickout pass during the team\u2019s loss to the Houston Rockets. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
So, I\u2019d imagine these guys were giving a helluva good effort and it might have even been fun to see.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, I can only imagine because of the NBA\u2019s blackout rules. I live in the Houston market, so I can\u2019t use League Pass. Well, technically I can, I just have to wait three days.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery NBA game is available live with NBA League Pass in every country except the US and Canada due to blackouts,\u201d the league explains on their website. \u201cBlackout restrictions exist because local and national content providers have certain exclusive rights to show live games and content.\u201d<\/p>\n
The problem, of course, is that these blackout rules were made decades ago when the only ways to watch games were to show up in person or catch it on over-the-air TV. Cable TV entered the fray and made local market games available to subscribers, which for a time was virtually every household.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re in the cable cutting era now. According to AdWave, 80% of US households had a pay cable, satellite, in 2011. The current number is about half that. In 2024, 4 million households canceled cable per day. The pace increased in 2025 \u2014 an estimated 77 million households dumped their cable TV subscriptions last year alone.<\/p>\n
In other words, cable and satellite are dying. People are consuming content over the internet and via streaming services. Or they\u2019re pirating games they want to see by watching illegal streams that put their device and network security at risk.<\/p>\n
The goal of these kinds of blackouts is to force people like me to buy cable or satellite so I can watch these games. That\u2019s the theory. The reality is that it\u2019s not working. Any bump the cable company gets from sports fans is offset by the millions of households canceling. Or, in my case, not subscribing at all when I moved to Texas.<\/p>\n
Archaic blackouts are doing two main things at this point;<\/p>\n
Punishing fans who don\u2019t have a cable subscription. I\u2019m a hoops junkie who enjoys the way the Rockets play and would watch virtually every game \u2014 if I could. But I\u2019m not paying another $20+ per month on top of my League Pass subscription to watch the Rockets. I\u2019ll catch them on national TV or put on a three-day old game in the background when I\u2019m doing something else.Undermining the development of new fans. To me, this is the more serious consequence. I became a fan watching over-the-air Bullets games on channel 20 \u2014 at-times staticky and often in black-and-white (that\u2019s what we had in the kitchen) \u2014 but I could follow the action, especially when the great Mel Proctor was calling the game. How does a kid who\u2019s curious about NBA basketball but doesn\u2019t know much experience more than highlights if her parents don\u2019t have the right subscriptions to watch games until three days after the game?<\/p>\n
The three-day waiting period to watch an NBA game is absurd. Preposterous. Ridiculous. Unreasonable. By the time last night\u2019s game is legally available to me, the Wizards will have played the Orlando Magic (tonight) and the Utah Jazz (Thursday). Which is to say, I\u2019m never watching this game. I may see clips at some point if I\u2019m doing some video analysis, but that\u2019s it.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s time for the very smart people running the NBA to update these broadcast policies to reflect the changed reality of how people consume content. A League Pass subscriber should have access to every game, regardless of where it\u2019s played or who\u2019s broadcasting it. Financial aspects might get complex, but this seems like the sort of problem that smart people could figure out \u2014 or at least prompt an AI to figure it out for them.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll stop complaining with this: The NBA\u2019s broadcast policy should reflect something Commissioner Adam Silver said a couple years ago: maximum flexibility for people to watch games. Someone who cares enough about the NBA to have a \u201cno-ads\u201d League Pass subscription should be able to watch anything using League Pass. \u2018Nuff said.<\/p>\n
Since I didn\u2019t watch, these are all derived from the box score or play-by-play.Once again, the Wizards have done the improbable. They shout 54.3% from three-point range and were +30 from the three-point line and lost.The Rockets pummeled the Wizards on the boards despite the absence of Steven Adams. Houston had 21 offensive rebounds to Washington\u2019s 20 defensive boards. They out-rebounded Washington 59-27. This is not unexpected considering Washington\u2019s complete lack of size. Julian Reese, a 6-9 forward they signed on Saturday, started at center. He could manage just four rebounds in 28 minutes.Houston committed 20 turnovers \u2014 1-in-5 possessions. Alperen Sengun and Kevin Durant combined for 14 turnovers (8 and 6 respectively). Outside of Reese (four turnovers), the Wizards did a pretty good job avoiding turnovers.Bilal Coulibaly hitting 5-7 from three-point range is a welcome development. He\u2019s up to 30.4% from the three-point line this season. That\u2019s something of an improvement from last season\u2019s 28.1%.<\/p>\n
Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball \u2014 shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).<\/p>\n
The four factors are measured by:<\/p>\n
eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)TOV% (turnover percentage \u2014 turnovers divided by possessions)FTM\/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)FOUR FACTORSROCKETSWIZARDSLGAVGeFG%53.8%58.8%54.3%OREB%51.2%15.6%26.1%TOV%19.8%11.9%12.8%FTM\/FGA0.2610.1210.207PACE10199.4ORTG122117115.3<\/p>\n
PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).<\/p>\n