12:50AM Thursday
January 16, 2014

It's one thing when the Wizards play the Knicks, and fans in orange and blue invade Verizon Center, loudly shouting their approval for all things Knickerbocker. That's been happening for years and years, and those fans presumably have some sort of authentic link to the Knicks, a prestigious franchise with a kind of sad recent history.

The Heat thing, though, is something else entirely. The Wizards played the Heat in the 2005 playoffs, and there was no discernible presence of Heat fans, no sense that the D.C. area was filled with Miami transplants just yearning to reconnect with their long-suffering ancestral team. And yet somehow, over the past few seasons, this area has become populated with large numbers of Heatish sycophants, people who roar at every LeBron James move, and who ignore the fortunes of D.C.'s home team while cheering on the two-time champions. Maybe they're actually authentic, long-time Heat fans. And maybe LeBron James went on television with Jim Gray that once because he really wanted to raise a lot of money for a good cause.

Anyhow, while everyone should be free to choose their favorite team, everyone who roots for the Heat just because they're good should also expect to be mocked. The Wizards helped out that effort on Wednesday night with a first-quarter 'Bandwagon Cam.' There were four or five images of folks in Heat gear; I only have a couple of those images, but I'm sure you all can imagine the rest. And the fact that the Wizards won in a rout made it quite a bit sweeter.

(Of course, the Nats mocked a "visiting fan" in a Dodgers shirt over the summer, although it turned out this wasn't an authentic fan and the whole thing was a set-up. So I guess I should probably look into these Heat fans.)