What are you waiting for, Grunz?

Reminiscing Over Sticky Bacon Days of Yore, or, Getting Caught Up in the Web.

Watching the Wizards in those K-Tel Solid Gold Uniforms flailing awa Friday night against the NOK Hornets, one thought kept returning to my mind: Chris Webber is a free man! As part of their ongoing plan to shed all their good players while getting squadoosh in return, the Sixers bought out C-Webb's contract, and he's now enjoying a penalty-free timeout while assessing his options.

Sure, C-Webb appears headed back to Detroit, where he will attempt to win an NBA title in the face of unremitting enmity from every University of Michigan basketball fan, since his dalliances with booster Ed Martin basically destroyed their program to the point where a Dookie is coaching it.

And sure, like the song says, we don't need Chris Webber; we've got plenty of players, even if the one with actual post moves, Darius "I'm Like A Bird" Songaila, is chilling in the PR with Party John while his disc gets unherniated. So maybe we could use a premium version of the Songbird in our mighty sweep to the playoffs.

But the real reason to bring C-Webb back is redemption. Not for him; the offenses he committed against the law were petty crimes compared to the big-boy felonies now being thrown down by our giants of the hardwood. (By the way, Eddie Griffin crashed his SUV into a parked car because he was ballhandling while watching a porn DVD while driving drunk. Not that this is news, but the fact that it happened continues to delight me.) No, the redemption would be for us. The fans. And specifically, deez nutzz.

The last good Bullets team was that 1997-98 team with C-Webb, and Juwan, and Calbert Cheaney, and of course Darvin and Rod and Ledell and other players with whom we are all on a first-name basis. And what happened after that? The team got scattered to the four winds, and everyone started thinking it would be a good idea to bring in Salieri, and we signed a lot of players named Mike Smith. The attachments we formed with that team, rather than deepening as the then-Bullets ascended into their rightful place in the NBA pantheon, were shattered like so many Grant Hill ankles, and became just as useless.

Yet one of the strongest of those attachments could be rekindled by bringing C-Webb back and joined to lead us into the future! A future full of wins and bacon and arrests for possession!

Plus there are other benefits:

Since Webs is now a hip-hop producer, having laid down the track for "Blunt Ashes" off Nas' Hip Hop Is Dead, he can doubtless lay down some Last Poets-style backing for Etan's various slam opuses, as well as turning in some less lyrically dense cameos

If Chris returns to Washington, perhaps he'll have another date with this chick

Mitch Albom could write a column about Webber returning to Detroit anyway, 'cause that's how he rolls