Photo by Scott Ableman.

To satisfy your Wizards fix, DCist is teaming up with Kyle Weidie and Rashad Mobley of Truth About It, who will take turns penning a column on Washington’s professional basketball team every week throughout the season. You can read Kyle and Rashad on all things Wiz here.

1988 was a great year to be 13 years old and living in the Washington D.C. area. In March of that year, I saw Michael Jordan play in person for the first time, as his Chicago Bulls played the Washington Bullets at the Capital Center in Landover, Maryland. Jordan scored 25 points, but there were none of the fancy breakaway dunks I had come to appreciate — still it was a thrill for me to see the man play just a few hundred feet away.

In October of that same year, I was lucky enough to see another superstar put on a dazzling performance at the Capital Center, and he went by the name of Michael Jackson. Jackson was in the midst of his world tour for the Bad album, and luckily for me, my father bought tickets — despite their elevated price. Unfortunately for me, the seats were also elevated, so I could really only see MJ on the jumbotron. I still knew and understood that I was extremely fortunate to be in the presence of greatness.

As I got older, I would look back on the performances of both MJs with great nostalgia. But I also hoped to get another opportunity to see them. Appreciating their greatness at age 13 was one thing, but having the chance to see Michael Jackson and Michael Jordan as an adult would really bring things full circle for me — or so I thought.

I was 26 when Jordan announced he was going to play for the Wizards in 2001, and although he showed flashes of his ’88 self here and there, he clearly was not the same dominant player. I was 34 when Michael Jackson announced that he was starting his worldwide, “This Is It” tour in England, and I fully expected to pay elevated prices when the the tour came to the U.S. Instead, Jackson tragically died a few months later before he even set foot on a stage.

I selfishly wanted to see the MJs return to their earlier greatness so that I could appreciate them once again, but I was deprived of that privilege. Which, finally, brings us to Gilbert Arenas. Arenas is certainly not as good of a basketball player as Michael Jordan, and he hasn’t achieved the level of mastery over his craft that Michael Jackson had. Still, from 2004 to 2007, Arenas played at an incredibly high level, and as a Wizards fan, I had a front-row seat.