I want you to understand this.

I am not the Wizards' correspondent. I gave up my beat-writing days years ago.

ALDRIDGE'S RANKINGS

THE TOP 10 1. Sacramento 2. Dallas 3. New Jersey 4. Minnesota 5. L.A. Lakers 6. San Antonio 7. Milwaukee 8. Boston 9. Toronto 10. Philadelphia THE BOTTOM FIVE 25. Denver 26. Cleveland 27. Atlanta 28. Golden State 29. Chicago THE MIDDLE FOURTEEN 11. Washington 12. Indiana 13. Utah 14. Seattle 15. Detroit 16. Orlando 17. Portland 18. Phoenix 19. L.A. Clippers 20. Charlotte 21. Houston 22. New York 23. Miami 24. Memphis

I know this is the, what, the fifth time I've written about these guys.

But this is compelling stuff.

I am becoming what I once held in contempt -- a Jordanologist, one of those guys I used to make fun of, who try to find hidden meanings in his every sentence, like he's the Dalai Lama or somebody.

But what is happening here in Washington defies logic. Michael Jordan is going to be 39 in two weeks. He took three years off. He returned to a team of spare parts, that had won 19 games last season, on merit. He was playing for the coach, Doug Collins, that he had himself hired -- a coach that has been known to sit in his room and brood after his son's team lost games. He was playing for a franchise that gave new meaning to "downtrodden." He drafted a 19-year-old out of high school who was as green as they come and who hasn't played a lick. And his team started the season 2-9. Again, on merit.

They are 24-12 since.

That is .667 basketball.

That's more than just a good run. That's damn near half a season.

This week, Washington has throttled, in order, Indiana, Toronto and Sacramento. It has beaten the Sixers twice, and the Raptors twice, and the Mavericks and the Nets. (Full disclosure: the Wizards caught the Mavs without Dirk Nowitzki, and the Rockets without Steve Francis, and the Pacers without Al Harrington, but those games count too, and Washington won them all. And they get the Lakers without Shaq in L.A. next Tuesday.)

This is no longer a cute story. The Wizards are on the verge of being a legitimate contender in the East. (Did I just write that? I must have. I recognize my fingers.) Who wants to play these guys in the first round? Boston? Milwaukee? Fans in Washington are shaking off 20 years of torpor and returning to the throat levels they produced in the late '70s at the late, unlamented Capital Centre.

All of a sudden, Chris Whitney has become B.J. Armstrong. Hubert Davis, meet Jud Buechler. You're him. Brendan Haywood is Bill Cartwright. Jahidi White is the spitting image of Luc Longley. John Bach is still portrayed by John Bach. There is no Scottie Pippen, but Richard Hamilton has that scorer's arrogance that is especially useful on the nights when Jordan's jumper shows its age.

Everywhere you look, Wizards are playing better than their lineage, and that is the essence of what Jordan does for a basketball team. On his watch, people play better. How it happens, why it happens (are they afraid of him? Afraid to disappoint? Or afraid for their jobs?) is the stuff of alchemy, but it happens. And this team, suddenly, has playoff elements: halfcourt execution, interior defense, rebounding, shotmaking, good free throw shooting, strong coaching.

The dreams, they are a changing.

"Sure, there are bigger dreams," Jordan said the other night. "One thing you don't want to do is wake up too quick. We just want to keep dreaming and hope you don't wake up and when ... you do wake up, you surprise everybody and it was well worth the dream. But sure, I have high expectations. But we're just fulfilling short-term goals. And when they add up at the end of the year, hopefully it's a better picture than we envision."

	“	He's definitely the (smartest) NBA player that I've been around. I pride myself in understanding the game and knowing the essence of the game. And he definitely, he knows (the game). He's just a joy to play with. ”
		— Popeye Jones, on Michael Jordan

Collins, who has been on the Innocent Climb before when his Pistons and Bulls starting winning suddenly, is trying to warn his players about looking too far ahead, like us media types do. "We've got a tough second half," he says. "I think we've got a stretch where we play nine out of 10 on the road. We can't get intoxicated on our own stuff … but Michael won't let that happen. He understands how fragile winning and losing is. But we want to make the playoffs. I said that when we were 2-9. We want to make the playoffs. We want people to come here after April 16 and watch a game."

You should not underestimate Collins's role in this. Let us be blunt -- the Wizards haven't just been talent poor in recent seasons ("as soon as things started to go bad, they'd drop their heads and not believe they could come back," Toronto's Lenny Wilkens said), they've been coaching deprived, too. Collins has ended that. He popped his players during training camp for being out of shape. Now they're in shape. He preached defense for weeks without results. The Wizards now give up 92 a game. He trashed Kwame Brown in the summer. Now he's apologized to the rook for expecting too much, too soon. And he's figured out ways to beat the opposition's double teams and get Jordan the ball in attacking position.

Who has done a better coaching job in the league this season?

"I think we have a lot of guys in here that care about winning and playing the right way, and it starts with our coaching staff," Whitney says. "They came in and the first time I talked to coach, he said we're going to play the game the right way. No selfishness on offense or defense. So I think that was the first thing, getting guys in here that would come in and play the game the right way. So it's definitely night and day."

Collins is the NBA's Bum Phillips: He takes his'n and beats your'n, and takes your'n and beats his'n. He would never admit this, but this ride is a shot at redemption for him, too, a chance to change his coaching legacy from that of a precocious flake to calmer elder statesman.

"One of the things I've always tried to do as a coach is assess the personnel we have, and then try to develop a style that we can win with," he says. "And I've never really had the same team two years in a row, whether I was in Chicago, or in Detroit, it seems like every year we've come back it was a different team. I'm not one of these guys that has a set system and says this is the way we're going to play. What I try to do is, OK, this is our team; how can I bring the best out of Michael, Rip, Chris Whitney, and everybody that's involved? I think that your job as a coach is to try and do that."

All true. But having Jordan around makes it easier. If Jason Kidd is the MVP at the halfway point of the season, Jordan has at least injected himself into the discussion. His teammates still insist on their Ludacris in the weight room instead of his Luther Vandross, but he has remade this team, just as he said he would.

"Michael has been that anchor for us, every single night," Collins said.

"He's definitely the (smartest) NBA player that I've been around," Popeye Jones says. "I pride myself in understanding the game and knowing the essence of the game. And he definitely, he knows (the game). He's just a joy to play with."

And in the waning moments against Toronto on Tuesday, up three against a Raptors team hanging around, Jordan showed he would let his teammates win the game down the stretch. At the top of the key, Jordan saw Antonio Davis cheat halfway toward a double-team. But the step left Davis in no-man's land. Jordan could have forced the action and drove the lane, but Keon Clark was laying in wait. Instead, Jordan passed the rock to Jones, who has made 18-footers all season -- but never in this situation.

Of course, this season, Jones is Horace Grant.

Swish.

Trust.

Now, this is the NBA, where you're one turned ankle from getting humbled real quick. The Wizards haven't gone West yet, and they're pretty banged up, and Hamilton doesn't have that much padding to take a pounding. But the Wizards are built for the slower pace of March and April, when the young legs that have been running all season start to slow down. They're building a homecourt advantage. And they haven't had their full team together but for a handful of games this season.

Whatever happens, it is getting interesting around here.

I asked Jordan to give himself a first-half grade.

"Well," he said, "to give myself a grade, you're gonna have to really, more or less, see what I'm comparing myself to. Now if I'm comparing myself to 1988, then obviously it's not an A-plus. But if my agenda is to make sure this team understands the focus of winning, what it takes to win, the attitude of keeping everybody involved, working hard in practice, having better attention and just focus, then I would have to give myself an A in that sense. Not worried about my game moreso than trying to bring the whole attitude about winning to this franchise. To me, I consider that to be the biggest plus for this franchise moreso than what my individual play has been.

"You've seen where if Rip Hamilton is playing extremely well, then I may be a second thought. You've seen situations where he hasn't been playing, and I had to step up my game a little bit, be more of an offensive threat. So, I mean, I'm just here to plug holes. And as a utility man, I think I've solved my job. I've done my job pretty much."

I will try not to write about these guys for a while.

I will really try.

You guys are sick of Jordan, right?