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Reader question: Please explain “arrested development” in this headline: Wizards show case of arrested development (Washington Times, January 17, 2017). My comments: To arrest is to stop or slow someone/something in motion, e.g. a policemen arrests a thief running in the street. “Arrested development”, on the other hand, is a medical term, describing the situation where youngsters have stopped or slowed down considerably in physical growth – in stature, for example. Here, however, “Wizards show case of arrested development” is just another lament from the media about the Washington Wizards, a professional basketball team in the NBA. The lament being: The Wizards are not improving as a team. It is as though they were a team of youngsters who suddenly stopped growing, as in the medical case of arrested development. This is a metaphor, of course. Physically, there’s been nothing wrong with the team, normal fatigue and occasional injuries notwithstanding. Performance wise, however, the team’s been nothing but disappointment. The team has been among perennial bottom dwellers in the Eastern Conference, and if you’re a Wizards fan, you will wonder why the team’s performance does not improve as the players grow older and hopefully wiser and more experienced. To prove the point or, in the manner of speaking, the case, I took the trouble of taking a look at their win-loss records in the past few years. In 2017, they won 29 games and lost 53 of them, which record is good for 12th place among 15 teams in the Eastern Conference. | 
