Nobody Beats The Wiz

As a sports fan, there are 3 kinds of bad teams. Using the NBA as an example, there are generically bland bad teams like the Hornets or Cavaliers, who try hard, but just don’t have the talent to succeed night in and night out. There are historically bad teams like the Bobcats, who are interesting solely because of their badness. In terms of team personality, they are usually just as ho-hum as the 1st kind of bad team, they just have even less talent. The 3rd kind of bad team is interesting not only because of how terrible they are, but because they are terrible in a completely bumbling fashion. This would be my hometown Washington Wizards. They started off the year with the kind of roster that could almost be a caricature of what a bad team looks like. It was like the casting call for a Disney sports movie. You had the overpaid, out of shape, too sensitive about being booed by the home crowd power forward. You had the self-absorbed, happy he put up his own stats in another loss, 1 assist per game shooting guard. You had the goofball, running the wrong way down court, mom blasting the coach in the media center with no self-awareness center. You had the former college stud point guard who seemed to regress being surrounded by his current cast of misfits. You had the old vet who gets paid like he’s 1 of the top 5 players in the league, yet rides the bench on a bad team. You had about 6 other impressionable and unproven young players who were being poisoned daily by the multiple bad apples in the bunch. And you had the embattled coach who didn’t really sign up for a rebuilding job when he got to town, but now was forced to deal with the situation. That was your 2011-2012 Washington Wizards, folks. By the middle of the year though, the Wizards brass seemed to finally gain some perspective, and realized that this ship was going nowhere fast. In no particular order, they canned the embattled coach (Flip Saunders), shipped off the self-absorbed shooting guard (Nick Young) and goofball center (JaVale McGee), and basically told the out of shape power forward (Andray Blatche) and overpaid vet (Rashard Lewis) to make themselves scarce.

Sigh...poor John Wall.

Since the moves, the Wizards have lost games at mostly the same rate, but their little addition by subtraction moves at least cleared up playing time for some of their younger guys so that they could be further evaluated. While Washington has made some abysmally bad moves in the past couple of years (one example is how they extended Blatche’s contract last year, which basically made him untradeable as well), most of the Wizards’ most recent moves have actually made sense. They have been able to stockpile young talent. The Wizards have 5 guys on their roster who were 1st round picks during the last 2 drafts, and another (Shelvin Mack) who was an early 2nd rounder. Including John Wall, that’s 7 high picks from the last 3 drafts. If you’re going to lose, you might as well lose with young players. Also, Rashard Lewis’ contract continues to seem like an anvil strapped to the franchise’s neck, but acquiring Lewis for Gilbert Arenas actually did save the Wiz 10’s of millions of dollars in the long run. Lastly, Washington got back a legit veteran low post threat in the McGee-Young deal this year. Even if Nene’s creaky knees only allow him to be a part time presence, he can at least serve as a mentor to Washington’s young bigs, Kevin Seraphin, Trevor Booker, and Jan Vesely.

All in all, I doubt the Wizards front office truly believed they could make a playoff push with the roster they had in place this year, but I think they could have lived without the nightly Sportscenter jabs at their players’ tomfoolery. Maybe even more maddening than that, Washington has shown a penchant for showing up against the better teams. At 18-46, they boast the 2nd worst record in the league to the Bobcats, but they have made a killing against Charlotte this year (4-0). That leaves 14 wins against the rest of the league, but those 14 include victories over the Thunder, Lakers, Bulls, and Heat. (In their wins against Chicago and Miami, those teams rested what seemed like their entire starting lineups, but still…) Despite all that inconsistency and every other bad thing I’ve said about this team so far, they are actually on a 4 game win streak, and they have won 6 out of their last 8. So, while riding high with 2 games left to go this season, it’s probably a good time to recap this year and look towards the next.

John Wall…Wall is probably the hardest Wizard to grade. His assists and 3 point shooting were down and his turnover rate was up compared to his rookie season, but it’s hard to blame him too much with all the moppishness that went on with this team earlier in the year. Anyone who watched Wizards games earlier this year knows John Wall was not having any fun. His listless expression all but said, “Get me out of here!” Still, I think he gets brownie points for showing up every night (he hasn’t missed a game this year) and playing hard on a team that didn’t exactly inspire good morale. And while he would do well to get in the gym and work on his outside shooting every day this summer, I actually like that he took less 3’s per game this year compared to the year before (which caused his overall shooting percentage to go up a tick). To me, he still projects as a Rajon Rondo type player. And actually, he is bigger, faster, and has a better looking jumper than Rondo, but while Rondo is a pure point guard, I’m not sure Wall has that same knack as a passer. Wall’s career assist numbers (8.1 a game) might be deceptively high just because he has his hands on the ball so often. To the naked eye, he makes nice passes to open guys, but watching Wall I don’t get the sense that he has any idea how to do things that good point guards do like get the ball to his teammates in the exact spot that they like or having a sense that he needs to get a particular teammate a shot to keep them interested on defense. While he might not be as explosive a leaper, Wall might want to more closely model his offensive game after Russell Westbrook in the future, but that comparison is still a long ways off.

The Bigs…I have always liked Nene’s overall game, but I wonder about his durability at this stage of his career. Since the trade, he has only played 9 games in a Wizards uniform and 37 games this year overall. Even so, I think it was a good trade for Washington just because it allowed them to move 2 guys who were bogging down their team, and even if Nene can’t play it will at least free up time for Vesely, Seraphin, and Booker. To anyone who just looks at stats, Vesely might look like somewhat of a bust for a lottery pick so far, but he is still very young and adjusting to the NBA game. I would like to see him add some strength and work on a midrange jumper, but I think that most people who actually watch Wizards games have actually liked what they have seen from him. I don’t ever think he will be a guy you can dump the ball into the post to, but if you watch him he always seems up to stuff…he’s a good screen setter and passer for his size, he seems to track rebounds pretty well, and it looks like he has a good sense of where to be on the court based on how a play is developing. The counter to that is that you don’t look for solid role players with lottery picks; you’re looking for an All-Star caliber player…but I have to say I’m a fan, and I think he’s worth paying attention to next season. I also liked what I saw from Trevor Booker this year (when he wasn’t battling injuries). I could see Booker developing into a left-handed, poor man’s Paul Milsap maybe, but at the worst he’s a high energy banger off the bench. Kevin Seraphin might be the most intriguing of the 3 young bigs. For his 1st season and a half in the league, Seraphin looked like a complete project. He seemed slow of foot, awkward, and uncoordinated. Since he’s gotten the opportunity to play he looks like, well, a young Nene. His footwork in the post is excellent, he has a nice soft touch around the basket, and he’s more athletic than I initially thought. In April, he’s averaged close to 16 points, 8 rebounds, and 2 blocks a game. He still needs to get stronger and become a much better passer out of the double team, but the kid actually looks like he can play.

Since Washington cleaned house, Seraphin's been a pleasant surprise.

Perimeter Scoring…A scoring point guard and a stable of young athletic big guys is nice, but without a franchise player, you’re not going anywhere. And unless your name is Chris Paul or Dwight Howard, if you’re a franchise player in today’s NBA, you’re most likely a shooting guard or small forward that can score from the wing. Simply put, the Wizards don’t have that. Right now, they have Wall and a bunch of “nice” perimeter players. Mack is a nice backup point guard. Chris Singleton is a good perimeter defender and hustle guy. Jordan Crawford can shoot you both in and out of games…they are all nice players. All of that is well and good, but without a LeBron/Durant/Kobe type player, well, your ceiling is probably only as good as the Indiana Pacers. That’s not necessarily a terrible thing given that this franchise has been floundering for what seems like forever, but for the most part you don’t win championships without “that” guy. The fact is that the Wizards have to get lucky in the draft again this upcoming summer…and not so much as getting lucky enough to get the number 1 pick and get Anthony Davis (which I wouldn’t hate either), but getting lucky in a sense that the draft is a crapshoot, and they need whoever they pick to turn into a real player. Otherwise, all this optimism is just a waste of time on my part…and I will be writing a similar post about the Wizards this next time next year too.