A Conversation: Analyzing the Washington Wizards Struggles

The Washington Wizards are 33-24, a mark that in normal circumstances would bring out a good amount of excitement from most of us fans. However, after a 22-8 start that saw Washington tied with Atlanta in the Southeast division, Washington has managed just a 11-15 record and inversely watched the Hawks go supernova on the rest of the league and land 4 all-stars in last weekend’s East-West showdown.

Here at Wiz of Awes, we’re a mixed bag of emotions on how to feel about this team and its chances in the playoffs this season. We’ve watched the offense continue to sputter, the defense collapse from early heights, and the roster depth show deep cracks in the armor. James Straton, Osman Baig and I exchanged emails on all things Washington Wizards – enjoy!

(As a note, the thread started before the Wizards got back onto the court last Friday, and has only spiraled into a further canvas of depression and insecurity after blowout losses vs. Cleveland and at Detroit).

Nithin: Ok guys, so the Wizards are struggling, Bradley Beal and Kris Humphries are hurt, and Marcin Gortat makes $12M a year to lose 4th quarter minutes to Drew Gooden.

John Wall has transcended into a top-15 player and an NBA superstar but he’s the only source of consistency top to bottom on this team (unless you count Randy Wittman as being a consistently awful coach). What do you see so far from the Wizards that has you excited about their prospects? Can we expect better than a 5th seed in the East and a 1st round flameout? What types of trade deadline moves do you think will help rekindle the brilliance of November/December?

Osman: Good lead off. I had a little time tonight so I jumped out of place….Here’s what I got. It’s more a summary but I’ll definitely want to dig in more on the trade deadline, coaching, lack of development of Beal and Otto Porter before we wrap up.

This may sound crazy, but outside of John Wall, is there anything about the Wizards to be excited about right now?

The Washington Wizards are 33-21, but have gone 4-8 after peaking at 16 games over .500 at 29-13. During this recent slide, they’re beginning to much more closely resemble last year’s 44-win team versus a team that many thought might be a top-2 seed after a strong start this season.

Making matters worse is the 10-16 mark versus teams that are .500 or better. How can you get really excited about a team’s prospects when they seem incapable of consistently winning against the type of opponents they’ll face in the playoffs?

Add to that the fact that the Wizards are 0-6 versus the top two (2) teams in the Eastern Conference (Atlanta and Toronto) and are 10 games back of Atlanta in the Southeast Division. Let me repeat that – TEN GAMES BACK IN THE DIVISION- all in spite of being off to one of their best starts in over a quarter of a century. You hear the term “stealing thunder” often, and that’s just what Atlanta did.

James: As the resident skeptic, I’m surprised to hear that I’m the least beaten down of the three of us. That may be because I never allowed myself to get sucked into the Finals or Eastern Conference Finals talk, but I’m still a bit shocked. Aren’t the Wizards the team we all expected them to be at the beginning of the season? They’re good on defense and kind of bad on offense, with poor play from the reserves and a coach who is potentially unaware of what True Shooting Percentage means.

John Wall has seemingly progressed while the rest of the team just exists, as you’d expect out of a really old roster. The only shock for me is that Bradley Beal hasn’t improved at all, but sometimes that happens to young guys on good teams. He’s more of a role player than anything as this roster is currently constructed, but that’s okay, because this team is not supposed to compete until he’s ready to be a true second star.

This isn’t the best team in the East like it looked like they might have been in December, but I think we all knew that deep down inside anyway, right?

Nithin: We probably did know they weren’t as good as their record indicated at 19-6, 22-8, and 29-13 but the fact that they played at that level for over half a season gave us some pause on whether to count them out as a potential Eastern Conference champion.

That being said, what frustrates me more than just assuming ‘they are who we thought they were’ is that the problems that have plagued this team are extremely identifiable and have just not been given any sort of proper attention? Even if you are averse to advanced analytics (which in itself is a stupid and misleading term), it’s not hard to understand stats like 3PT attempts, FT attempts, and pace.

It’s not that I expected a championship this season. It’s that what could have easily been a 52-53 win team and potential challenger to the top tier Eastern squads will end up topping out in the high 40’s in win total and a probable first round exit.

To consider how underwhelming the coaching has been, look no further than the team who very well could catch us from the 6 spot. Milwaukee went 15-67 last year, and added two players of note to this year’s team that expected to play major minutes.

One of those players went down before the calendar flipped to 2014 with a torn ACL (Jabari Parker), and the other has been banished from the team and is discussing a buyout in the first year of a 4 year/$44 million deal (Larry Sanders). What’s the great equalizer with a much more talented team like Washington? Jason Kidd > Randy Wittman.

In regards to player development, John Wall has been everything we could’ve hoped and more. He’s a top-15 NBA player and a bonafide All-NBA candidate this year. I am pretty concerned with Bradley Beal and the fact that he hasn’t consistently gotten better now three years into his career, but I have to keep reminding myself he’s still just 21 and has shown flashes (last year’s playoffs come to mind) of being the potential second banana on a championship contender.

Everyone else leaves me less than inspired. I screamed from mountaintops about how bad the Martell Webster deal was back in 2013, and lo and behold it’s virtually an untradeable contract for an unplayable guy. Marcin Gortat is in the first year of a massive deal and can’t even see the floor in the 4th quarter. Otto Porter has been decent at times but isn’t consistent enough to demand more playing time.

I’m not trying to sound like a disgruntled, angry fan for a team that’s done better than any in my lifetime but I think we’re at a crossroads where it remains to be seen how exactly the Washington Wizards go from middle of the pack in the East to a team with serious title aspirations. It’s not happening this year or next, and in reality they may have put all their eggs in the #KD2DC basket.

Let’s see where that takes them.

Osman: I’m in the same boat as Nithin but I’m definitely OK with also sounding like a disgruntled, angry fan! I expected them to win 50 games this year. They were on pace to exceed that to start the year but have fallen off that pace and I’d expect them to finish in the high 40s.

The problem with that is their early success did raise the bar, especially when looked at in the context of the Conference they’re in. There is no LeBron Heat circa 2010-2014 or any dominant team that you know can’t be beaten.

Atlanta is off to a ridiculous start but are they a team that instills the same fear factor that the LeBron Heat did? No.

The same goes for all the upper echelon teams in the Eastern Conference; they’re solid to very good teams but none of the group instill that fear factor or belief that you’re defeated before the game even starts.

To me that then means the Conference is open. The Washington Wizards would by no means have been a favorite, but their goal should be to be in that upper echelon in the East and legitimately compete for the Conference. The bar has to be raised after last year’s Eastern Conference Semifinals appearance.

Not advancing out of Round 1 would be viewed as nothing short of a disappointment, especially considering the age of the roster and how well John Wall has played this year. How much more can we truly expect from him, especially with the lack of help he’s getting from Brad Beal. John is the only young player we can realistically expect to play at a high level going forward? Beal has struggled and Otto is still an unknown. The Wizards frontcourt is old and to expect improved production from aging players is unrealistic.

So what we’re left with is Wall, who’s playing at arguably an All-NBA level and Beal who has frankly been a disappointment given his big playoff performance. What does that mean? How does that set us up for the ’16 summer? Is Kevin Durant going to have a serious interest in a 45 win team that exists in Round 1?

The team has to continue to stay relevant and find a way to ascend leading into ’16 and having the oldest roster in the NBA coupled with an offensively challenged scheme doesn’t help out in that regard.

Nithin: Hate to interrupt the flow we have going on but wanted to discuss the breaking news that just hit the Twitter airwaves. Ramon Sessions appears headed to Washington in a trade for Prof. Andre Miller, PhD. Miller gets to be reunited with his coach George Karl and the Washington Wizards add an athletic, scoring point guard.

Sessions has been certifiably terrible this season in Sacramento but what do you guys make of this deal? Is there more to come? He makes $3M less than Miller so we’re no longer right up against the tax. I think that’s helpful when pursuing buyout candidates for the 15th roster spot.

Osman: Ramon Sessions. Ramon Sessions. Ramon Sessions (if I keep repeating his name I might develop a reaction). This trade doesn’t hurt, but it’s a non-pulse changing type of move that doesn’t move the needle in my opinion. There’s always a chance that a change of venue helps, much like it did last year when he moved from Charlotte to Milwaukee, but I’m not optimistic about that occurring.

It’s role driven to me. If they’re looking at Ramon Sessions as a 12-15 mpg player behind John Wall, how much can he actually contribute? If they find a way to play Wall and Sessions together for a few minutes it might be more intriguing (although shooting will be an issue).

The savings under the tax is something to keep an eye on. Since the Wizards are over the cap and the deadline has passed, I think the most they can offer a free agent right now is the pro-rated minimum. Where the money could come into play is on draft day or at the start of free agency. As J Michael pointed out, the Wizards now have a $4.7 Million trade exemption that lasts until next February, with more room under the luxury tax.

With their methods of improvement limited to their draft picks, the mid-level exemption, and the bi-annual exception (please do better than Eric Maynor this time around!), this trade exemption can come into play as a handy tool to take on salary with the additional breathing room they have under the luxury tax.

The problem is while this seems like a solid move cap wise for the future and the present; I’m still interested in the now. With quality players like Goran Dragic, Isaiah Thomas, and Arron Afflalo on the move, it doesn’t have a “why not us, why not now” type of feel to it. That could all change depending on how the buyout/FA market develops, but for now it seems like the thought of even matching last year’s playoff success will be a challenge

James: The cap gymnastics that Ernie Grunfed went through to grab a traded-player-exception (TPE) for Miller while absorbing Sessions with our leftover TPE is pretty clever. I hadn’t heard that until I saw that Osman pointed it out.

From that standpoint, I love the move as TPEs provided a serious amount of flexibility in future trade talks. The Nuggets just had to pay to send Javale McGee away and moves like that happen often. If the Washington Wizards can absorb a cap-dump player for nothing, they’re sitting pretty for the next fire sale. Maybe this will come in handy when the Thunder have to trade Durant next February… just kidding.

But I’m with Osman – Isn’t this team supposed to win right now? Wouldn’t you prefer to have IT for pennies? Isaiah was moved for Marcus Thornton and Cleveland’s unprotected 2016 first round pick. That means we’re probably talking about a trade for Marcus Thornton and someone like Norris Cole. Why not Andre Miller and the Wizards’ pick this year or next? There isn’t room on this roster for a 20th pick to play, unless Ernie strikes gold in the draft for the first time in his career.

The Wizards really lack a ball handler who can shoot – There are exactly zero of those players on this team. IT strikes me as the perfect addition to a team that falls off a cliff when its only ball handler hits the bench.

Nithin: This trade does nothing to improve Washington’s chances UNLESS two things happen:

A) Ramon Sessions discovers his game that he left in Milwaukee last year and

B) the Wizards use that extra wiggle room under the tax to add a guard who can provide some actual backup minutes for Bradley Beal. I’m not totally counting out the first point because Sessions was playing in the toxic atmosphere known as the Sacramento Kings and never got fully comfortable in limited minutes behind Darren Collison.

A Conversation: Taking the Temperature of the Struggling Washington Wizards

By Nithin Kuchibhotla | Feb 25, 2015