Wiz of Awes
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Washington Wizards Off-Season Failures: Player Personnel

By Blaise Malley

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Washington Wizards weren’t able to adequately upgrade their roster this off-season after Kevin Durant decided not to come home.

The Washington Wizards entered the 2015 off-season with a plan, and by their own account, executed this plan to perfection.

The blueprint for 2015 was drawn up with a long-term goal of reeling in the biggest fish from the 2016 free agent pool.

For years, the Wizards had been eying an evident and full-blown pursuit of Oklahoma City star and Washington D.C. native Kevin Durant.

The basic premise of the long-term idea was as follows: In an attempt to lure Durant back to the nation’s capital, the Wizards front office elected to not give any of the new Wizards players long-term deals in order to hold enough cap space to afford Durant.

The team had a solid enough core – All-Star John Wall, guard Bradley Beal and athletic young wing Otto Porter – to entice Durant and very few players under contract who would impede Washington’s financial flexibility.

In the off-season General Manager Ernie Grunfeld neglected to go after some of the bigger available names (Boston guard Isaiah Thomas or Hawks forward Paul Millsap, for example) and opted instead for one-year fixes to try to improve the Wizards depth, adding Gary Neal, Alan Anderson and Jared Dudley.

Wall, Beal and the supporting cast had shown its ability by winning a playoff series in both 2013-14 and 2014-15, and that level of sustained success should have at least been enough to make D.C. a serious candidate in the Durant sweepstakes in 2016.

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In fact, Grunfeld’s moves were largely praised as shrewd moves that would strengthen the weak bench without handicapping the finances, and that Washington had positioned itself as perhaps a top-three team in the Eastern Conference.

I wondered if the team had sacrificed progress in their pursuit of Durant – whether the team would be stuck on the “treadmill of mediocrity” that seems to hamper so many franchises.

My conclusion was that it was worth it.

With Durant, the Washington Wizards would have made the jump to perennial contender, so any move that facilitates such as transaction would be worth another season stuck in the mud.

However, in the 2015-16 season, the team seems to be have begun sinking as opposed to being stuck, the Wizards’ all-or-nothing, swing for the fences approach faced the possibility of ending up with no yield.

It was high-risk, high-reward, and the Wizards struggles would almost guarantee the latter.

The much-hyped summer of 2016 arrived, but there was no longer much hope for the KD to DC movement.

When the free agency period opened, Durant refused to grant the Wizards so much as an interview and ended up signing a contract with the Golden State Warriors.

The Washington Wizards couldn’t have been caught off guard by the move. The likelihood of Durant actually coming home had continuously worsened as the Wizards limped through an uninspired season.

However, they still weren’t fully prepared when the off-season rolled around. This all-in attempt at the former MVP had left Grunfeld without a Plan B and the Wizards in a very undesirable situation.

The Wizards made the two most important moves of the off-season by re-signing Beal on a big-money deal and replacing coach Randy Wittman with Scott Brooks (though I remain unconvinced by the move), but were left to fill out a large portion of the roster due to the exodus of players whose contract had purposefully run out at the conclusion of the season.

Grunfeld surely does deserve some credit.

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Many, including myself, have criticized him in the past for not making bold moves; for preferring stability over potential.

The strategy to go after Durant was unquestionably bold, and even though it backfired, the reward would have been worth it.

Still, this was a strong free agent class and the team couldn’t come away with anything of true substance, meaning someone who could lift the team to the next level.

With a relatively exciting core and tons of cap space, Washington was a solid destination for several players looking for new employers.

There was a level of players between Durant and Ian Mahinmi, and Washington failed to lock up any of them.

This past summer was circled on my calendar, not as the time when Durant would return, but as the summer where the Washington Wizards make their big move. It wasn’t.

Nicolas Batum, considered potential target, passed over a discussion with Washington to re-sign with Charlotte. Joakim Noah went to New York. Luol Deng signed with the Lakers. Al Horford, who the Wizards were at one point reportedly closing in on, elected to go to Boston instead.

A lot of these players were gone right away, before the Wizards were able to really make a move. Perhaps, had the Wizards been prepared, they could have pursued the free agents more aggressively.

Of course, there is no guarantee that they would have signed, but it seemed as if Washington was not ready for the frenzy.

None of these guys, with the exception of Horford, would have brought Washington to the next level. The team was unlucky that the pool was relatively thin behind Durant. But the group that was brought in is not at the same level that was expected this off-season.

Again, Grunfeld does deserve some credit. He retooled the bench well enough to compete again next season, and added some solid pieces to the rotation.

Next: Gortat Takes Subtle Shots At Wittman During Media Day

The Wizards need to make moves that help them win while Wall and Beal are still in their prime. Perhaps the big coup will arrive next summer, but given the circumstances that greeted them this year – a roster that was created to make a big move and a salary cap that was constructed to pay – it is difficult to justify the outcome of this off-season as a success.

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