Fellow writer Will Stokes and I got together to discuss AJ Price’s first year with the Wizards. News flash: We feel pretty similarly about him.

James:

AJ Price stepped in to start in the beginning of the season for a team missing its top two players. The Wizards boasted an opening night lineup of Price, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza, a super young Bradley Beal, and Trevor Booker – not exactly murder’s row (well, they did murder my eye balls). For a pass-first, second, and third point guard like AJ Price, the team was bound to struggle without anyone that could finish any sort of shot. And so it was: the Wizards played horribly and the offense he was conducting was historically inept. He shot a cool 36% before the Wizards won their first game and he received a lot of the blame. Rightfully so, I suppose.

AJ Price isn’t the kind of ball-dominating point guard who is going to score it himself. He’s more in the mold of what point guards used to be: distributing three point shooters. He chucks it from deep (6.3 per 36 for his career) at a league average clip and never gets to the line. But we knew to expect that; We know who AJ Price is and we should judge him accordingly. While many will remember this entire season for Price only by that early and awful start, they should not. He ended up posting an offensive rating equal to that of John Wall’s, a comparable points per possession to Wall (.86 to .88), and an effective field goal percentage exceeding John’s by a mile (although Wall’s TS% is better, since he shoots it so much better and more often from the line). Price is not an offensive juggernaut and will forever rely on his teammates to be better than he is for him to excel. This much is clear and was further cemented throughout this season.

But this is less about AJ Price The Player and more about AJ Price The Season. It is quite impossible to judge his season without roughly 100 caveats, but such is life as a Wizards player. Taking all of those caveats away, the season was a complete disaster. Without the caveats, a few main points on his season:

• Price couldn’t stay healthy, shoot, coordinate a functioning offense, or defend anyone.
• He rarely turns it over. He posted an assist-to-turnover ratio that anyone not named Jose Calderon or Chris Paul would kill for.
• Disappointingly, Bradley Beal was roughly the same player with Price on or off the court (an important barometer for any Wizards PG of the future).
• The team was one point per 100 possessions better with him on the court, but didn’t start winning until John Wall returned to steal the lion’s share of his minutes.
• He beat out Jannero Pargo, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, and Jordan Crawford as the more trusted ball handler, although I’m not sure that’s much to brag about.
• When Price and Wall both shared the court (limited sample), the Wizards were much worse than with only Wall.

It’s tough to say positive things about Price’s season in review if you leave out all of the usual Wizards-caveats (bad teammates, bad situation, injuries, bad teammates again). But even with all that in mind, he was still the point guard who was at the helm of the early-season offense that, if projected over an entire season, would have been one of the worst ever; He’s still the point guard who played the most as a part of a 5-28 start; he’s still the point guard who shot 39% from the field.

He gets a C.

Addendum on his future:

With all that said, I still believe AJ Price has a place in the NBA. The odds of him succeeding with a roster so raw and devoid of other play makers or finishers makes me think his future is not in Washington. He’s a solid fourth guard (not so necessary) and a decent backup point (slightly more necessary). But he cannot do it without good players around him and the 2013 NBA season made that abundantly clear. I think AJ Price is a decent player, but one you could do without. On the veteran’s minimum salary(what he made this past year), he’s valuable. If he’s getting paid even a little more than that, he’s not a great fit for the Wizards, especially when Wall starts playing 38 minutes a game.

Will:

AJ Price never really had a fair chance. First, he was forced to start for an injured John Wall to start the year. Then, he got relegated to a bench role with a bunch of young Wizards’ big men that didn’t develop as well as expected. Finally, he suffered through injuries, and missed 25 games over the course of the season. But basketball players aren’t paid millions of dollars because they always get to perform under perfect conditions. So figuring out whether Price fits into this team’s future should be largely based on this season, regardless of the difficulties he faced.

Price fulfilled many, if not all, the obligations that were asked of him when he came to the Wizards last season. He was a good distributor, with the fourth highest assist to turnover ratio for all qualified players in the NBA. He was a good defender, with teams scoring 0.8 fewer points per 100 possessions when he was on the court. That’s above average defense. It’s even better than John Wall, with teams scoring 0.5 more points per 100 possessions when he was on the court. And he got better as the year went on, significantly increasing his three-point shooting and field goal percentage after the all-star break.

So where has Price fallen short? The fact is, he really isn’t good at scoring. Price shot 39% on the year, and while he increased his field goal percentage to 40.9% after the all-star break, it remains to be seen whether that increase would stick for an entire year. He was also attempted an average of under one foul shot per game, which is less than you need from a legit backup point guard. What this tells us is that while Price might be a good distributor and defender, he has a problem getting the ball in the bucket and drawing contact.

That matters. When Price came to the Wizards, he was expected to share ball handling duties with potential sixth man Jordan Crawford and get the ball to one of the many young Wizards’ big men. But with Jordan Crawford leaving for Boston and all those Wizards’ big men seemingly regressing by the game, the Wizards’ were left with Price, a good distributor with no one left to distribute to.

Going forward, I think the Wizards should try and find a different backup point guard. Many times, the fit of a point guard’s skill set within the team as a whole matters more than the skill of the point guard themselves. While AJ Price might eventually end up a decent backup point guard option somewhere in the league, I don’t think he is the right fit to lead a Wizards’ bench that is devoid of any offensive talent. While I think AJ Price played well this past season, I think the Wizards’ should attempt to find more of a scoring point guard for the future.

The Washington Wizards had a forgettable season on the court. They had one of the worst starts in the history of the NBA and posted a league-worst offensive rating. They limped to the finish line, losing six in a row after a semi-enticing run with John Wall back on the court. They comically fought for the 9 seed while simultaneously shutting down what seemed like every player with any likely future ties to the team. The 2013 on-court Wizards will likely never be talked about again. The 2013 Washington Wizards mean a little something more now and it has nothing do with anything that happened in a packed arena. We’ll always have the 47 point game from John Wall, but in the grand scheme,that doesn’t matter. Certain aspects of life are much more important than career nights or historically bad seasons.

Jason Collins is the first active gay player in the NBA. I can’t say I saw that coming, but I can say I don’t much care. Before Jason Collins is a gay man he is a basketball player. Before he is a basketball player he is a human, just like you or me. I am beyond excited that he has found the peace within himself to publicly address his sexuality. Here’s to hoping that Collins will serve as a beacon for similarly oriented individuals who struggle with the feeling of letting someone down, embarrassing themselves or their family, or being bullied – feelings I have never experienced and can only imagine.

There’s no reason to feel like being gay is letting someone down; there’s no reason to feel like being gay is embarrassing; there’s no reason to be bullied for being gay. Step one in moving past sexual orientation as a topic at all is to de-stigmatize it. Jason Collins is the first openly gay NBA player and that matters because it will soon not be considered meaningful at all to be a gay NBA player, or a gay politician, or a gay anything. And for the NBA and macho athletes, it started with Jason Collins – 2013 Washington Wizard, lifetime model human being.

I find an odd sense of pride in what Jason Collins did yesterday. I found the same sense of pride when Frank Ocean came out in a similarly combative environment just last year. I’m proud because these individuals are advancing the discourse on civil rights in way I never could. All men and women are created equal but they don’t all receive equal treatment. Equal treatment is garnered from stances taken by figures like Jason Collins. He may not be an NBA star, but he’s been around the league. If you don’t know him, you know someone who did. And no one has anything less than glowing to say about him. If that isn’t the perfect case for equality, I don’t know what is. Jason Collins is just like anyone else and deserves to be treated as such.

Here’s to equality for all.

And with that, the recap:

The Washington Wizards surrendered a large lead and played poorly down the stretch (what else is new?) in tonight’s loss in Brooklyn. With Trevor Ariza, Martell Webster, Nene, and Bradley Beal all unavailable, the Wiz didn’t have much to rely on. After Okafor exited the game with a right ankle sprain, the vaunted big man rotation of Jan Vesely, Trevor Booker, and Kevin Seraphin made the transition from the bench to center stage at the brightly lit Barclays Center and performed admirably.

Jan showed that he can still throw down alley oops and John, who has likely thrown the fewest alley oops per minute this season (due to JaVale’s departure last year), showed he can still throw them. Jan still seemed largely lost on defense and did not score in the second half, but it is inspiring to see him contribute, even if against a JV version of an NBA team.

Alarmingly, John Wall shot it poorly and often from mid-range. I get that he is confident in his jump shot right now, but he has to realize that a PUJIT (Pull Up Jumper In Traffic) during a fast break is possibly the worst shot in basketball. Not only is it a lower percentage shot (especially for John), it also has a miniscule chance of being rebounded by an offensive player. The odds of scoring there are slim. Poor shot selection is not a criticism only John was worth tonight. Every Wizard seems to much enjoy stepping a foot or two in from the three point line for a long two without considering the average points gleaned from each type of shot. The Wizards have SportsVu. This is not an organization that shuns advanced statistics, so why do the players act like that is not the case? Aside from this criticism, Wall played well, dishing out 12 assists and grabbing six rebounds while leading the team in scoring with 18.

To cap the reacp, it is only fitting that we talk about Andray Blatche. It is equally as fitting that he came up big late with a strong lay up through a foul to take the lead and a hard-fought rebound on the subsequent defensive possession. As @WizardsXtra put it, it’s easy to play free when you’re collecting two checks. Blatche played well, assuming the starring role for the Nets’ B-Team and taking it to the Wizards for 38 minutes. But! He was 2-7 from the free throw line, so can all take solace in that fact and snicker at him over the internet.