The Indiana Pacers recently came excruciatingly close to winning an NBA championship, falling in Game 7 of the NBA Finals. They might have even won the whole thing had Tyrese Haliburton not tragically gone down with a torn achilles tendon early in the game.
I wrote a number of articles during the Pacers’ run comparing the Washington Wizards to them and discussing some Pacer-esque players the Wizards should target. Looking back on the Pacers’ miraculous Finals run, two players stand out as examples of the types of projects the Wizards should undertake.
Aaron Nesmith and Obi Toppin are players I would describe as “successful reclamation projects.” Both were lottery picks that joined competitive teams in the 2020 Draft, and both ultimately found themselves marginalized on those teams over time.
Nesmith was drafted no. 14 overall by the Boston Celtics in 2020, and he was a member of the team that fell to the Golden State Warriors in the 2022 NBA Finals. During his entire stint in Boston, however, he never quite stuck in the team’s rotation, and he ended up being a throw-in in the trade where the Celtics acquired Malcolm Brogdon from the Pacers.
Toppin was the No. 8 overall pick to the New York Knicks in 2020, and he got a bit more burn in the Big Apple than Nesmith did in Boston. However, he too found himself shipped to Indiana for peanuts when he was no longer able to crack the Knicks’ rotation.
The Pacers took fliers on talented, highly-drafted players who were marginalized on prior highly competitive teams. These are the types of players the Wizards should be targeting.
There’s a long offseason ahead of us, and given how the Wizards are one of the less relevant franchises in the broader NBA discussion, be prepared for nonstop “X number of players the Wizards should target” type of content. Including from me.
My word of advice: if you see names like “James Wiseman” — RUN! Outright draft busts like Wiseman who just happened to be drafted with a high pick are only still in the NBA for that very reason. Through five seasons Wiseman has given no indication that he belongs on an NBA floor.
The Wizards should instead target reclamation projects like Nesmith and Toppin, guys with some degree of established pedigree merely trapped in a situation above their paygrade. I recently pegged Reed Sheppard of the Houston Rockets as the type of player who could fit this bill.