Washington Wizards: Analytical Look At Free Agent Alternatives to Kevin Durant
#KD2DC seems to be on life support.
During a radio spot this past weekend, Yahoo!’s Adrian Wojnarowksi indicated that the Washington Wizards and Los Angeles Lakers are not amongst the front runners to sign Kevin Durant.
Until Kevin Durant either re-signs with Oklahoma City or signs elsewhere this summer, any report that isn’t directly from Durant should be taken with a grain of salt, regardless of who’s reporting it. But, Woj is as reliable as it gets in NBA circles.
A plan that has been approached methodically by this organization in terms of how they’ve structured payroll, seems to be for naught.
How the Washington Wizards got to this point and where the blame lies is secondary.
The primary issue now is Plan B. What is it?
The Wizards still maintain a great deal of financial flexibility going into this summer as summarized here by Jorge Castillo with the Washington Post. I previously wrote on alternatives to Kevin Durant in free agency, but with the recent news I thought taking a fresh look at the topic was appropriate.
Before re-examining the possibilities I think it’s important to understand what Kevin Durant would mean to the organization.
Franchise Player
Kevin Durant, the 2013-2014 MVP is a bona-fide, no questions asked franchise player. There’s only a handful of players in the league that can carry a franchise and Durant is one of them.
Along with Stephen Curry and LeBron James, Durant likely completes the list of the top three basketball players in the world. The Washington Wizards have not had a player of that caliber in some time.
They’ve had impact players including Chris Webber, Gilbert Arenas, John Wall, Pervis Ellison, and Rod Strickland, but they’ve never had a player this good.
Contender Status
Adding Durant to a team that advanced to the Eastern Conference Semi-finals the past two years would have absolutely made the Wizards a contender for the Eastern Conference Title, injuries aside.
Marketing
Durant would have represented a significant boost to ticket sales, attention surrounding the franchise, and fan morale, which have been under attack and brought into attention this year.
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The Wizards would not have to wait half a season for a nationally televised game and the fans who are there would be there to cheer for the home team versus there to see an elite player or team come to town.
More importantly, he would be more popular than the all-powerful Chik Fil-A sandwich.
S, with Plan B in mind and in the age of analytics, I’ve decided it’s time for me to put my foot forward and solve the Wizards quest for a franchise free agent in the summer of ’16.
I’m here to introduce WoA Factor, an exclusive WizofAwes advanced analytics metric that answers the question of who the Wizards should prioritize as a free agent in the summer of ’16.
Without giving away our entire formula, we factored in these three basic questions (editor’s note: this is a very intricate formula that consists of only the following criteria…):
- Can Player X become a franchise player?
- Does Player X make the Washington Wizards a Contender?
- Are they more popular than Chik Fil-A?
I’ve consulted the WizofAwes crew and asked each writer to rate prospects on a 1-10 scale: with one being the lowest and 10 being the highest.
This is where the math gets tricky (trust me), but let’s just says the end product is a total score which indicate in ranked ascending order, who Washington should pursue in free agency.
Next: 5) Batum