Wiz of Awes
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Washington Wizards Need to Invest in the Future by Investing in Player Development

By Ryan Eugene

Apr 10, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Wizards forward Kelly Oubre Jr. (12) dunks the ball as Charlotte Hornets forward Marvin Williams (2) and Hornets guard Courtney Lee (1) look on in the fourth quarter at Verizon Center. The Wizards won 113-98. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports
Apr 10, 2016; Washington, DC, USA; Washington Wizards forward Kelly Oubre Jr. (12) dunks the ball as Charlotte Hornets forward Marvin Williams (2) and Hornets guard Courtney Lee (1) look on in the fourth quarter at Verizon Center. The Wizards won 113-98. Mandatory Credit: Geoff Burke-USA TODAY Sports /
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The Washington Wizards have been one of the worst teams in the NBA in developing their talent and that must change going forward

As every Washington Wizards fan is well aware, player development has not been an area of strength in recent years.  

The likes of Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Oleksiy Pecherov, JaVale Mcgee and Nick Young come to mind, among others, and although player scouting is probably just as much to blame in those cases, it’s important to focus on the various ways the organization can improve, outside of signing Kevin Durant.

Although the NBA is the premier professional basketball league in the world, it sometimes feels like player development services aren’t as abundant as in college and summer programs.  

Players used to enter the NBA with three or four years of college experience, routinely around the age of 22, with a very developed game.

 The progress and improvements throughout a career seemed to come from being more comfortable with the NBA game after playing three or more seasons of 82+ games.  

As the “one and done” era of basketball has come along, more and more players are entering the league at 18 or 19, thus entering the most competitive league in the middle of their development cycle.

Superstars still show great progress in the NBA, but many of the one and done players drafted after the lottery routinely see some initial struggles, requiring more player development assistance than the higher picks.

Let’s look at Kelly Oubre, for example.  

Oubre, drafted 15th in 2015, joined a Washington Wizards team that signed veteran role players to help the team push for a number two seed in the East.  

By signing Alan Anderson, Gary Neal, and Jared Dudley, Oubre suddenly became the 12th man, and played more than two minutes in only five of the first 14 games.  

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Oubre did manage to play a significant role in the middle of the season because of injuries to Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, and Anderson, but the inconsistency in minutes and role surely affected his rookie year development.  

Because the NBA season is so compact with 82 games in 170 days, there’s not a lot of time for team practice, thus the time for players to improve is primarily during games in addition to workout days, shootarounds, and any personal time spent in the gym.  

The first month of Oubre’s career was possibly the least amount of basketball he’d played in a year, and hopefully he’s learned from his peers what a proper NBA offseason regimen entails.

He’s already been seen working out with Detroit Pistons’ Stanley Johnson.

The three most important players to see develop this summer are Beal, Porter, and Oubre, as the first will likely be the highest paid player on the team, and a potential future all-star, and the latter two are the team’s last two first round draft picks.  

Beal and Oubre will both be working out with renowned player development coach Drew Hanlen at some point this summer, and hopefully they can learn some new techniques and routines to use during their offseason workouts and training camp, in addition to improving strength and conditioning.

The Wizards current Player Development coach, David Adkins, has been with the team for two years, after five years with the Maryland Women’s Basketball Team.  

I can’t sit here and say that Adkins is necessarily doing a poor job, but I wanted to look more in-depth at the role of the player development staff during the offseason, and become more aware of what the staff looks like on other teams, most notably the organizations that have shown success in recent years.  

The San Antonio Spurs, a premier NBA organization, have developed Tony Parker, Manu Ginobili, George Hill, Danny Green, and Kawhi Leonard among others, and focus largely on “targeted practice and development” as they’ve transitioned from a veteran led group to a younger team.

One of the most important aspects of any player development program is ensuring that the players buy in, so while the regimen should be perfected, the coaches must do a good job helping players become open to individualized coaching and criticism, something that young players can struggle with in the beginning.  

The player development and assistant coaches, working alongside the video editor, take a look at players weaknesses, and craft a strategy on how each can improve in particular areas during the offseason.

As the average age of the Washington Wizards’ roster has increased, the development responsibility of the coaches has decreased.  

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This summer will be different than normal, however, as the team could bring as many as nine new players onto the roster, meaning that coaches may be a little behind schedule getting with players to work on their offseason plan.  

Because of the size of the NBA, and the fact that each team plays at least two games against the other organizations, the coaches should be ready to work with players as soon as they sign and already have thoughts on areas of opportunity.  

The veteran players themselves, offseason trainers, and ex-coaches will be great resources for the Wizards’ staff as they become more acquainted with the new faces. 

Having a great reputation for developing players is important in the free agency process, which will obviously be the key for Washington this summer.  

The NBA is a very close-knit community, with only 450 players on rosters at any point, and word travels fast about various parts of an NBA organization.  

Former Pelicans’ Head Coach Monty Williams spoke to this, saying, “When you have the Chris Pauls and the David Wests talking to people around the league after they’ve left here about our coaching and our PD, it really helps your program.”

Money, roster, location, and role are the main factors that players take into account when choosing which team to sign with, but having a coaching staff that will bring out untapped potential is important as well.  

A player’s salary is directly tied to potential future performance, and a successful player development program will go far towards helping players monetarily in the future. 

Stephen Curry deserves a ton of credit for his amazing improvements this season, but it’s not a coincidence that the improvement occurred as the Warriors brought two-time MVP Steve Nash on as a player development consultant.  

Even if Nash’s role was as simple as talking with the players about his on court experiences and practice routines, learning from a mind as smart as Nash surely benefited Curry and the other Warriors.  

In addition, a team coming off a championship has supreme confidence – one of the most important factors in leading players to another level of excellence.  

The Washington Wizards need to return to playing with the level of confidence they played with in 2015 with Paul Pierce on the team.  

It’s somewhat of a catch-22 though as winning spawns confidence, and playing with confidence seems to lead to improvements on the court, as long as a level head is maintained (see former Wizards knuckleheads and Dion Waiters).

Obviously, this past season did not end how the team and fans hoped with the Wizards missing the playoffs, but there were some positives to take away.  

The culture seems to have officially changed from the 2012-13 team that had McGee, Young, Andray Blatche, and Jordan Crawford, John Wall taking on a larger leadership role, and the duo of Wall and Beal gaining positive insights from the one year with Pierce on the roster.  

Wall initiated a week-long summer training session in Los Angeles that allowed the new players to get to know each other early on in the offseason.  There still is a lot left to be desired though, as Wall managed to show up to training camp out of shape, and this summer will be returning from knee surgery, hopeful in time for the preseason.

I am excited to see how Scott Brooks and his staff manages the development of the young players on the roster.

The Wizards haven’t announced which assistant coaches will join Brooks in Washington, but it’s reasonable to expect that at least a few of his former assistants in Oklahoma City will follow him to DC.

They did a great job with varying levels of young talent in OKC, and the future of the team depends on the development of the players under contract, and future draft selections.

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Revisiting the play of Oubre, his NBA prospect comparisons have ranged from James Young, Gerald Green, Nick Young, Rudy Gay, and Paul George.

He still has plenty of room to grow and make a name for himself, and while all the work he puts in this summer and training camp will benefit him greatly, there’s nothing like real live NBA game action.

Brooks seems to be a coach that rewards players for their hard work and is willing to trust players more than Randy Wittman did in the past.

Occasionally, you’ll end up with poor decisions like when Brooks continued to start Kendrick Perkins in the 2012 NBA Finals, but the positives of trusting a young player like Oubre early in his career should outweigh those potential negatives.

One of the strongest factors in a young prospect’s success is commitment from his organization. The Washington Wizards organization, with plenty of mistakes along the way, has shown commitment in its young players, routinely allowing players to finish out their rookie deals before giving up hope.

By investing more into player development, organizations save money and time in the long run by not having to take as many chances on trades and signings.

Next: Is Kelly Oubre the Next Paul George?

There are few guarantees in the NBA, but one is that once you draft a player in the first round you have him for four years, usually on a pretty reasonable contact.  Let’s be grateful for that and put in the effort to ensure that our players become great players for us, instead of being the next Rip Hamilton, Chris Webber, or Ben Wallace.

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