Washington Wizards are betting on Trey Burke to revitalize his career in D.C., just like Ramon Sessions did a few years ago.
After years of rebuilding through the NBA Draft, the Washington Wizards hoped to establish continuity by keeping their core group of players together.
The starters, for the most part, have remained the same in Washington.
John Wall, Bradley Beal, Otto Porter, and Marcin Gortat all have years of experience playing together, and Markieff Morris finished out this past season as the team’s starting power forward.
The bench, however, is going to look completely different.
Nene, Garrett Temple, Drew Gooden and Ramon Sessions have all been with the Wizards for at least two seasons. The second unit was entirely scrapped this off-season, and the front office replaced the departing players with younger, more versatile players.
On paper, the Wizards’ second unit is much deeper than it was last year.
Ian Mahinmi, Andrew Nicholson, Jason Smith and Tomas Satoransky all bring size to the table, which is something the team lacked.
Nicholson, Smith and Satoransky can all play more than one position, allowing Scott Brooks to be more flexible with his lineups.
The one question mark the Washington Wizards have on the second unit is the point guard position.
Sessions is the most dependable backup point guard the Wizards had since Antonio Daniels used to suit up in the nation’s capital.
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Prior to acquiring Sessions in a trade from the Sacramento Kings, the Wizards were constantly shifting the backup point guard spot.
Eric Maynor, Andre Miller, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, A.J. Price and Jannero Pargo all had opportunities to play behind John Wall, but none of the players did well enough to warrant keeping them around.
Sessions was pitiful in Sacramento, putting up career low numbers all across the board.
Washington swapped Miller, who was somewhat reliable offensively for Washington, for Sessions, who lost his backup spot to rookie Ray McCallum, who’s been in-and-out of the NBA.
Ernie Grunfeld wanted a point guard that could give the team a scoring spark and Sessions did exactly that. He rarely missed time due to injury, despite being the team’s best player at creating contact inside.
Now, Sessions is gone and the Wizards are hoping another forgotten point guard could revitalize his career in Washington, just like Sessions did several years ago.
Instead of looking for a backup point guard in free agency, the Washington Wizards filled the void by acquiring Trey Burke from the Utah Jazz for virtually nothing.
Similar to their deal for Sessions, the Wizards didn’t give up much for their new backup, but seem to be high on Burke’s potential development and growth.
Burke, an undersized former lottery pick, was supposed to become Utah’s franchise point guard, but his future with the team became murky after the Jazz drafted Dante Exum – a taller guard with more upside.
After starting 68 games during his rookie season, Burke found himself playing a reduced role for the Jazz last year, starting in none of the 64 games he played in.
The red-flag with that is, the Jazz were considered one of the weakest teams in the league in terms of their point guard depth. Even with Exum missing the entire year due to an ACL injury, Burke’s minutes continuously declined.
Funnily enough, Mack, whom the Wizards drafted and later waived, began to take minutes away from Burke after the Jazz picked him up from the Atlanta Hawks.
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During the second half of the season, Burke was playing less than 14 minutes per game and essentially fell out of the team’s rotation.
Burke became a third string point guard in Utah, and as a result, his exit from the team seemed inevitable.
The former Michigan standout didn’t allow the change to shake his confidence, realizing that another opportunity would arise soon.
“Everything is temporary. My time is going to come again eventually,” Burke told the media at the end of the season. “I’ll just continue to work hard every day and handle the things I could control.”
That opportunity came relatively fast once the season concluded.
In many ways, Washington has become a land of second chances.
Sessions, Gooden, Martell Webster and Rasual Butler all found ways to reinvent themselves once landing in D.C.
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The Washington Wizards are now betting that Burke, a forgotten, once highly-touted prospect, will join that group of players this upcoming season.