The Washington Wizards’ biggest weaknesses last season included defending the three-point line, which cost them games. Now with bigs knocking down outside shots, Marcin Gortat must also become a first line of defense.
The Washington Wizards just came off both a successful season, as they were one game away from the Eastern Conference Finals, and offseason. And they were able to accomplish all of this by keeping their core, with three of their homegrown starters now under max contracts.
Yet, one thing that wasn’t addressed was their center position. Marcin Gortat played well during the regular season, recording a double-double, averaging 10.8 points and 10.4 rebounds. The Polish Hammer pretty much did his job.
In the postseason he averaged 8.1 points and 11 rebounds per game. But that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Take for example, the Atlanta series when he was up against Dwight Howard. Howard, although he planned on adding the 3-ball to his repertoire this offseason, plays an inside game. Because inside the paint is where Gortat punishes players, the two bigs matched up pretty well.
But as a big, Howard is a pretty good offensive player. Thus, I believed that he would have helped with the Wizards’ center problem. Towards the end of the season, I wrote that the Wizards should have picked him up. Those in opposition to Gortat being Howard’s backup, argued that Howard was a head case. Just last week, the National Basketball Players Association announced that he was named the Hawks best teammate.
In addition, during the offseason, Michael Jordan personally called him to play for his team. I believe, unless Nicolas Batum ups his scoring, that Howard is the second best player in Charlotte. With the addition of Howard, the Hornets now have a very good chance of seeing the playoffs.
Gortat has to put up points
Now with Howard off the table, and most likely he was never on it to begin with, let’s get back to Gortat. During the postseason, he did okay on the defensive end, but offensively he was missing in action. Gortat could hold his own when grabbing rebounds against bigs. But in the scoring department, one would think Gortat didn’t see any minutes.
Gortat was an offensive liability, and put too much pressure on the rest of his team to carry his weight. Granted, it’s not totally his fault, since he doesn’t have a reliable backup in the oft injured Ian Mahinmi.
During the playoffs, Gortat should have started off strong, because the postseason is not a time to play catchup. And combined with John Wall‘s policy of not resting during the regular season, and him having to make up for Gortat’s deficient scoring, Wall’s workload doubled.
Bottom line, during the playoffs when the starters were on the floor it was four against five. And we don’t even need to revisit the bench. Therefore, in order for Gortat to be a contributing factor for Washington, not only must he get his scoring up, but he has to become a defensive threat.