Former Wizards players seem to be in high demand lately. Which ones could help the team now?
For years, one of the most frustrating aspects of the Washington Wizards has been that the parts are greater than the sum of the team. In other words, as evidenced by their appeal to and success with other teams in the league, the Wizards have talented players, even if it doesn’t totally manifest while they were in Washington.
For example, there have been rumors the Los Angeles Lakers and Houston Rockets are looking to reunite with Phoenix Suns swingman and one-time Wizard Trevor Ariza. Additionally, after a championship season with the Golden State Warriors, legendary NBA personality Nick Young, who started his career in DC, was headed to the depleted Denver Nuggets.
This got me thinking: In the vein of Ariza going back to his old team, what reunion between former Wizards players and the current iteration of the team be most interesting? That could go a lot of directions, whether it means the most practical acquisition or just funny to imagine. In the next handful of slides, I’ll explore which erstwhile members of the DC Family could help the 2018-2019 Wizards if they were to come back.
For the purposes of this exercise, there’s a few stipulations. For starters, none of the aforementioned players are eligible since they’re already linked to other teams. Secondly, no player who were on the roster last season will be taken into consideration since it’s recent enough to envision them on the roster, so don’t expect to see Marcin Gortat, Mike Scott, or Tim Frazier. Lastly, the player had to play at least half of a season with the Wizards (sorry, Bogey).
Also, this isn’t an exercise in potential trades and trying to match salaries and whatnot. It’s purely hypothetical!