Ian Mahinmi’s solid play shows Washington Wizards fans what could have been

With a slew of injuries to the Washington Wizards roster, Ian Mahinmi has seen more minutes and has performed admirably. With his quality play as of late, it makes you wonder what could have been.

The injury bug hit the Washington Wizards in December, and boy did it hit hard. With injuries to key players such as Bradley Beal, Davis Bertans, Thomas Bryant, Rui Hachimura, Mo Wagner, CJ Miles, and of course John Wall,  Scott Brooks and the Wizards have had to get creative with rotations.

This has resulted in Brooks having to look towards the end of his bench and extending minutes for the likes of Jordan McRae, Garrison Mathews, Ish Smith, Troy Brown Jr., and Isaac Bonga. As well as finding help from newcomers such as Gary Payton II, Johnathan Williams, and Anzejs Pasecniks.

Another guy who has been seeing the floor a fair amount for the Wizards is Ian Mahinmi. Yes, that Ian Mahinmi.

Since returning from Achilles soreness at the beginning of December, Mahinmi has been thrust into playing serious minutes, and for the most part, has played solidly.

This season, Mahinmi has appeared in 14 games ad he’s started 11 of them. He’s averaged 8.1 points and 5.6 rebounds in about 21 minutes per game and even had a 25-point outing in an impressive victory against the Miami Heat.

Per 36 minutes, Mahinmi is averaging 13.2 points, 9.2 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks, according to Basketball-Reference. That’s easily the best per 36 stat line of his Wizards tenure.

Now, obviously, in the grand scheme of things, these numbers do not put Mahinmi among the top centers in the NBA. However, with Mahinmi playing well, it makes you wonder, “what if he played like this during his entire Wizards tenure?”

For those of you who may have forgotten, Mahinmi was signed during the disastrous summer of 2016 to a 4-year deal worth 64 million dollars. Now for the purpose of this article, we are not going to focus on that contract, but rather his performance on the floor.

Mahinmi was signed during what may end up being the peak of the Wall/Beal era. The Wizards, after striking out on Kevin Durant and Al Horford, resorted to overpaying Mahinmi to be the team’s backup big.  

Unfortunately, after signing with the Wizards, Mahinmi partially tore his meniscus and only appeared in 31 games in 2016-2017. He also missed a majority of the playoffs. After that, Mahinmi returned fairly healthy for the 2017-2018 season but ran into new issues, as his play on the court had started to deteriorate.

Over the past few seasons, Mahinmi has found himself in foul trouble quite a bit, racking up fouls in a matter of minutes.  Over the past two seasons, he has been among the team leaders in fouls per game and total fouls. As a result, opposing teams could attack Mahinmi at the rim knowing they’d either get fouled or face little resistance from a center already in foul trouble.

In the NBA, the best ability is availability and up until recently, Mahinmi has not had that during his time in DC. Between the injuries and poor play, he was not able to do what he was brought here to do. But now, more than ever, he is.

Imagine if the Mahinmi we are seeing currently was able to eat up minutes and play like this during the Wizards playoff run in 2017? During the 2016-2017 season, the Wizards starting lineup was one of the best in the NBA but the bench was one of the worst. Would Mahinmi have been able to give the Wiz a slight boost? Would he have been able to stop Kelly Olynyk in that infamous Game 7 against Boston? Would he have been able to spot start for Marcin Gortat during the teams’ 2017-2018 collapse? These are all questions that we may never know but may continue to haunt us if Mahinmi’s solid play continues.

This is the Ian Mahinmi that Wizards fans may have been waiting for, especially considering the price tag. Watching Ian play well should make all Wizards fans happy…even if it is 3 years too late.