We are in the midst of another disappointing season from the Washington Wizards. Having lost 10 in a row before finally stealing one against the Phoenix Suns and drifting farther and farther away from the playoffs. The Wizards need to start focusing on their future. Putting potential trades to move their stars to start tanking aside, it is vital to assess what the Wizards have in their young core. Who is a building block going forward? Who is expendable?
For a franchise that has picked in the top 15 in each of the last five drafts, the Wizards shockingly lack high-end young talent. This is most certainly due to the mandate dictated by the ownership to the front office to be competitive, resulting in the drafting of more NBA-ready but low-ceiling players. Let’s take a look at their most recent draft picks.
The Washington Wizards have struggled with the health and development of their young players.
Out of those five first-round draft picks, 2018 draftee Troy Brown is no longer with the Washington Wizards after a couple of underwhelming seasons. The performances of the other four; Rui Hachimura, Deni Avdija, Corey Kispert, and Johnny Davis, have been a mixed bag.
Hachimura is already about to turn 25 years old. He has struggled to stay healthy, having played 163 games in his 3.5 seasons with the team. And when he is healthy, he hasn’t provided much on either end of the floor.
Hachimura is one of the most mid-range happy players in the league, rarely going to the free-throw line or being a threat from behind the three-point line. He has middling efficiency, hovering around the league average of 55% in True Shooting for his career. Considering that he does not have any passing chops or defensive playmaking abilities, it is hard to argue that he brings much value in other aspects of the game other than scoring. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the Wizards have played better with him off the floor than on in each of his four seasons.
Avdija, the 9th pick in the 2020 Draft, has had a more promising start to his career. He is already one of the better defensive young wings in the league. He can guard multiple positions and possesses both strength and lateral speed to stay in front of the best players in the league. Yet, he has struggled to find himself a role on offense. His usage rate of 15% is extremely low for a perimeter player and his True Shooting Percentage of 52% leaves a lot to be desired offensively.
His shooting will improve, it is hard to imagine that a player with a soft touch and good shooting mechanics will shoot 31 percent from three-point range for his career. However, he needs to improve his dribbling and pull-up game enough that he is at least a threat to attack closeouts. He has a long way to go offensively but he has at least proven he can be a solid rotational piece.
Kispert, another Gonzaga player like Hachimura, was drafted 15th overall in 2021. Since then, he has done exactly what one would hope from a four-year college player. He has been solid offensively, knocking down threes at an elite level -41% this season- and holding his own defensively depending on the matchup. He is not a great option against the quickest or the most athletic wings, but he is not overwhelmed easily thanks to his size. However, just like Avdija, he has an extremely small role on offense.
With a 12.7% usage rate, he is pigeonholed as a catch & shoot three-point specialist. That is fine, considering he is only in his second season. But he is also 24 years old, and one has to wonder if there is more upside to him than his current role.
Perhaps the most disappointing of the Wizards’ young core so far has been the 2022 lottery pick, Johnny Davis. Davis is about to turn 21 years old and he was supposed to be one of the more NBA-ready players in the draft. Yet, the fact that he can’t see the floor on a team that had Delon Wright, Rui Hachimura, and Bradley Beal out at the same time for long stretches of the season is a bad sign. He has seen 45 minutes of action and made three shots in total. And it is not like he is setting the G-League on fire. For the Capital City Go-Go, he is averaging 11.9 points per game on 40% from the field in 14 games. He averages as many turnovers as assists and rarely gets to the free-throw line. Early returns on whether there is an NBA player here are certainly not promising.
There is a chance that one or more of these young players could pop and become good NBA starters. But it is only a slight possibility, not a probability. That is where the Wizards’ front office goes wrong year after year. They get blinded by the allure of the small fish that is playoff contention and miss the bigger fish. They could have drafted Jalen Duren over Davis, Alperen Sengun over Kispert, and Tyler Herro over Hachimura.
Every franchise has their misses in the NBA draft. Scouting and evaluating are not exact sciences. You can’t fault a team for missing in the NBA draft. But you can fault them for lacking ambition and vision. If you make every draft pick, trade, and contract extension with chasing the 8-seed in mind, you will end up where the Wizards are today. No hope for the playoffs today, and no hope for the future.