For 44 straight seasons, the Washington Wizards have finished with a record of 49 wins or less. Emphasis on the less. The Wizards have been a mediocre team for half of a human lifetime and have rarely even been bad enough to get a top pick
While they have had some high picks, they’ve mostly been mid-round picks, or were traded away for role players. Only continuing the ever-spinning cycle of mediocrity. Forever chasing the eight seed.
Their draft luck isn’t the only reason this cycle has continued for so long. Consider the John Wall selection, or Gilbert Arenas, both were fantastic players in their primes. Bradley Beal was even drafted by the Wizards.
This suggests that somewhere else has been sorely lacking in Wizards history. While trade history could be an explanation, they have a mostly positive record when it comes to trades, especially in the last few seasons.
So where is the problem for the Washington Wizards?
This only leaves free agency. While doing the research for this article, that theory was proven to be correct as the Wizards have an extensive history of signing quality role players for exactly what they were worth that season.
Very rarely did they overpay a player, but they did that a few times as you’ll find out, but they also never managed to get a steal of a contract on a player either.
Delon Wright comes to mind when discussing that fact, he has been an extremely helpful role player for the Wizards this season. He has produced efficient offense in limited touches while providing elite defense. He is getting paid exactly what you would expect a player like that to earn next time he is hitting free agency ($7.8 million for those who are curious).
This is the trend for this team and would describe their history perfectly. Although, they do have some bad contract in their team history that held them back, sometimes for numerous years after the fact.