Patrick Baldwin Jr may have the second-highest ceiling on the Wizards

After being acquired by the Washington Wizards in a trade featuring Chris Paul and Jordan Poole, Patrick Baldwin Jr is now in a position where he may be able to reach his fullest potential.

The Wizards are not a team known for player development. More often than not, their young players end up injury prone or fizzling out within a few seasons. However, they recently made numerous moves to improve their development staff through numerous staff signings as well as a new focus by the revamped front office.

This improves the odds that young players like Bilal Coulibaly or Baldwin will reach their fullest potential on the Wizards. This will be important for the franchise as they look to the future.

Patrick Baldwin Jr is a very skilled scorer and with proper development could become a star

Coming out of high school, Patrick Baldwin Jr was one of the highest ranked recruits in the country. After committing to play for his dad at Eastern Michigan over playing for teams like Duke or Kentucky, he injured his leg. This would harm his stock throughout his senior year of high school and would continue to hold him back in his lone college year.

This wouldn’t stop him from being a first-round pick as the Golden State Warriors rolled the dice on the young forward with the 28th pick of last year’s draft. While with the Warriors, he showed that he is an elite shooter for a player his size and even showed some flashes of creating shots off the dribble.

After being traded, the 6-foot-nine forward would show flashes of being great in this year’s Summer League, this time on the defensive end. He looked very involved and active on that end of the floor and was racking up impressive blocks and steals that he never had with the Warriors.

The main criticism thrown at Baldwin has been how passive he seems at times. However, he is not the first young player from the Warriors to garner this criticism. James Wiseman also wore that badge when he was first traded to the Detroit Pistons. Now, after only half a year removed from the trade, he seems to be more aggressive than ever before and possible set up for a huge leap.

Unfortunately, this is likely due to the Warriors keeping their young players on the sideline and telling them to just let the stars do their thing when they do find the floor. This was clearly detrimental to Wiseman, and I doubt it ended there.

The Wizards may be perfectly suited to develop Patrick Baldwin Jr

Now Baldwin is looking ahead at a season where he will likely see a huge increase in not only games played, but also in minutes per game. He is currently set to back up Kyle Kuzma to help lead the second unit next to either Corey Kispert or Deni Avdija.

Mix his increased opportunities with a high-quality player development staff and he may have the ability to reach the ceiling that scouts saw in him two and a half years ago before the injuries.

That potential is the second highest on the Washington Wizards behind only rookie Bilal Coulibaly. Which is saying something as the Wizards also have both Jordan Poole and Deni Avdija, two players who also have high potential.

He could become a player similar to Brandon Ingram but better on the defensive end if he reaches his absolute ceiling. This would put him at around 25 points, 5 assists, 5 rebounds, a steal, and a block per game on just shy of the 50/40/90 club. This seems like a realistic ceiling to me, although very unlikely.

If Patrick Baldwin Jr is able to reach his ceiling with the Washington Wizards next to Jordan Poole and Bilal Coulibaly, the Wiz will have a formidable big three going forward.