On Thursday night, former No. 2 overall pick Alex Sarr had his breakout game of the season, scoring 30 points and grabbing nine rebounds in a nail-biting 144-140 loss to the 8-3 Detroit Pistons. While this game goes down as a loss in the record books and drops the Washington Wizards to 4-9 on the season, losing six straight games, the play of the third-year big man is a small win and hopefully a sign of things to come the rest of the way.
When asked about how he can take a game like this and build on it for the rest of the season, Sarr said: “I think I’m always confident shooting the ball. We can build off a game like that just for the whole team, our effort, our energy. We had it down the stretch, and we let it go, so there’s a lot to learn from that.”
And while the team as a whole has a lot to learn from after this thrilling game, at the top of that list should be making sure to get Sarr involved from now on.
Alex Sarr thus far has been treated as an afterthought
When fitting in so many new pieces onto a team that is trying to make the postseason for the first time in five years, as this Washington Wizards team is, it can be expected to see players who have already been in the system take a bit of a step back as the coaches and players figure out how this new group will work. Not as big a step back as Sarr has taken, though.
Coming into the Pistons game, Sarr was sixth on the team in shot attempts, a game behind the other four starters, Trae Young, Kyshawn George, AJ Dybantsa, and Anthony Davis, along with Tre Johnson. Sarr is indeed returning from a surgery he had in June to repair his right foot. Yet, Coach Brian Keefe and his staff have Sarr playing big minutes, and he’s still a fixture in the starting five, so why did it take until tonight for it to seem like starting touches were coming his way?
This performance should be a sign of things to come for Sarr
Averaging a career low in attempts from the floor, three, and the free throw line is not the way to bring along your 21-year-old franchise big who should only benefit from the acquisition of a playmaking star guard in Trae Young. This performance, however, even in the midst of the Wizards being five games below .500, can be a positive if nurtured correctly.
In the same way we’ve seen Young be able to elevate the games of big men like Clint Capela and Onyeka Okongwu (two guys who arguably aren’t as talented as Sarr), going back to his time in Atlanta, this performance against the Pistons should not be a one-off, but a trend, and if it is, the Wizards could be on the right track.
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