Hello all and welcome to our latest installment of #TopTenTuesdays.
I, Diego, have commandeered this latest edition to speak on our favorite dysfunctional degenerates, the Washington Wizards.
I have been asked ad nausem “Man, WTF is up with the squad!?”
Well, here are my unfiltered thoughts. Lets talk about it in the comments.
- Apathy – When Bradley Beal was asked after last Friday’s debacle vs OKC had the team pressed the panic button, he responded as you would think/hope any star player would – stating that the season is long and there is no reason to do such a thing. The issue is, this fanbase is tired of waiting. Granted, there are over 70+ games remaining in the season but when you have a fanbase that agonizes over every game, they do not want to hear about “staying the course”. The course has gotten the franchise to this point and one thing that needs to change is a sense of urgency.
- Three-point shooting – In 2018, you can not win in the NBA without being a good three-point shooting team. Currenty, our Wizards are shooting a combined 31% from distance. That simply is not going to cut it.
- Defense/Wall and Beal’s second effort defense – In the NBA, defense doesn’t stop after the first shot attempt. You have to keep up the effort for all 24 seconds of the shot clock – through each screen and every second effort – and that is where the Wizards suck at. A missed shot isn’t the end of the defensive possession. The end is when we acquire the rock via the miss or turnover and that coincided with second and sometimes, third efforts. 29th in Rebounding and 30th in OPPG and in the bottom three in Opponent Second Chance Points with 16.4 emphasizes that point to a tee. We must do better with extended efforts!
- Lack of dynamic ballhandlers – How many times have we watched one of our facilitators just dribble into a black hole of nothingness resulting in a turnover or awful shot? Far too many times for my liking. The lack of quality dribblers on the roster is concerning because no one can create and initiate offense when the team is stagnant.
- Nothing from Austin Rivers so far – FOR THE LOVE OF GOD SHOOT THE GODDA*MN BALL AUSTIN! I don’t care how careful you want to be. You were brought here to be the gunbox/instant offense guy you can be. Don’t let this season become the year that all of the talk about nepotism become truth. You were once the top-rated player coming out of high school with a penchant of being a clutch scorer. You can still be that.
- No Dwight Howard until recently – When you have to start Ian Mahinmi, you are already stepping on the floor disadvantaged- basically playing 4 on 5 on the offensive end. Adding to the fact that he is a hackbox AND seemingly cannot rebound worth a damn, missing Dwight Howard for the first portion of the schedule was a death blow. Howard has now returned, although nowhere near 100% if you look at how he is running up and down the floor yet a 65% Howard is FAR better than the 100% Sh*t Sandwich of Mahinmi and Jason Smith.
- Scott Brooks – Look, I like the man. But man he certainly looks over matched when he does not have Kevin Durant or Russell Westbrook on his roster. The stagnancy and complacency falls directly head of the leader, its head coach. It’s ultimately up to him to turn around this monstrosity of a defense and inject some energy. His saving grace may be Ted Leonsis and his lack of awareness of the happenings of his basketball franchise.
- Otto Porter’s slippage – Porter has his detractors, he also has his fans. So far this season, the detractors are winning. 10 pts and 5 boards per is now what a max contract player should be producing, no matter what is going on with the team. Is he a perfect fit with Wall and Beal, at this point, that answer is probably no but that has nothing to do with being a minus-defender on the perimeter and shooting only 28% from 3 after being a 40% shooter last season. He needs to be more aggressive and show some toughness, he isn’t a kid anymore.
- Team Construction – The one thing that I like to emphasis when speaking on these Wizards is, in fact, this team isn’t really that talented. It’s vastly overpaid by NBA team construction standards and because of that, there is very little chance for roster flexibility unless you just blow the team up. Who in their right mind would trade for Mahinmi? Jason Smith? even Otto Porter at this point with that salary? Who knows. Just realize when you watch a player like Montrezl Harrell for the Clippers giving you exactly what this team sorely needs – being a young, energetic big putting up 12 and 6 per – was readily available this offseason and resigned with the Clippers for two-years and $12 million. Mahinmi is making $15 million this year AND next….let that sink in. Awful contracts not only hurts the on-the-court product but it gives you less flexibility to make key moves to continue to improve the roster. This issue has been caused by only one thing….
- Ernie Grunfeld – You know you are bad at your job when, for some strange reason, you get an contract extention but that extention isn’t even treated with your normal press release or press conference, It was done secretly. Gee, I wonder why? The way Washington handled Grunfeld’s extension is embarrassing. This is a general manager who was hired in 2003 and survived the collapse of the Gilbert Arenas era. Grunfeld drafted Jan Vesely No. 6 overall (famously passing on Klay Thompson and Kawhi Leonard, a fireable offense), gave Andray Blatche a five-year extension and, yes, signed Mahinmi to a $64 million contract. When it comes to the NBA Draft, Grunfeld appears to have two moves—trading away picks or drafting the same type of player over and over. He gave away first round picks in 2014, 2016, and 2017 for Marcin Gortat, forward Markieff Morris, and trade deadline rental Bojan Bogdanovic (who was not resigned the following offseason). During the seasons he actually kept his first rounder, Grunfeld ended up with Porter, Kelly Oubre Jr., and Troy Brown, this year’s No. 15 overall pick, virtually the same player. The pure fact that it has been nine seasons and there hasn’t been a team constructed around Wall and Beal to maximized their potential and give this franchise some sort of hope is all this man’s fault. If there is blame for this debacle, lets focus on the architect first.
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