The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[TradeTheBeal!]

I wouldn't throw in Oubre or Gorat.

 

Beal+Nene+two 1sts.

How dare you doom John Wall to playing out the remainder of his career with Garrett Temple!

[Renegade7]

Wizards putting in work right now, and I'm already on record wanting to trade Beal while we can. Very much feels like our hands are tied with Durant to DC plan. Reality is if Durant doesn't come here, we may have to resign Beal from the standpoint of not expecting any talent of that level to want to come here (seriously, what would that say that even Durant wouldn't come here?)

I'm fine with letting it play out (maybe because we have no choice anyway).

Edited January 20, 2016 by Renegade7

[Going Commando]

Ok, it was pointed out on RealGM that Cleveland wouldn't likely be interested in Oubre because they want to win now. So what about a new offer of:

1 - Gortat

2 - Nene

3 - Dudley

4 - protected draft pick

for

1 - Love

2 - Mozgov

?

And how about another, more favorable one for Cleveland:

1 - Gortat

2 - Nene

3 - Dudley

for

1 - Love

2 - Varejao

?

[Going Commando]

Not really.

 

It's basically Beal and two picks that will probably be in the mid-to-upper teens. 

 

Remember that Nene is an expiring contract anyway.

 

Oh yeah, I'd lottery-protect those picks. At least this year's.

 

We'd still have the money to go after KD if he wants in.

I agree with RA15, I think that's too steep. Love's value is at a low right now. He's playing poorly, he's not fitting in, and there is a potential feud with LeBron in the air.

Plus the kind of return in trade Cleveland requires limits their options: they need players that can help them win now, not so much prospects and picks.

Also, if we trade Beal and our draft picks for Kevin Love and he doesn't work out, then we're sunk.

The security of our future depends on having Wall and Beal. If every other move we make blows up, we'll still be able to build a playoff team around those two if we keep them.

[CRobi21]

DWade out tonight.

Nene back in the starting lineup.

[Skin'emAlive]

No chance Cleveland ships Love out. Thats a pipe dream. They gave up way too much to get him.

[StillUnknown]

DWade out tonight.

Nene back in the starting lineup.

 

you win some, you lose some

[Skin'emAlive]

Even if we are just entertaining the dream, there is no way we would ship Beal/Oubre/Porter or picks for him. Nene+Dudley would prob be the only option. Its more of a future move rather than a win-now move; something I dont think Randy or EG are particularly interested in.

[Destino]

No chance Cleveland ships Love out. Thats a pipe dream. They gave up way too much to get him.

For the right player(s) they'd move him, I think so anyway. Problem is that I don't think we have the right player and I don't think Love's value is still high enough to get many offers. The Cavs have done a great job highlighting his weaknesses and downplaying his strengths.

[CRobi21]

Ok, lets be getting the starters out..

[TradeTheBeal!]

Nice to see we're not the only team crippled by injuries.

Good win.

[CRobi21]

Newman gonna have to give Deng his eye patch. lol

 

ouch

[Going Commando]

A RealGM mod posted that the Wizards have had the third most difficult through the first half of the season.

That plus the crazy injury attrition puts the disappointment of this season in context. It seriously could be a lot worse than one game under .500. Excellent play from Wall is the primary driver. He's got Jarrett Dudley shooting almost 80 points higher from three than he did last season, and shooting them more often. Gortat is also playing a little above his standard. Neal has been better than we should have expected. Ramon is having an outstanding season, far better than his norm. Blair and Gooden have been solid in very limited spot duty. Porter has taken a step forward from last year. And Beal and Nene have actually been pretty positive in the minutes they managed to play. Nene's per minute productivity is up, indicating he's notably better at the more limited role where he comes off the bench. And Beal's per minute productivity is way up plus he's shooting the ball better this year than he has before.

The team actually got the growth we were expecting from several different sources coming into the year, even though the record is a major disappointment. But without Beal and Nene for over half the season, and against a tough schedule, all of the gains we made from seriously improving the bench have gone towards simply keeping the wheels from coming off.

[Going Commando]

http://espn.go.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOS

ESPN has it at the second hardest schedule through our halfway point. We've actually beaten our expected win-loss by two wins, so if you can believe it, we've been better than we should have. I think this can be explained by my earlier point of the bench being a good deal better than expected so far. Otherwise we would not have been able to cope with our injuries, especially during the stretches where we were missing five and six players at a time.

[Going Commando]

Also wanted to note that Jared Dudley is currently second on our team in minutes played. This despite the injury he came into the season with. He's been a trooper and a key role player.

But if you had told me back in October that Dudley would be second in minutes played over the first half, I would have assumed that disaster had struck. At this point, I'm just grateful that the Wizards are near .500 and still in the playoff hunt.

[RonArtest15]

Wow...the schedule kind of puts things in perspective.  Dealing with the injuries and a new system like the Wizards have, being around .500 at this point is a sense of relief.  That being said, they absolutely HAVE to turn it on in the 2nd half of the season.  I think we're a playoff team.  Probably a 5-8 seed, but no matter who we match up against, we'll be a tough out. 

 

52 wins is obviously out of the question....I'll put us at 45. 

[TradeTheBeal!]

http://espn.go.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOSESPN has it at the second hardest schedule through our halfway point. We've actually beaten our expected win-loss by two wins, so if you can believe it, we've been better than we should have. I think this can be explained by my earlier point of the bench being a good deal better than expected so far. Otherwise we would not have been able to cope with our injuries, especially during the stretches where we were missing five and six players at a time.

Counterpoint: The Blazers ran us out of our own gym on Monday. But yeah, It will be interesting to see what this team can do down the stretch at near full strength...good lord willing.

[Going Commando]

Wow...the schedule kind of puts things in perspective.  Dealing with the injuries and a new system like the Wizards have, being around .500 at this point is a sense of relief.  That being said, they absolutely HAVE to turn it on in the 2nd half of the season.  I think we're a playoff team.  Probably a 5-8 seed, but no matter who we match up against, we'll be a tough out. 

 

52 wins is obviously out of the question....I'll put us at 45.

I'm hoping for a seventh seed at this point. Or whatever seed doesn't play Cleveland in the first round. It hasn't been our year, and I'm not convinced we're out of the woods yet despite winning five of our last seven games and seeming to stabilize things.

So making the playoffs and not drawing Cleveland is as far as I'll hope. I like our chances against everyone else too. We can hang with Atlanta and Indy in a postseason series. I think we should expect to beat Detroit. And it would be hilarious for Chicago or Toronto to work their butts off to get the second seed only to draw us in the first round.

[TheItalianStallion]

Interesting point about the schedule, but the defensive woes are still concerning. Unlike the offense, defense was supposed to be our established thing that we did well, and should've been improved now that Porter is in more, and we're playing small more. Not sure how much a stronger schedule explains what appears to be a lack of defensive effort.

[Taylor703]

So we're back to trading Beal again? Sigh. This fanbase never learns.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

So we're back to trading Beal again? Sigh. This fanbase never learns.

Care to tell us what we haven't learned? 

[Warhead36]

Love is overrated. He put up empty #s on a terrible TWolves team and never won anything. The league just desperately wants another good white player so he got a ton of hype. No way I deal Beal AND Oubre for him, you'd be setting up the Cavs as a dynasty if you did that.

[Taylor703]

Care to tell us what we haven't learned?

Remember Rip for Stackhouse? This would be that all over again only with the potential to be an even worse trade.

And don't get me wrong, don't take this as me thinking you or anyone else who wants trade Bradley is stupid. We all have our difference of opinions on this and you're all pretty smart dudes. I just see this as history repeating itself. I wouldn't trade Oubre, Porter or Beal and Wall is untouchable. They're the foundation for this roster. All we need is an good big man and we'll be on our way.

[Destino]

Love is overrated. He put up empty #s on a terrible TWolves team and never won anything. The league just desperately wants another good white player so he got a ton of hype. No way I deal Beal AND Oubre for him, you'd be setting up the Cavs as a dynasty if you did that.

Love does not put up empty numbers, he's an excellent scorer and rebounder and he's proven that. His drop off scoring with the Cav is similar to what we saw happen with Bosh, another very good scoring PF that suffered from being the third option behind two players that hold the ball too long, too often. So there is precedent for this.

What Love is not, is an average defender. He's a bad defender. He's far from the only bad defender in the league that scores very well though. James Harden comes immediately to mind, and he's also another example of a player that flourished when not used as the third option behind two high usage players.

[Fergasun]

I like Beal - he seems like he has some Kobe in him, in a good way.