The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[Going Commando]

10 hours ago, StillUnknown said:

my biggest fear is the young players we will lean on moving forward, Rui/TBJr/Bryant/maybe Bonga, will start to bake in these defensive habits.

 

biggest reason to move on from Brooks IMO

 

True.  It's a massive issue.  However, I think our worst in NBA history defensive ineptitude is so much bigger and more systemic of a problem than Brooks.  All of the new voices we added to the room in the FO, and still not one of them values defense or understands what it takes to play championship caliber defense.  At this point there absolutely needs to be a guy in there with veto power over every player acquisition whose only job is to say, "yeah but he sucks at defense."  And if that determination is made, then that should end any discussion on acquiring said player.  It has become a deep-rooted cultural issue for the franchise.

[StillUnknown]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

The Wizards media is, by and large, just so dumb and know-nothing.  They regurgitate obvious nonsense from the team.  I noticed they've also finally started harping on the theme of the team not having a ton protector, something that should have been recognized years ago.  But it's always used as an excuse for bad play rather than a criticism of how the team was built.  God, it ****ing drives me nuts every time I hear Drew Gooden say a bunch of bull**** about how you don't have to play good defense to win, and that it's ok to not be a good defender.  It's utter nonsense and he is never called out in it.  And it makes me feel like no one attached to this organization really has a clue about what it truly takes to win.

 

Fred katz is about the only media covering the team i pay attention to.

 

I am convinced that nbc sports washington has a tiny budget for their wizards coverage and they strive to stay far under that number. Chris Miller carries water for the organization, and is just corny. Tony Massenburg has a late 80's/early 90's view of the game that he aint letting go. Kutcher is bad, but could probably be serviceable if he wasnt straddled with Gooden. I have no idea how they can listen to Gooden and determine that people will tolerate listening to him for 82 games.

 

 

On the Thompson news, it doesnt make much sense unless you're just trying rearrange some chairs. The teams he has been apart of have been just as bad defensively as we currently are. He would be a decent rebounder, but not much else.

Edited February 4, 2020 by StillUnknown

[StillUnknown]

 

Case and point about nbc sports washington

[Going Commando]

Yep.  "could adding a replacement level big from one of the league's worst teams make one of the league's other worst teams a contender for the 8th seed?"

It's that Ernie Grunfeld mentality.  Let's hope we don't do this.

[Going Commando]

Did you all pay any attention to the segment from last night's game where they interviewed a young fan and let him see the production side of game broadcasts?  They asked him several questions, and he came off as a bright young man.  But two of his answers were really depressing.  The first was an answer to "what's your favorite moment as a Wizard's fan" and he said the Toronto sweep.  OK, a first round sweep against a team who very quickly became way better than us was fun, but that being our high water mark is sad.  Then they asked him who his favorite player was, and I kid you not, he said Ish Smith.  The competitive poverty of this organization is so profound that we fans latch on to temporary, sub-replacement level role players as our favorites.  Speaking of journeyman replacement level role players, WTF was NBC Sports Washington thinking putting one in the God damn broadcast booth?  The shabbiness of our broadcast is embarrassing and reflects poorly on the team.  The fact that NBC Sports Washington also carries so much water for the front office and routinely floats their awful teambuilding plans out to the fan base to try and condition the fans for the bad moves that are being made is just the diarrhea icing on the cake.  Add to that I have to pay for a streaming service during basketball season just to get NBC Sports Washington and it's literally the only channel I watch on it just because League Pass blacks out in-market fans, and I'm ready to check out on the Wizards.  It's a terrible product to consume.

[Mooka]

Kind of a weird rant to me but i dont watch any actual broadcasts or follow/read anything Wizards. (stream games) Don't care without Phil/Steve anyway.

 

What's wrong with Ish though? Guy is fun to watch; 1on1 there aren't defenders that can stay in front of him.

 

Those cpl games where everyone was out and we had Ish/Jordan/Troy putting up more shots were awesome to watch.

[StillUnknown]

43 minutes ago, Mooka said:

Kind of a weird rant to me but i dont watch any actual broadcasts or follow/read anything Wizards. (stream games) Don't care without Phil/Steve anyway.

 

What's wrong with Ish though? Guy is fun to watch; 1on1 there aren't defenders that can stay in front of him.

 

Those cpl games where everyone was out and we had Ish/Jordan/Troy putting up more shots were awesome to watch.

 

Ish has been a Wizards player for like 5 minutes

 

 

on a different note, I'm firmly in the camp of trade Bertans for a good deal if one is out there. Love everything about the guy, but if we keep & re-sign him, it pretty much locks the roster in with no way to improve the defense next year and moving forward. If he's here next year, late in a close game next season, you are looking at a lineup of:

Wall

Beal

Rui

Bertans

Bryant/Wagner 

 

or 

 

a smaller unit of:

Wall

Beal

TBJr

Rui

Bertans 

 

neither of those lineup are getting stops. Bertans may never have a higher value than he does presently. if we dont deal him at the deadline, which I don't think we will, I would look to a sign & trade in the offseason.

[Skin'emAlive]

The defense will not improve until the 5 is fixed, Wall returns, and Scott Brooks is fired. If we end up with Bryant/Wagner as our starting 5, it’s over. 

[Warhead36]

4 hours ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

Did you all pay any attention to the segment from last night's game where they interviewed a young fan and let him see the production side of game broadcasts?  They asked him several questions, and he came off as a bright young man.  But two of his answers were really depressing.  The first was an answer to "what's your favorite moment as a Wizard's fan" and he said the Toronto sweep.  OK, a first round sweep against a team who very quickly became way better than us was fun, but that being our high water mark is sad.  Then they asked him who his favorite player was, and I kid you not, he said Ish Smith.  The competitive poverty of this organization is so profound that we fans latch on to temporary, sub-replacement level role players as our favorites.  Speaking of journeyman replacement level role players, WTF was NBC Sports Washington thinking putting one in the God damn broadcast booth?  The shabbiness of our broadcast is embarrassing and reflects poorly on the team.  The fact that NBC Sports Washington also carries so much water for the front office and routinely floats their awful teambuilding plans out to the fan base to try and condition the fans for the bad moves that are being made is just the diarrhea icing on the cake.  Add to that I have to pay for a streaming service during basketball season just to get NBC Sports Washington and it's literally the only channel I watch on it just because League Pass blacks out in-market fans, and I'm ready to check out on the Wizards.  It's a terrible product to consume.

The Wizards are back to being a mom and pop operation. Complete league joke.

[Going Commando]

3 hours ago, StillUnknown said:

neither of those lineup are getting stops. Bertans may never have a higher value than he does presently. if we dont deal him at the deadline, which I don't think we will, I would look to a sign & trade in the offseason. 

 

I'm in that camp too.  Bertans is a good player, but you have to build around him because he's a big man who can't play defense.  Smaller dudes just go right at him on the way to the rim with zero fear.  Wagner too.  It's a shame because, in a vacuum, they are two of our best rotation players.  But a two max contract guard build can't afford to run any soft defenders in the front court.  Bryant is eventually going to have to go too.

[StillUnknown]

1 minute ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm in that camp too.  Bertans is a good player, but you have to build around him because he's a big man who can't play defense.  Smaller dudes just go right at him on the way to the rim with zero fear.  Wagner too.  It's a shame because, in a vacuum, they are two of our best rotation players.  But a two max contract guard build can't afford to run any soft defenders in the front court.  Bryant is eventually going to have to go too.

 

he doesn't make sense on a team fighting to make the playoffs, he makes sense on a team fighting to win a championship. feels like a situation in which a smart team would flip him and find the next Bertans instead of paying him.

[CRobi21]

That's a killer roster..

 

Wish Lavine was in the dunk contest with Gordon.

Edited February 4, 2020 by CRobi21

[Destino]

A three point constant without Steph seems strange to me. 

[Destino]

1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I'm in that camp too.  Bertans is a good player, but you have to build around him because he's a big man who can't play defense.  Smaller dudes just go right at him on the way to the rim with zero fear.  Wagner too.  It's a shame because, in a vacuum, they are two of our best rotation players.  But a two max contract guard build can't afford to run any soft defenders in the front court.  Bryant is eventually going to have to go too.

I'd like to see him with a much better coach.  I can't help but notice how often the Wizards are all caught in no mans land on defense and to me that just screams coaching problem.  They are too far inside to close out, and too many of them collapse to help.  They make bad defensive possessions worse by creating easy passes to wide open shots, versus simply living with a contested shot on the drive.  Better defensive teams don't do that. 

 

I can't prove it, but I think new players added to the roster are better defensively before they have a chance to practice too much with the team than they are afterwards.  Once they learn the wizards defensive system, they get badly beaten just like everyone else.  This isn't to say the wizards have the talent to be a very good defense.  I just think they could be better than they are. 

 

That said, I don't see how the Wizards can afford to keep Bertans.  He's going to get paid because in the modern game he's an extremely valuable player to have .

[Going Commando]

10 hours ago, Destino said:

That said, I don't see how the Wizards can afford to keep Bertans.  He's going to get paid because in the modern game he's an extremely valuable player to have .

 

You could certainly be right about Scott weakening the defensive ability of the players we get.  He's certainly not coaching them up.  And there is certainly confusion baked into the system, and it encourages the worst instincts of the players.  But I think the lion's share of the issue is that we're just small almost everywhere on the roster and we're soft inside.  Kind of a boring take, but it's the Occam's razor take IMO.

 

Even though they foul like crazy, I think the defense looks predictably better in the minutes where we get line ups with Mahinmi & Bonga.  And it definitely looks far, far better when we've got GPII playing on ball instead of Thomas and Smith.  I think we get the biggest improvement on defense by systematically replacing most of our roster with players who are much longer and tougher on defense.

 

As for the part I quoted, I'm not sure I agree that Bertans is an extremely valuable player.  If he were, we should be winning more games this year.  There's a perception that stretch bigs are very valuable, but I think that is only true when the guy gives you + capability on defense or on the glass when measured against the average of his position.

 

Break the game down into equal sized thirds between offense, defense, and rebounding.  When you've got a player who is giving you below position average ability in two out of three of those thirds, then he is not that valuable.  And for a team who is spending all of its money on guards--who are already unlikely to give us major + value on defense and on the boards--then when you've got a bunch of offense-only forwards and bigs like Bertans, Wagner, and Bryant, what you end up with is a .350 win team that can't rebound or play defense.

 

I even see smart basketball voices like Zach Lowe advancing the line of thinking that shooters at the 4 and 5 >>>> defensive players at those positions.  In his recent trade rumors column he states that non-shooting centers are easy to find.  Not necessarily.  Bam Adebayos and Rudy Goberts and Jarrett Allens are as rare as almost any other great player archetype and every team would massively benefit from having them.  Centers who give major + defensive value and who also give real some + value on the boards are franchise cornerstones who almost always win.  I'm not talking about Hassan Whitesides or Andre Drummonds either--guys who everyone thinks are good defensive players but actually aren't.  Legit good defenders.  Rim Runners who aren't actually good defensive players are what's easy to find.

[Renegade7]

@stevemcqueen1 you given up on rebuild already?

 

I'm not watching as much as I used to, but I started to question it too after one if our loses to the knicks.

 

It's true, the broadcast is pretty much unwatchable and NBC Sports Washington is basically North Korea state television.  I still want to go to the Lakers games, but ya, I'm starting to wonder if they are really building or still dont know what they doing.

 

The fact this team cant stop a print job is not a random act of nature.  I'll stick around, follow on bleacher report and support Wall in his way to retirement.  But this isnt shocking considering they hired from within, and it hurts, it hurts bad because we hoped anything was better then Ernie. I was wrong.

[Going Commando]

No I'm not giving up on the team.  But I am about to give up on NBC Sports Washington.  That network being a ****show is a separate issue from the team.  But it doesn't help them that the team is so bad this year.  Awful broadcast & media coverage/analysis + bad team = unwatchable product.

 

Shepherd made a mild mistake in keeping Bryant, but his contract numbers are pretty small.  That's not going to be a tough deal to move.  The rest of Shepherd's big moves have been fine.  Hachimura is a keeper.  Extending Beal was a good move.  Acquiring Bertans for so little was a steal and we can add value to our roster by flipping him for a good return.

 

But we're about to come up on some pretty critical decisions that will tell me how much I should trust Shepherd moving forward.  Extending Brooks would be a big mistake.  Overvaluing Bertans would be a smaller, but still disappointing mistake.   Making short term moves to "appease" Beal would be a bad mistake.  Trading for and extending Tristan Thompson would be an awful mistake.  Drafting and signing any more crappy defensive players this offseason would be another bad mistake.  If Tommy does these things, then I'll know he's operating like Grunfeld did and that he's not going to put together a real contender.

[Renegade7]

Ever worked at a job and realized you had to get out there to keep from becoming what you didnt like about it?  That's my concern with Shep, good intentions, but in the soup so long hes struggling with what right is supposed to look like. 

 

This is why I wanted someone who already knew what to look for, had proven that.  Make no mistake about it, this would've been a tall order, and I dont believe Shep has earned enough clout to have any influence on NBC Sports at all.  

 

Seen back and forth on how much influence even Ted could have, but I'm convinced Shep is not yet in position to address that NBC Sports could be negatively impacting TV ratings in their own.  Its boiled to a head with fans, I'm sure Ted is at least aware of this and hoping winning will help address it naturally so he doesnt have to do something dramatic.

[StillUnknown]

 

That should end any interest we had in the guy

[Going Commando]

Good luck to them.  He's been a replacement level player the last three seasons.  No team should give up a first round pick for him.  But especially not a high lottery team like us.  A big extension is also coming right after trading for him.  If we trade for him, it'll severely undermine my confidence in Shepherd.

[TradeTheBeal!]

That’s a firm no.

[Chachie]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/02/04/wizards-plan-keep-davis-bertans-beyond-nba-trade-deadline-re-sign-him-this-summer/

 

“We have every intention of retaining him,” Sheppard said in a podcast on the Wizards’ website. “He’s the exact type of player we want to have in our organization. I think he wants to be here. Business will take care of itself.”

[Mooka]

Helllllllllllll no on a first for Thompson.

[Destino]

A first for a Tristan Thompson?!  He’s in the last year of his contract.  So it would be a 1st round pick for a half season rental of an under sized clown.  That’s an Ernie “save my job” type move.  If the wizards make that trade, my faith in the new GM is dead.  

[StillUnknown]

8 hours ago, Destino said:

A first for a Tristan Thompson?!  He’s in the last year of his contract.  So it would be a 1st round pick for a half season rental of an under sized clown.  That’s an Ernie “save my job” type move.  If the wizards make that trade, my faith in the new GM is dead.  

 

If i read correctly, they would pick up his bird rights, allowing them to go over the cap to extend him. Extending him would be bad in itself and creates a different set of problems.

 

I think the deal only happens if they value appeasing Beal over properly building the team. He was on espn and mentioned wanting to win now again. He'a doing alot of double talk which is going to negatively impact how this team is built. One one hand he talks of understanding the nature of the roster, but on the other his competitiveness has him really wanting to shoot for a superficial 8th seed playoff spot.

 

Dealing for Thompson would affirm alot of my fears about sticking with Shep.