The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

[ClaytoAli]

Doc Rivers is free....go sign him.

[Kosher Ham]

So is Phil Jackson. 

[ClaytoAli]

47 minutes ago, Kosher Ham said:

So is Phil Jackson. 

Nah, we need a bald head coach

[CRobi21]

Ahem.

 

 

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

32 minutes ago, CRobi21 said:

Ahem.

 

 

I believe his fiancee is from LA.

[CRobi21]

Saw this prospect interviewed with us recently. Really like what he shows. High motor. Good athlete. Rim protector. Pretty good offensive skill set too.

 

 

Could be available at the #9 pick.

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by CRobi21

[Going Commando]

If he can get consistent with that catch and release jumper, then he looks good to me.  We could really use a defensive-minded forward with NBA-ready strength.

[Kosher Ham]

Most NBA players have homes in either La or Miami for the off-season.

[abdcskins]

I saw Achiuwa play a few times. Struck me as a very strong and athletic player, but also forced many shots and played out of control. Needs more finesse and mental sharpness. He was supposed to play second fiddle to Wiseman before he got suspended. Maybe he felt he needed to take tons of shots for Memphis.

[CRobi21]

Wall looking like he's gonna be ready to go next year.

[JCB]

Still got that sick first step.

[Going Commando]

nbadraft.net (much slicker website design now) has James Wiseman mocked to us at 9 and Precious Achiuwa mocked to Minnesota at 17.  Are those projections out of wack?  I haven't paid attention to the draft this year, and the college season was an eternity ago so I don't know.  I thought Wiseman was a top three lock and Achiuwa was the value pick where we draft.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

40 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

nbadraft.net (much slicker website design now) has James Wiseman mocked to us at 9 and Precious Achiuwa mocked to Minnesota at 17.  Are those projections out of wack?  I haven't paid attention to the draft this year, and the college season was an eternity ago so I don't know.  I thought Wiseman was a top three lock and Achiuwa was the value pick where we draft.

Yeah, that's odd....unless some dramatic shift has taken place.

[Going Commando]

47 minutes ago, BRAVEONAWARPATH said:

Yeah, that's odd....unless some dramatic shift has taken place.

 

I also look at tankathon.com and they've got Wiseman going second overall in their mock and so does Sam Vecenie at The Athletic.  I didn't know if there was any news about Wiseman that could explain the lower projection, but it could be that nbadraft.net is just way off on his value.

 

Vecenie's got Precious Achiuwa at 19 on his big board, and I can't find him on the tankathon board, so maybe him going 17 isn't crazy.  I thought he was a lottery pick and I liked what I saw in the cut ups that were posted.  I don't know if he's a reach at 9, but maybe we could move down a bit and still get him.

[Going Commando]

My case for drafting Achiuwa is that he is a high level switch defender who also has some rim protecting ability.  He can match up on smalls without giving up any space and just kind of mirrors their path really well.  No laziness in his feet and they are fast.  I like his energy.  We haven't had a player with his defensive vigor in a long time.  Nene had great feet but no energy.  Achiuwa has some second bounce too, and he has a good standing reach for being forward sized so he has a lot of those plays where he blocks shots by tipping the ball to himself in his highlights.  It's not like an elite looking second bounce but it's there.

 

I think there is some touch in his offensive game too, such that he won't be useless on that side of the court.  He moves off the ball and his hands look fairly soft, but the main thing that stood out to me is that he's got a below the rim finish game.  He doesn't look like an explosive, above the rim athlete, so the finishing touch he shows on those shots around the basket is important.

 

I see him as a potential defensive anchor forward.  Versatile enough to play with either Rui or Thomas depending on how big we need to go.  But his switch guarding and pick and roll defense is good enough that we could stop the bleeding with a forward like him.  Especially if we got a real rim protecting big to play with him.

[abdcskins]

Cool to see Beasley in that video. He was one if the most highly rated high school players to ever come out of Maryland along with Durant. Damn I wish one of those dudes could have played at Maryland or Georgetown. His career didn't quite pan out as prominent as hoped, but he has contributed on some NBA squads.

[philibusters]

20 hours ago, abdcskins said:

Cool to see Beasley in that video. He was one if the most highly rated high school players to ever come out of Maryland along with Durant. Damn I wish one of those dudes could have played at Maryland or Georgetown. His career didn't quite pan out as prominent as hoped, but he has contributed on some NBA squads.

 

I don't think Beasly or Durant seriously looked at Maryland.  Neither did Carmelo.   Rudy Gay is the one who was really close to going to Maryland.

[abdcskins]

1 hour ago, philibusters said:

 

I don't think Beasly or Durant seriously looked at Maryland.  Neither did Carmelo.   Rudy Gay is the one who was really close to going to Maryland.

 

That was the main criticism of Gary Williams, he couldn't get local talent.  Damn shame.  There are many other players too.  Ty Lawson, Victor Oladipo, Josh Hart, Markelle Fultz, Jerian Grant.  The local talent is insane.  

[Destino]

Wall looks like he’s in great shape at least.  I don’t think he looks as fast, but good vets don’t rely on speed so much as angles.  They step into a direction that puts their defender in a bad spot and force him to play catch-up.  Some guys are better than others, but it explains why guys like old version DWade could slowly dance to the rim whenever he wanted, and how Luka gets any shot he wants.

 

Looks like he’s still slow on that three release, but he didn’t look like he was thinking while launching it in that video.  Maybe he spent his year off shooting.  

[Going Commando]

I'm reading Fred Katz's and Danny Leroux's conversation on how to rebuild the Wizards this off-season and they are going around in circles trying to fix the defense with the limitations the roster presents.  Basically, there is no realistic way to fix the defense with Hachimura, Bertans, and Bryant getting a heavy commitment of resources and minutes.

 

Bertans should have been traded, and keeping him and finishing off our cap space is a mistake.  Bryant needs to be traded too.  You can not have two bigs who are as useless defensively as them in your rotation.  Hachimura has a chance to get better on defense, and hopefully he does, otherwise his offense will probably never be valuable enough to justify making a commitment to him long term.  Same for Troy Brown.

 

It is also painful to recognize that building around two max contract guards was a big mistake.  Easy to build a good offense that way, but too hard to build a good defense.  We have to find a way to deal one of them, obviously we want to keep Beal, but Beal is the one who is tradeable.

 

TBH, the roster is a mess and it's stuck, and the only way I can see it becoming unstuck is if Wall comes back and is good again.  But I can't ever see him being good for more than 50 games or so a season after the injuries he's had.  What Shepherd is going to have to do is rebuild the front court into a defensive foundation for cheap and then hope Wall's period of health and productivity comes at the end of the season, giving the team a chance to make a run in the playoffs.

[philibusters]

I like Hachimura, Bertans, and Bryant.  In their own way they are all good pieces.  Bertans is an amazing catch and shoot big.  15.4 ppg this past year mostly on 42.4% 3 point shooting.  Thomas Bryant average 13.2ppg and 7.2 rpg on 58% shooting.   And Rui had a solid rookie year.  But like you said, the personnel the Wizards have doesn't compliment itself well and I don't think adding Wall will improve how the personnel compliments each other (I actually think it will make it worse).  

 

I am torn on going after Bertans.  I think he'll make next year's team better, but in terms of a longer term rebuild, I don't know if helps or hurts it.

 

The only good thing about the Wizards is that for a below average team they were surprisingly fun to watch because shootouts are more fun to watch than low scoring ugly games.  That said, I'd take a winner over a high scoring loser anyday.  

[Going Commando]

I'm the opposite.  I can't stand watching terrible defense and it's more demoralizing to me than watching an offense throw up bricks.  Hachimura, Bertans, and Bryant are all very good offensive players and equally horrible defensive players.  Bryant and Bertans will, realistically, never be anything other than horrible defensive players too.  Hachimura still has the potential to become a player who can hold his own on defense, and he was a solid defender on an outstanding Gonzaga defense.

 

There are really only minutes for three true bigs to get 25+ per game, your fourth big is an injury sub or developmental guy in a modern NBA where three guard and three wing line ups are commonplace.  Bigs are the absolutely vital members of the defense that are needed to shut down pick and rolls and wipe out mistakes allowing dribble/pass penetration and finish off successful defensive possessions with rebounds.  Having your three rotation bigs each be trash defenders = historically bad defense.  It's an untenable roster build that makes consistent winning impossible.  If you've built your roster around two max contract guards and they live up to their money, then your offense is going to be good no matter what.  That's your foundation for offense.  What you then need to do is build a foundation for defense in your front court.

 

It's harder to find a high volume, highly efficient offensive foundation piece--guys that can create good offense against playoff caliber defense--than it is to find defensive foundation pieces, so we're lucky to have Beal.  That's why I can't get behind trade proposals involving Beal yet.  If we do that, then what we're hoping is to find another Beal who is like six years younger, and that's a major gamble.

 

But with Wall's deal on our books and no realistic way to trade him for value, then we really don't have good options for rebuilding the front court to build the defensive foundation.  Our best bet with him is to hope he comes back and plays well and gives us good point guard play at the right time of year.  The 9th pick has to either give us one of those pieces or create trade value to bring one in.  Bryant needs to be traded to bring in an asset.  And Bertans's Bird Rights needs to create trade value to bring in a good forward/center.  Bertans had trade value at the deadline this year, and I think he could have trade value again if we can get him back on a reasonable deal.  Keeping him and dealing him in February is the best risk/reward scenario for us IMO.  Ditto for Bryant, although I would deal him before this draft if it could get me back into the first round.  We should be targeting Onyeka Okongwu and Precious Achiuwa and figuring out scenarios where we come away with both of them.  Get those two and develop them and you've done a lot of the work of building the defensive foundation.

[mhd24]

On 10/27/2020 at 12:33 AM, abdcskins said:

 

That was the main criticism of Gary Williams, he couldn't get local talent.  Damn shame.  There are many other players too.  Ty Lawson, Victor Oladipo, Josh Hart, Markelle Fultz, Jerian Grant.  The local talent is insane.  

 

 

Gary was squeaky clean.  He never cheated.  The Rudy Gay recruiting was really shady.  The Post did a remarkable 3 part series on why MD fell off after the title.  Basically, Gary refused to play the game.  He chose Gilchrist over Deron Williams.  Obviously bad in hindsight, but Gilchrist was really good and led them to the ACC tournament win.  Its not like he sucked.  

 

 

 

[Destino]

Wall’s contract is the problem.  There is no fixing the team with a injury prone guard earning 40 million plus.  Trading Beal doesn’t magic away what might be the worst contract in the nba.  The best hope the wizards have is that Wall comes back playing well enough that some terrible team is willing to take him.  Doesn’t matter if we get anything back.  

[Hersh]

11 minutes ago, Destino said:

Wall’s contract is the problem.  There is no fixing the team with a injury prone guard earning 40 million plus.  Trading Beal doesn’t magic away what might be the worst contract in the nba.  The best hope the wizards have is that Wall comes back playing well enough that some terrible team is willing to take him.  Doesn’t matter if we get anything back.  

 

Would you attach a draft pick to the Wall contract and dangle him to the Knicks? They have the cap space.