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The Official Washington Basketball Thread: Wizards, Mystics etc

BRAVEONAWARPATH

By BRAVEONAWARPATH
in The Tailgate

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Burgold

Burgold

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The Wizards are uniquely skilled at making you feel worse about them after the draft. Most teams get a draft period honeymoon where their fans daydream about the players aquired. With the Wiz, it's all too often... Ugh, what a terrible pick. We're running in place. Why are we tripling up and ignoring weaknesses. With the good reserved for... I can't believe we were able to offload that terrible contract (for junk)

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Spaceman Spiff

Spaceman Spiff

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So Russ, LeBron and AD had a conversation two weeks ago on how to play together.  And then the trade happens.

 

IMO, agents for basketball players and GMs for basketball teams are pretty useless when these guys are the ones scheming to play together.  I mean, LeBron is a top 10 NBA player of all time, maybe even top 5.  But he's also a top GM of all time, too.

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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23 minutes ago, Borgold said:

The Wizards are uniquely skilled at making you feel worse about them after the draft. Most teams get a draft period honeymoon where their fans daydream about the players aquired. With the Wiz, it's all too often... Ugh, what a terrible pick. We're running in place. Why are we tripling up and ignoring weaknesses. With the good reserved for... I can't believe we were able to offload that terrible contract (for junk)

 

I don't feel that about the Tommy Shepherd picks though.  I preferred Trey Murphy and perhaps Keon Johnson too (although it didn't seem like people were that enthusiastic for Johnson so maybe he wasn't as good as I thought).  But Kispert is fine.  He'll probably even get a lot of minutes as a rookie and shoot well.  I think he's a Bojan Bogdanovich player with an even better shot, to the point where I could see him being a Bertans-level three point shooter in a year or two.  Kispert was the safe, obvious pick for the team, and I think I read him being mocked to us more than any other player except for Chris Duarte, who I think went 13th.

 

I don't think the Deni Avdija pick last season was bad either.  I really wanted Okongwu or Okoro, but Cleveland and Atlanta took them.  At that point, Avdija was just a BPA pick, and it's hard to complain about those.  The big boards I trust the most had Avdija ranked higher than 9.  My favorite draft guru is Sam Vecenie at the Athletic and he had Avdija at #6 overall in his draft guide.

 

And as far as Rui goes, he's actually turning out OK.  That wasn't a very good draft class after the top two.  Sekou Doumbouya, Romeo Langford, and Goga Bitadze were the other names I saw floated around for us and Rui has been way better than Doumbouya, and Bitadze and Langford haven't really been able to crack the regular rotation in Indiana.  Obviously Cameron Johnson has been a lot better, but who saw that coming on draft night?  He has been a major surprise, and part of his success is due to him being on a way better team.

 

I see a GM who has picked in the late lottery twice and just outside of it once, and turned that into three pretty decent prospects.  That's decent drafting.  And I think by trading Westbrook and hiring Unseld Jr, the team is going to make a real attempt at trying to develop Avidja and Rui.

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Destino

Destino

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1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

 

I just don't think that's true.  You need volume scoring in multiple places, but that scoring can come from guys who aren't dribble drive shot creators.  If you have knockdown shooters that can make 4 or 5 threes a game, then that's easy, reliable scoring.  And it doesn't take a starry PG or wing to push the ball in transition and to run drive and kick half court offense if you have great shooters.  A role player PG like Holiday can do it.  I never liked the idea of combining ball dominant stars and having them take turns running offense to give the other one blow.  It's uncomplimentary and awkward and relies on one of them taking a back seat to the better one and can lead to disengagement.  What Milwaukee has won't work for us, (plus I'm not sure I'd consider Middleton a second star).  Beal isn't a holistically dominant force like Giannis, but what he does have over Giannis is that you don't have to take the ball out of his hands in crunch time to give to an isolation scorer.  Having a Middleton would presumably just take the ball out of a better player's hands.  And I also don't think of Middleton as being an out-of-reach scenario for Rui by the way.  He's not that good.

 

We can get Beal off the ball when he needs it.  A role player PG can run half court offense, Rui can play ISO ball, and Deni is a ball-handler.  There is more than one way to run good offense in the postseason, and putting a ton of shooters on the floor with a high gravity shot creator is a proven construction.  The Wizards will be able to do that with combinations of KCP, Kispert, Bertans, and Bryant.

 

The Wizards have been 7th and 3rd in scoring the past two seasons, and that's with a reductive system that was supposedly easy to figure out.  The offense isn't what is holding us back.  The problem is the defense is bottom barrel and they can't compete with the good teams on that end of the floor.  That's what we need more than anything else in order to get good enough to contend.

This has nothing to do with average scoring or season rankings.  It’s all about playoff scoring when you need it.  Role players are good at hitting assisted shots at home and for 3.5 quarters.  But on the road they cool off, and when the game grinds to a crawl and nothing is easy, role players vanish as often as not.  You need options that can go get a bucket and hit tough shots.  You also need more than one elite option because all players have down nights.  
 

Middleton is a fringe allstar but when he’s on, he can not only get his own shot but hit clutch difficult shots.  When he or Holiday were able to generate their own offense the Bucks were tough to beat.  When neither he nor Holiday were scoring the Bucks lost a lot of playoff games.  
 

 

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Hersh

Hersh

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Posted
17 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

I see a GM who has picked in the late lottery twice and just outside of it once, and turned that into three pretty decent prospects.  That's decent drafting.  And I think by trading Westbrook and hiring Unseld Jr, the team is going to make a real attempt at trying to develop Avidja and Rui.

 

I think they will try to develop Rui, but I'm not sure how they develop Deni unless they are seriously going to make him a backup PG. Either that or Kispert isn't playing that much. 

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Ball Security

Ball Security

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

What kind of contract is Dinwiddie going to command?

Because Kuzma is at about 13 mil and Harrell is at just under 10, are we talking about getting Dinwiddie for 23 mil per year??  That is a ton of money for a dude coming off an ACL injury who is an average starter at best.

I’ve seen him talk about 5/125.

 

 

Edited by Ball Security
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Ball Security

Ball Security

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40 minutes ago, Hersh said:

I'd like to say there is no way he gets that kinda money, but this is the NBA and the Wiz so....

I totally understand not wanting to make that commitment, but at this point in time, what’s the best way to address the PG position?  
 

Rose on a 1 year deal is fine, but the position still would need to be addressed long term. 
 

Do you play Beal, KCP, and Deni with Deni as a point forward and pair him with Rui/Kuzma and Gafford/Harrell/Bryant?  And have Holiday be the back up?  On the surface, not sure if that’s sufficient.

 

Would we be willing to give up picks necessary to get someone like Fox?

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Barry.Randolphe

Barry.Randolphe

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31 minutes ago, stevemcqueen1 said:

It's annoying that Vesely got good.

 

He's got his confidence back. He had shades of that his rookie year, then Randy screwed him over and killed his love of the game. It's sad.

 

The Spurs or Warriors would do great with him.

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Hersh

Hersh

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48 minutes ago, Ball Security said:

I totally understand not wanting to make that commitment, but at this point in time, what’s the best way to address the PG position?  
 

Rose on a 1 year deal is fine, but the position still would need to be addressed long term. 
 

Do you play Beal, KCP, and Deni with Deni as a point forward and pair him with Rui/Kuzma and Gafford/Harrell/Bryant?  And have Holiday be the back up?  On the surface, not sure if that’s sufficient.

 

Would we be willing to give up picks necessary to get someone like Fox?

 

This is the problem with the Wiz not having a direction. If they overspend on a PG, they have will no ability to add another star if Beal signs a max. If they insist on trying to win, they could try to go all in and trade for Fox or they could spend on Ball, but I'm not super high on him. 

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Going Commando

Going Commando

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He looks like a skinnier but faster and more aggressive version of Rui Hachimura.  I don't understand why we are in a hurry to get rid of him.  He's on a good contract and he might be a better version of Rui.  I get that we have too many PFs between him and Rui and Harrell and Bertans, but isn't there a better deal out there for a PG?  Maybe one involving Bertans instead?

 

Dinwiddie is a better player than Kuzma, but at twice the money?  Plus having to give up another reasonable contract in Harrell on top of losing Kuzma?  A 25 for 5 deal is bat**** crazy for an average PG with two season ending ACL injuries in his medical history.  He's worth half that.  Or you give him a 1+1 deal at most.  A freaking 25 for 5 contract makes the Mahinmi deal look great by comparison.

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