WASHINGTON WIZARDS
The era of the “big three” with Arenas, Jamison and Butler in Washington was known for several cases, but this new era of the Wizards hasn't been much better and without the team being able to be minimally competitive.
The Wizards entered the past season without many expectations besides counting with the previous season rookie of the year, but quickly the Wizards were in a deep hole.
2011-12 Regular Season numbers:
Advanced Numbers
|
4 Factors
| ||||||||
Overall
|
#'s
|
Rank
|
Offense
|
#'s
|
Rank
|
Defense
|
#'s
|
Rank
| |
Pace
|
91.28
|
8
|
eFG% Off
|
47.1%
|
27
|
eFG% Def
|
49.6%
|
22
| |
Offense
|
101.61
|
29
|
TO% Off
|
14.13
|
19
|
TO% Def
|
14.25
|
8
| |
Defense
|
108.61
|
25
|
Reb% Off
|
27.12
|
16
|
Reb% Def
|
28.63
|
25
| |
Rebound
|
49.24
|
24
|
FT% Off
|
18.58
|
28
|
FT% Def
|
23.22
|
26
| |
The Wizards’ first win only happened in the 9th game of the season and when the team lost for the 15th time on their first 17 games, Coach Flip Saunders got fired and replaced by Randy Wittman.
Some players were being mocked at national level and Washington was by far the team that was showing the lowest team IQ on their games, while they just kept on losing almost every game.
Washington Wizards month-by-month record:
Months
|
W
|
L
|
PACE
|
Off. H
|
Off. A
|
Reb%
|
January
|
4
|
17
|
92.2
|
95.8
|
107.1
|
48.4
|
February
|
3
|
11
|
92.5
|
103.6
|
116.4
|
47.8
|
March
|
5
|
11
|
89.3
|
104.6
|
108.4
|
50.7
|
April
|
8
|
7
|
90.9
|
104.8
|
103.7
|
50.1
|
Already in March, the organization decided to finally make some changes, as the Wizards would never have a bright future with Wall, Crawford, Blatche and McGee playing together and by taking in advantage the fact that Denver wanted to get rid of Nene Hilario’s new contract, the Wizards traded Nene for McGee. Even though he had recovered from an injury, Blatche was quickly excluded from the team and the Wizards on a curious way were very competitive over the last month of the season, mostly thanks to a great defensive improvement.
Offseason moves 2012-13:
After another disastrous season, the Wizards had another top draft pick in this year’s draft and they decided to select the Guard Bradley Beal from Florida with the 3rd pick in the draft.
To improve the frontcourt, the Wizards were able to recruit Emeka Okafor and Trevor Ariza from New Orleans. In terms of players leaving the team, the only noticeable player leaving was Andray Blatche, who was amnestied as expected.
What’s the future of John Wall?
Unfortunately for the Wizards, John Wall may only comeback to the competition by the end of November and so, the team will need to play without him almost the whole first month of the league. It was expected that after winning the rookie of the year award that Wall would be able to improve more his game, but that didn't happen last season.
The fact that he had frontcourt teammates like JaVale McGee and Andray Blatche didn't help one bit in Wall's development, but the truth is that he regressed offensively, especially on his shooting.
Wall simply lost the trust on his shot: he shot just 7.1% 3pts with three 3pts shots made in forty-two attempts! This ridiculously effectiveness isn’t so dramatic because Wall barely attempted 3pts shots, but the problem gets worse when we see that Wall shot just 29% FG from 16-23 feet, 32.1% from 10-15 feet and 28.3% from 3-9 feet! Basically, Wall was just efficient at the rim, an area where it isn’t usual that point guards shoot so well. His quickness was one of his main strengths, but Wall wasn’t efficient on transition plays with just 1.08 PPP on this kind of plays (#185 in the league).
So, there was no surprise in the fact that the Wizards were one of the worst shooting teams in the league last season. It was with that in mind that the Wizards drafted Bradley Beal in the draft to improve the team’s outside shooting skills. Beal will compete with Jordan Crawford for the SG position and only a disaster would avoid Beal from winning this race against Crawford in the team’s depth chart.
Trevor Ariza will start at the SF position and the Wizards would thank Ariza if he was able to be more efficient offensively, as Ariza completely lost his offensive skills since he left the Lakers to sign a lucrative long term deal. I remember that in the last three seasons, Ariza shot 39.4%, 39.8% and 41.7% from the field! The news coming from the preseason aren't good, as Ariza on the first six games he played shot 30.6% FG!
A new frontcourt
Nene Hilario is questionable for the start of the regular season and he has been having problems on the same foot that made him miss some games last season and to make things worse, he re-injured his foot while playing for his country on the Olympic Games.
He may have been dealing with some physical problems, but he represents a huge upgrade over Andray Blatche in every area possible and he could be the ideal complement for Wall. While Nene is out, Okafor will be the team’s starting center and the team is also hoping that he can remain healthy for the whole season. It looks like Okafor is apparently 100% healthy after a knee injury.
The Wizards spent most of the second half of the past season while trying to develop the young players in the frontcourt and the decision of keeping them reveals that they trust their potential. I’m talking about Kevin Seraphin, Trevor Booker, Jan Vesely and Chris Singleton. These players made the Wizards improve considerably in the last part of the past season and even though they lack good offensive skills, they are hard working guys.
Final Thoughts:
Randy Wittman will have one more shot at establishing himself as the league’s coach after having done very little on his past experiences as a NBA head coach, as his clear losing record as a NBA coach shows.
Unfortunately for him, the Wizards will very likely start the season without their two best players: John Wall and Nene Hilario. For a team that heavily struggled on offense last season, Wall’s and Nene’s absences will be dramatic, especially when Bradley Beal will be making his NBA debut and it is normal that he will need some time until he adapts to the league and has some positive impact on the team’s performances.
Defensively, I believe Washington will be a better team than they were last season. Wittman has already shown some work on this area last season and the Wizards with Ariza, Okafor and a group of underrated players should be competitive thanks to a defensive improvement.
Anyway, on a conference that just keeps getting more and more competitive, the Wizards will almost need a miracle to compete for a postseason place. The team looks to be a player away from being very competitive, assuming that Nene and Wall managed to recover at 100% from their current injuries.
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