Washington Wizards NBA Team Season Preview 2013-14

WASHINGTON WIZARDS

Season Review 2012/13:

Advanced Stats
	Numbers	Rank
Pace	92.2	14
Offense	100.2	30
Defense	103.0	5
Rebound	49.6	20

4 Factors
Offense	Numbers	Rank	Defense	Numbers	Rank
eFG%	47.5	25	eFG%	48.3	7
TO%	14.2	24	TO%	13.7	14
Reb%	24.6	25	Reb%	25.4	5
FT%	19.1	25	FT%	20.6	17

Monthly Performance
	Record	OffRtg	DefRtg
November	1-13	96.7	106.6
December	3-11	96.5	105.1
January	7-9	102.9	102.6
February	7-5	104.1	102.3
March	9-8	108.0	105.5
April	2-7	102.6	107.6

The Washington Wizards were one of the rare teams in league history that even though had a Top 10 defense couldn’t avoid having a poor record of 29-53. Of course this was possible due to their incredible bad offense that was dead last in the league in offense efficiency. However, we are in front of a team that had two different faces last season and forces us to go deeper on their season analysis to check two different periods: with and without John Wall on court.

John Wall Impact
Wizards	Games	Record	OffRtg	DefRtg
With	49	24-25	105.4	103.8
Without	33	5-28	96.9	106.3

The Wizards started the season without John Wall and Nene Hilario, as they were both injured. Due to their lack of depth, it would be very hard for the team to be competitive on their first games of the season and they confirmed that by losing their first 12 games of the season. Washington needed Bradley Beal to have a quick adaptation to the league on his rookie season, but the opposite happened with Beal shooting 34% and 37% FG on the first two months of the season. So, the Wizards just didn’t have any reliable weapon on offense that could give them points in a consistent way.

Eventually, everything changed as soon as John Wall returned to the competition. If it wasn’t for the six losses in a row at the end of the season when the Wizards tanked to have a high draft pick, Washington would have had a winning record with a healthy John Wall on a sample of almost 50 games. They dramatically improved on offense from a 96.6 offensive rating into a 105.4 rating with Wall as the team’s playmaker. More than solving games on his own, Wall gave more confidence to his teammates and this was clear especially on Bradley Beal, who stopped being pressured to lead the backcourt unit. Before getting injured, Beal had two great months of February and March, where he shot 48% FG and a remarkable 42% and 54% from behind the line!

It’s hard to make predictions, but if John Wall had remained healthy during the whole season and having in account the Wizards’ great defense all season long, they would have possibly fought for a playoff spot. Record wise, last season was another “lost season” for the Wizards with a terrible record, but this time the organization must be happy with what they saw last season. 

Offseason Report:

As they had once again one of the worst records in the league, the Wizards got the #3 overall pick in the draft and picked SF Otto Porter. Besides Porter, the organization believes that they only need their best players to be healthy in order to be competitive, so they didn’t make a lot of changes on their roster.

Eric Maynor who was a nice role player in Oklahoma City before suffering a serious injury will be Wall’s primary backup. After having possibly the best season of his career, the Wizards agreed to terms with Martell Webster on a four-year, $22 million contract.

For the frontcourt, the Wizards added the veteran Al Harrington to the roster, while preferring to keep the main core of players from last season.

Season Preview:

Looking at last season’s sample, the Wizards can be a competitive team this season in the Eastern Conference as long as they can keep their key players healthy.

John Wall improved a lot last season and these are excellent news for the franchise. Wall always seemed like a player who rushed a bit his decisions and he would lose the control of the game often, while his shooting stroke wasn’t “clean” at all. However, he was able to reduce his turnover numbers per game last season from 3.9 into 3.2, while his shooting numbers were also improved. His numbers after the All Star break were quite formidable: 20.7 points per game, while shooting 45% FG and 81% FG, besides having 7.8 assists per game versus 3.1 turnovers per game plus 4.5 rebounds per game and 1.5 steals per game!

With this breakthrough from Wall, it’s important for the Wizards that his teammates are able to do offensive threats to their opponents as well. Fortunately, Bradley Beal had a positive rookie season and ended the season in excellent level and with a lot of self-trust on his shooting skills. So, the Wizards hope that Beal will continue this good moment on the new season. After a few subpar seasons, Martell Webster was able to shoot 42% 3pts, something that gave me a new contract in DC and his role this season will be to stretch the floor and give solid backup minutes to the team’s perimeter.

Washington hopes that the team’s backcourt for the future will be formed by Wall, Beal and Porter, but an injury from Porter has prevented him from playing on the preseason and so, his adaptation to the league might take longer than expected. Therefore, Trevor Ariza should be the starter at the SF position for now. Ariza is a defensive minded player, who has been struggling offensively since he left the Lakers.

But the main factor that might limit the Wizards’ breakthrough this season will be their frontcourt’s performance. The early news aren’t good, as Emeka Okafor suffered a serious injury and he will be out indefinitely due to a neck injury. He needed surgery and so, the Wizards will surely need to hang in there without Okafor for a while. Nene Hilario is the best player of this unit, but he is injury prone and a tremendous risk moving forward. Still, the Wizards last season were much better with him on court, so he will be indeed a key player for the team this season.

Washington has some depth on the frontcourt, but we are dealing with an one-dimensional unit. Jan Vesely is coming from a great Eurobasket tournament this summer, where he was a beast in rebounding and this was surely a boost on his morale. However, his offensive skills are quite poor, especially from the line where he will be once again a fierce competitor to DeAndre Jordan for the worst FT shooter of the league award. On the other hand, Kevin Seraphin is the opposite of Vesely, as he has a nice post up game (even though he can’t pass the ball to save his life), but his defense is subpar, while Trevor Booker is an undersized hustle guy that will always be useful to any team as a complementary role player.

I’m not a fan of Randy Wittman as a coach, but the truth is that he turned the Wizards into a good defensive team when it was hard to motivate his players to play hard on defense on a lowly team on tank mode. He also has a lot of merit on the roster management.

Washington has conditions to be competitive this season, with a clear chance to fight for the last playoff spots in the Conference, as long as Wall and Nene have injury-free seasons. I believe that they are one frontcourt player way from having a huge breakthrough and become a potential good team in the East.