Trilly Grades Your Rebuild: Washington Wizards Edition
Welcome back,
Today we’ll be taking a look at the artists formerly known as the Bullets. You can find past entries here but I’ll warn you now, there’s only ten.
The rules are the same: I’m going to be taking a look at three things they did well, three things they failed miserably at and three things they could do this summer to stop stinking. I’ll be issuing one of two grades based on my findings: Oh hell yeah (good) or Oh no (bad). This is the internet, things are classic or trash with no in between. You wouldn’t expect nuance on Twitter so please do not expect it here. Thank you.
Washington Wizards (32-50, 11th place Eastern Conference)
Good Things
1. Bradley Beal
Lebron, Harden, Steph, Giannis, Durant, Beal: Players this season to average 25/5/5. He’s also played at least 77 games in three straight seasons, which is great news after he hit 65+ games just once in his first four seasons. He’s got two years left on this contract for around $55 million. That deal was skewered at the time and has aged very well.
2. The cap situation isn’t…..as bad as it could be
Trevor Ariza’s deal is expiring and declining Jabari Parker’s team option opens up $35 million in salary. Ian Mahinmi’s deal is going into the last year. Otto Porter was good but overpaid so they were able to get off of his contract for Parker’s option and a look at CPF Bobby Portis. Next season John Wall will make more than Damian Lillard but Beal will make less than Andrew Wiggins. Balance.
3. Ernie Grunfeld is OUT
He was there for 16 years. They won four playoff series and finished with below 30 wins five times in that time. It wasn’t all bad for Grunfeld and at the time a lot of his decisions weren’t horrendous, but a lot of them were and now he’s gone. Tommy Sheppard is the interim GM but he’s been with the Wizards the same 16 seasons Grunfeld was. Maybe he’s learned from his predecessor’s mistakes. Maybe the Shep man is ready to hit my line to right this ship. Or maybe it’s just more of the same.
Bad Things
1. Bro, literally everything else
The Wizards have had two owners in my lifetime and they’ve both stunk. I KNOW Ernie Grunfeld wasn’t good just like I know Scott Brooks isn’t moving the needle here as a head coach. Sheppard might be good, but he’ll have to prove it. Until then, you’re 0/3 on the owner, GM and head coach.
The John Wall extension, the 4-year, $169 million dollar one? It hasn’t kicked in yet. Next season will be year one and will start with Wall on the shelf rehabbing an Achilles injury. It ends in July 2023 with him making $47 million dollars. That deal, while brutal now, was signed when Wall was coming off an All-NBA season but that does them no good now. The only bright side is, you should be able to tank while Wall recovers next season to add another high draft pick to the roster.
Dwight Howard has a $5.6 million dollar player option for next season. He played in nine games this season and I have no idea if he takes the option but it’s a bad sign for Washington either way. If he opts in, you have Dwight Howard on your team and in your locker room. If he opts out, Dwight Fucking Howard looked around and said to himself, “This isn’t for me”. Not sure which one is worse, and that’s how things are going for the Wizards.
2. John Wall Extension
I love him to death and I’ve already mentioned but it needs its own bullet point. Wiggins aside, this is the worst contract in the league. As an unwavering stan, I had talked myself into the heel surgery Wall had in December being in his best interest.
To me, a biased observer, it was simple. In the 32 games before Wall’s injury, all his career numbers were just about right on for him. It was probably going to be another All-Star season, the extension was still way too much but it was an All-Star caliber season. Then this came out:
How could this be, I asked myself as a Wall faithful? The highs were still there: 26/9 opening night against Miami, 34/13 against Boston and the masterpiece against the Lakers, 40/14, just days before he shut it down for the season. The average speed info matched up with the bone spurs in the heel news to me, carrier of John Wall’s water. He could still hit top speed when he needed to (Lakers game) but the constant heel pain made him pick his spots elsewhere (defense, every game). I, currently wearing John Wall pajamas, figured the heel surgery would have our protagonist back better than ever.
My only gripe was the timing. If he grimaced til February, he gets All-Star game number six on his resume`. Six isn’t a lock for the Hall of Fame by any means but Joe Dumars got in with six and Reggie Miller’s wack ass got in with five, so it’s a start. And Wall is still only 28, plenty of time to get a couple more ASG’s in to pad the HOF case. But then he tears his Achilles and a bad situation gets worse. I wish him well and hope he takes this time to get fully healthy from everything, but the history of speedy guards and Achilles injuries isn’t promising.
3. They’ve spent a lot of money and don’t have a lot to show for it
The salary cap jumped historically in 2016. Beal’s contract extension was one of the first to be signed under the new terms, 5-years, $128 million, in July 2016. Then came Porter’s extension, 4-years, $106 million, in July 2017. Two weeks later, Wall’s $169 million dollar extension came. That’s over $400 million dollars in extensions for a trio that won three playoff series together. The assumption was the cap was going to keep jumping like it did in 2016. It didn’t.
The Mahinmi deal was bad the second it was signed. The Dwight contract was bad the second it was signed. I’m not a Kelly Oubre fan but trading him for the right to finish paying Ariza $15 million this season was yuck.
Trilly’s Summer Prescription
1. Embrace the tank
Due to all the money this team has spent lately, they haven’t had the opportunity for a good old fashioned tank. This is that opportunity.
You’re looking at the 6th pick in the draft, which isn’t terrible. I’d look for a DeAndre Hunter or Jarrett Culver. Maybe they roll the dice on Cam Reddish if he falls? They have a 37% chance of jumping in the top-four so all is not lost.
I’d do my best to keep Wall out the entire season, if possible. This is a two-part plan. The first part is to gas Bradley Beal’s trade value (more on this later). Another year of Beal putting up great numbers and maybe you trade him to the highest bidder. The second part is to make sure the first tape that comes out of healthy Wall is him killing in open gyms during the summer. That way you send him to the Lakers when they strike out on free agents again. This was a lot more likely before Magic quit so stay tuned.
2. Cost controlled pieces
They can extend qualifying offers to Tomas Satoransky, Bobby Portis and Thomas Bryant this summer and I think they’d be wise to keep all three.
Satoransky hit 40% of his threes this season, averaged 5 assists playing off/with Beal and his Defensive Real Plus-Minus had him between Donovan Mitchell and Gary Harris. With the QO, other teams can make a play for Satoransky but I expect the Wizards to entertain keeping him unless the price gets out of hand. Then I KNOW they’ll keep him.
Portis came over in the Porter trade and averaged 14/9 while hitting 40% of his threes in Washington. He wasn’t good defensively but he was asked to play a lot of center and he’s not a center…. so that sounds about right. If his 3P shot holds up, he should be able to play nicely off a center that can protect the rim but he’s best utilized at PF.
Thomas Bryant, whose tires I’ve been pumping since he was misused at Indiana, even did some things this year! He’s 6’11” with a 7’6″ wingspan and can hit a three (37% 3P in college, 36% 3P in the G-League). He was a second-round pick in the 2017 draft but is still five months younger than Josh Jackson despite two years in college. He made First Team All-NBA G League as a rookie. The Lakers let him go for nothing before the Wizards claimed him. He’s a mess defensively at a position where you can’t be a mess, so that’s a problem. But he has the physical tools and NBA defense is hard so I think he’ll improve there almost by default. A good head coach would help there tremendously. Bryant hit 80% of his shots in the restricted area this season. For reference, 2019 Giannis is at 74%. Miami LeBron was at around 78%. 2001 Shaq was at 77%. He shot 69% (heh) on 2-pointers overall. He also hit 35% of his 3-pointers from above break, Jimmy Butler is at 35% and Kevin Durant is at 36% for reference. Clearly, attempts matter here. Giannis/Bron/Shaq/Butler/Durant all took more shots than Bryant, which helps his efficiency. But he also played nearly 1500 minutes and took over 500 shots this season. 88/99 of the three-pointers he attempted this year were above the break. I say all that to say this: A guy with that kind of touch, inside and out, could be rare and I think a team would be wise to invest in Bryant to see what they really have.
Troy Brown, Sam Dekker, and Chasson Randle each showed flashes as well. Brown was a first round pick, they traded a second for a flier on Dekker and Randle is an undrafted FA they signed after he played withtheDonc man overseas. This league is all about gathering lottery tickets/ praying they hit.. and the Wizards have done well in acquiring a few after tricking most of their draft picks. The 2017 first rounder went for 39 total games of Bojan Bogdanovich/getting off Andrew Nicholson’s contract. Their 2016 first rounder went for Markieff Morris. Their 2014 first rounder went for Marcin Gortat. And don’t you dare look up who the 5th pick in the 2009 draft that they traded for Mike Miller/Randy Foye could have been. And please do not show it to @BarstoolNate. I’m asking you nicely.
3. Making a decision on Bradley Beal
He’s good, getting better and is only 25. He’s also going to be expensive soon and very soon:
First, let me address the elephant in the room: GODDAMN!
If Beal makes All-NBA this season, he’s eligible for a 4-year, $194 million dollar extension ($48.5 million per) this summer. If he makes All-NBA this season and next, that jumps to $252 million dollars over five years ($50.4 million per). Again, Beal is tremendous and him making All-NBA in back to back seasons locks in that he’s a top-15ish player. I don’t see how you can build a competitive team when you’re giving over 70% of your cap to Wall/Beal. Wall is untradeable for now, so you may have to turn your attention to trading Beal. He has two years left on his deal now, and trading him would nullify the supermax, so this summer may be the time to consider moving him.
And that stinks. You draft a guy and watch him battle injuries his first couple years. He finally beats that and develops into an All-Star player, then an All-NBA player. And you may have to watch him walk because you just can’t pay that kind of scratch for a non-MVP talent and still build a competitive team. Trading him now is a tough pill to swallow, but you avoid ending up in a Kemba/Charlotte situation where you have to overpay to keep a guy you can’t build around or watch him walk for nothing. It’s a lose/lose so the Wizards may want to consider ripping the band-aid off sooner rather than later.
Rebuild status: Oh no