176661992.30 teams 30 days washington wizards

Welcome to my 30 teams in 30 days series, the most comprehensive and informative previews for every team in the NBA. Inside these posts, you’ll get up to speed with every team’s offseason additions and their roster hierarchies, learn whether they’ve addressed their biggest areas of need, ponder over 5 questions that will define their season and then decide whether you agree with my offseason grades and record predictions.

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Notable Additions: Tre Johnson, Will Riley, Jamir Watkins, CJ McCollum, Cam Whitmore, Dillon Jones, Malaki Branham

Notable Subtractions: Jordan Poole, Marcus Smart, Richaun Holmes, Malcolm Brogdon, Saddiq Bey

Depth Chart:

PG: Bub Carrington / AJ Johnson / Sharife Cooper

SG: CJ Mccollum/ Justin Champagnie / Corey Kispert / Malaki Branham

SF: Tre Johnson / Khris Middleton / Will Riley / Jamir Watkins

PF: Bilal Coulibaly / Kyshawn George / Cam Whitmore / Dillon Jones / Anthony Gill

C: Alex Sarr / Tristan Vukevic / Marvin Bagley

Roster Hierarchy:

Franchise: N/A

Core: Alex Sarr, Tre Johnson, Bilal Coulibaly, Bub Carrington

Key Rotation: CJ McCollum, Tristan Vukevic, Khris Middleton, Kyshawn George, Justin Champagnie

Rotation: Cam Whitmore, Corey Kispert, Marvin Bagley, Anthony Gill, Jamir Watkins

Development: Will Riley, Sharife Cooper, Malaki Branham, AJ Johnson, Dillon Jones

Offseason Overview:

The Wizards have been the NBA’s biggest vultures, as Will Dawkins attempts to cast the net even wider in search of their next cornerstone, scouring the association for potential young talent they can add while providing cap relief to contenders. They capitalized on Milwaukee faltering a bit at the trade deadline by swapping Kuzma for Middleton, while adding a first round pick swap and rookie guard AJ Johnson. OKC needed a bit of cap relief in the offseason, WAS swooped in to pick up their FIFTH rookie from last year’s draft, Dillon Jones. Cam Whitmore fell out of the rotation in HOU, Washington sent 2 seconds to add him to their breadth of development plays.

That cornerstone hasn’t quite revealed himself just yet, though Washington has amassed an expansive talent pool, totaling 10 former 1st round picks that they will continue to evaluate. The Wizards got beat by the biggest average margin in NBA history last year, a mark they’ll hope to marginally improve upon without disturbing their quest to finish bottom 3 once more, banking on the rooks’ added experience & their more mature vet additions.

Pre-Draft Areas of Need:

🥇 Creation: 29th in Halfcourt PPP

🥈 Disruption: 24th in Personal Fouls (19.7 per game), 27th in Deflection Rate (13.7%)

🥉 Offensive Versatility: 3rd in PNR frequency, bottom 10 in spot-up, cuts, iso & post-up freq%

If you squint, you can see the formation of a rangy & versatile core that needs a creator to make them viable offensively.

Season Outlook:

1. The Wizards’ wing prospect pool is crowded, who will rise to the top?

Cam Whitmore is hungry to prove Houston wrong, Bilal and Kyshawn need reps badly to improve on offense and WAS needs to see how Tre and Will’s creation ability translates to the big leagues. Middleton still has some gas left in the tank and Champagnie was their 2nd most impactful player, which leaves WAS with a big minutes crunch.

Washington has 5 young wings from the past 3 drafts plus 2 proven contributors that are all looking to play roughly 96 mins combined between the 7 of them. Organizations tend to place guys in developmental hierarchies based on draft capital and overall investment, so I expect Bilal and Tre to have the foremost precedence in terms of involvement and minutes share.

A natural distribution of minutes to me would pair Bilal & Tre and Kyshawn & Riley as much as possible, to try and insulate Will/Tre’s defensive issues by giving them someone to take the toughest assignment, while they try and shoulder the scoring load for their more offensively challenged counterparts.

The wild card in this equation is Cam Whitmore. He didn’t respond well to inconsistent minutes in Houston, but there’s really no way to even get him to 20 minutes a night without cutting the vets completely out of the rotation. In my opinion, WAS would be best served to showcase Khris until the trade deadline while prioritizing their own picks on the wings, then give Cam more tick once the logjam is a bit more clear.

2. How long will the Wiz try to rehabilitate Khris & CJ’s trade value?

While most trades happen at the February deadline, we often see contending teams begin to make small tweaks to their roster as injuries and other fluctuations threaten to disrupt their season. The Warriors swung a trade for Dennis Schröder on Dec 15th of last year to help shore up guard depth they lost with De’Anthony Melton’s injury and the Suns realized a bit too late that Nurkic was unplayable, picking up Nick Richards on Jan 15th.

The point is, WAS doesn’t HAVE to wait until the deadline to try and capitalize on Middleton and CJ’s value. A misstep in ORL’s backcourt could lead them to hit the phones inquiring about CJ, while a team like the Hawks could shop for additional wing depth if they start the season strong.

3. Is Sarr fully maximized as a 5, on both ends?

The debate about Sarr’s most optimal position has been percolating since he first entered NBA teams’ radars, a testament to some of his outlier abilities as a 7-footer, but also indicative of his deficiencies as a full-time 5. Sarr began his career with concerns about his ability to rebound, set effective screens and roll hard to the basket, with the early returns of his rookie season validating those questions.

Sarr rebounded just 7.4% of his team’s misses (20th% among centers) posted a 16.1 DREB% (20th%) and shot -14.1 points BELOW league average on finishing plays, as a roller, on putbacks, in transition and off of cuts. The same physical attributes that give him unicorn-like flexibility at his size also sap his ability to do “big-man things”, as his high hips, slight frame and lack of contact balance are direct contributors to his finishing and rebounding issues. These indicators persisting in his first season further confirms my evaluation that he is best deployed as a roaming big on defense, rather than an anchor.

His optimal role is more Jaren Jackson Jr. than Rudy Gobert, ideally playing with a big-body big that can control the glass and handle any post-matchups, unlocking Sarr’s ground coverage and rim protection more effectively. Offensively, he intrinsically forces mismatches when he’s defended by 5s thanks to the shooting, speed and short roll playmaking, so I don’t believe WAS should go away from utilizing him as the lone big entirely, but it may need to be more match-up dependent as they add more talent around him.

1. Does Bilal have any indicators that he’ll become a net positive offensive player?

Rookies are typically negative offensive players and considering Bilal’s age and pre-draft profile, it’s to be expected that he’s a long-term project on offense. Bilal now has back to back seasons as one of the least efficient players in the NBA, despite starting the season looking like he had taken a massive leap offensively. In the extremely small 8 game sample to start the season, Bilal averaged 17 PTS on 68.2 TS%, a full +5.4 PTS and +19.4 TS% HIGHER than his next 51 games.

That stretch understandably got Wizards fans extremely excited, just for him to come crashing down to Earth after Kuzma, destroyer of joy and conducive basketball, rejoined the lineup. In the 584 minutes Bilal played with Kuzma, he averaged 10.3 PTS/2.8 ASTS/4.6 REBS on 46.7 TS%, shot just 21.5% from 3 and 64.3% at the rim. In the 1364 minutes he played WITHOUT Kuzma, Bilal averaged 14.6 PTS/4.0 ASTS/5.7 REBS on 53.2 TS%. The efficiency still isn’t great, but that ~ 7 TS% is the difference between one of the worst offensive players in the league and a below-average scorer.

The true Bilal is somewhere (on the lower end) between the insane 8-game start and the sample size without Kuzma. He won’t be a potential creator but I think he’s better than the most destructive player in the league, which he arguably was last year as the worst high-volume midrange shooter in the sport (29% on 3.2 middy attempts/75.). Bilal’s skillset is incredibly more useful as a complimentary offensive player playing off of superior talent with his athleticism and cutting ability, so we should see natural efficiency gains as this Wizards team gradually becomes more serious.

5. Which “buy-low” acquisition will pay the highest dividends?

There are a number of options here considering how active the Wiz have been in identifying reclamation projects, so I’ll start with the pickups I’m lowest on. AJ Johnson is electrifying but just has so much work to do to refine his game, and most importantly his body, that I don’t think we’ll see any payoff from him for maybe half a decade, and that’s if Washington is that patient with Johnson. Cam Whitmore brings that much needed rim pressure, though I’m skeptical about his fit with the overall ethos this team is trying to centralize around. Dillon Jones may struggle to get tick, but I think Branham will surprise Wiz fans next year, and could be their most immediately impactful buy-low pickup.

Record Prediction

Total Wins Over/Under: 21.5 via BetMGM

Floor: 23–59 (+5 wins)

Moving on from Kuzma is probably worth 4 wins by itself. The reporting around the 2024 rooks have been positive, especially Bub Carrington’s apparent weight gain, and CJ + KMidd should be helpful presences in their short time in DC.

Ceiling: 27–55 (+9 wins)

Success is relative. For the Wiz, meaningful steps forward from their young guys in while getting some assets back for CJ/KMidd and locking in T3 draft odds is an ideal outcome.

Let me know if you agree with my predictions! What are your expectations for the Wizards this season?

Overall Grade: B

Up Next: Brooklyn Nets