Off-Topic: The Washington Wizards Thread

[Slateman]

On 2/22/2019 at 6:23 PM, Woz said:

And that first round pick is going to be young cheap talent that you can build your future around.

So, of course the Wizards should sell the future to save the now. 

It's not like Grunfeld will draft anyone worthwhile with that pick.

[Skinsin2013]

https://fansided.com/2019/02/25/whiteboard-otto-porter-era-good-chicago-bulls/

Chicago is 4-2 in games Porter has played and is riding a three-game winning streak since acquiring him, the longest for the Bulls all season long. The most recent win came with Porter missing all four of his shots before leaving the game with a non-serious leg injury, and even without much help from him, the Bulls were able to beat the Boston Celtics at home.

In the five games Porter got to play to completion, he’s been terrific. Porter averaged 21.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in those games, shooting 57.5 percent from the field and 56.0 percent from 3-point territory.

It’s, uh, less than a great look for the Washington Wizards that Porter has looked dramatically better on the freaking Bulls, not exactly a sterling example of NBA basketball themselves this season. 

 

[turtle28]

It still wasn’t working out well with Porter in DC, with or without John Wall in the line up.

When he’s on the floor for the Bulls he’s their most experienced player and their #1 option. In DC that was never the case, he’s scoring more for them because he’s their #1 option and he’s getting more opportunities. This should shock no one. 

Last time I checked when the Wizards were healthy as a team they were knocking on the door of the Eastern Conference Finals led by Wall and Beal. I don’t see that happening for the Bulls being led by Porter and I don’t see that happening for the Wizards w/o John Wall healthy to go alongside Beal.

And, Porter is hurt again, not a surprise. It seemed every year he was here he missed time with a hip injury or some lower leg issue.

Edited February 25, 2019 by turtle28

[turtle28]

Wizards: Dekker, Brown should play over Johnson

https://wizofawes.com/2019/02/24/washington-wizards-wesley-johnson-shouldnt-get-minutes-sam-dekker-troy-brown-jr/

A wise man once said...

Most notably, Wesley Johnson has effectively knocked Sam Dekker out of the rotation since being acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans, and is also preventing rookie Troy Brown Jr. from getting some minutes as well.

Acquired at the deadline for Markieff Morris, the trade for Johnson was widely considered to be a move to get the Wizards under the luxury, and not so much about Johnson himself, who wasn’t seeing much playing time in New Orleans.

Yet, Brooks has been playing Johnson about 18 minutes per game in his six games with the team. By contrast, Dekker has played only one total minute in those games, and Brown Jr. just four minutes.

It’s not as if Johnson is putting up productive numbers when he’s on the floor either. He’s averaging four points per game on 33 percent shooting (25 percent on three-pointers). The best case for Johnson is he technically has the highest Defensive Rating on the team since the deadline, but not by much and the team’s defensive struggles don’t leave the impression it’s making much of a difference.

Neither Dekker nor Brown Jr. are consistent players, but they at least have variability that Johnson lacks.

Between when he was acquired by the Wizards from the Cleveland Cavaliers on December 7 and the deadline, Dekker was averaging 6.8 points per game on 51 percent shooting. Because of his energy and athleticism, Dekker was able to have a meaningful impact in several games, including eight game of 10 or more points.

Edited February 25, 2019 by turtle28

[Skinsin2013]

5 hours ago, turtle28 said:

It still wasn’t working out well with Porter in DC, with or without John Wall in the line up.

When he’s on the floor for the Bulls he’s their most experienced player and their #1 option. In DC that was never the case, he’s scoring more for them because he’s their #1 option and he’s getting more opportunities. This should shock no one. 

Last time I checked when the Wizards were healthy as a team they were knocking on the door of the Eastern Conference Finals led by Wall and Beal. I don’t see that happening for the Bulls being led by Porter and I don’t see that happening for the Wizards w/o John Wall healthy to go alongside Beal.

And, Porter is hurt again, not a surprise. It seemed every year he was here he missed time with a hip injury or some lower leg issue.

He's not their #1 option. Maarkanen or Lavine is. Otto plays #2 to those guys. The nice thing is they spread it around pretty good. No one HAS to get their shots, unlike Wall and Beall.

He'll miss tonight most likely.

[Skinsin2013]

4 hours ago, turtle28 said:

Wizards: Dekker, Brown should play over Johnson

https://wizofawes.com/2019/02/24/washington-wizards-wesley-johnson-shouldnt-get-minutes-sam-dekker-troy-brown-jr/

A wise man once said...

 

The media has been crushing Brooks about Johnson playing over Brown.

The media has really forced Brooks' hand a few times this year. It's like they're three steps ahead of him and have to scream at him to make obvious moves.

[e16bball]

15 hours ago, Skinsin2013 said:

https://fansided.com/2019/02/25/whiteboard-otto-porter-era-good-chicago-bulls/

Chicago is 4-2 in games Porter has played and is riding a three-game winning streak since acquiring him, the longest for the Bulls all season long. The most recent win came with Porter missing all four of his shots before leaving the game with a non-serious leg injury, and even without much help from him, the Bulls were able to beat the Boston Celtics at home.

In the five games Porter got to play to completion, he’s been terrific. Porter averaged 21.4 points, 5.6 rebounds and 2.6 assists in those games, shooting 57.5 percent from the field and 56.0 percent from 3-point territory.

It’s, uh, less than a great look for the Washington Wizards that Porter has looked dramatically better on the freaking Bulls, not exactly a sterling example of NBA basketball themselves this season. 

 

Kind of loses any credibility it might have otherwise had when (in addition to the hugely SSS), the article blatantly cherry-picks stats in order to inflate his numbers. Leaving out the game where he was awful prior to exiting with injury is silly — that’s still a game he played.

If you remove the flukishly bad game (which they did remove) and the flukishly good game where Otto F. Porter made 13 2pt FGs, from a player whose previous career high was 11 and who had cracked double digits only thrice in almost 400 career games (a game that oddly enough they left in) — he’s just regular old Otto Porter. Averaging 17.5 points a game because he’s gotten hot from deep (and is getting up more shots), but still not creating for anyone else, still not able to get to the FT line, still having the vast majority of his shots created for him.

In other words, the article’s entire point boils down to “hey, Otto Porter had a really amazing game against Memphis.” Which is great, I like Otto and that was a fantastic game for him. But he is what he is, and this article’s efforts to make it seem like he’s immediately become a brand new player in Chicago ignore the fact that, mostly, he’s the same guy he’s always been: a very solid two-way player, a dangerous shooter when he’s got it going, a great complementary piece. And still not worth close to $28M/year, and thus still a great salary dump for the Wizards.

 

Edited February 26, 2019 by e16bball

[Skinsin2013]

On 2/24/2019 at 1:50 PM, Skinsin2013 said:

 

LOL e16bball. Now please explain the one above. I mean, the 6 games is a small sample size... no doubt. But the stat above isn't. And are you going to pretend that the Bulls coincidentally got better when Otto came over? 4-2 in 6 games for a team that previously had 12 wins all year?

Otto does things that the average fan doesn't understand. He creates space for others... Bulls players are praising him for this. And he plays defense well. He's also a leader on that team... and those young guys are quickly learning from a guy that understands how to play the game the right way. Contrast that to the Wizards where we have two guards that are the "leaders"... two guards that don't play defense... one that tosses teammates under the bus... and that fact permeates this team, one of the worst defending teams in the NBA. 

As Scott Brooks has said many times, Otto plays "winning basketball." 

Some Wiz fans got all excited when the Wiz won their first two without Otto... against two bottom dwellers. They got all excited for Jabari Parker. Now they've lost four straight, three against teams they need to beat to get that 8 seed, and Brooks has admitted he doesn't know what to do with Parker. 

 

[e16bball]

1 hour ago, Skinsin2013 said:

LOL e16bball. Now please explain the one above. I mean, the 6 games is a small sample size... no doubt. But the stat above isn't. And are you going to pretend that the Bulls coincidentally got better when Otto came over? 4-2 in 6 games for a team that previously had 12 wins all year?

Otto does things that the average fan doesn't understand. He creates space for others... Bulls players are praising him for this. And he plays defense well. He's also a leader on that team... and those young guys are quickly learning from a guy that understands how to play the game the right way. Contrast that to the Wizards where we have two guards that are the "leaders"... two guards that don't play defense... one that tosses teammates under the bus... and that fact permeates this team, one of the worst defending teams in the NBA. 

As Scott Brooks has said many times, Otto plays "winning basketball." 

Some Wiz fans got all excited when the Wiz won their first two without Otto... against two bottom dwellers. They got all excited for Jabari Parker. Now they've lost four straight, three against teams they need to beat to get that 8 seed, and Brooks has admitted he doesn't know what to do with Parker. 

 

I’m not the average fan, and I understand the theory of basketball perfectly well. It’s amusing that you would feel the need to try to “educate” me as to how offensive basketball works. 

What is there to explain to you? He’s much better than Kelly Oubre and Sam Dekker and a newly arrived, frigidly cold shooting Trevor Ariza? That’s who “replaced” him in December. Not shocking that the team was worse. He’s much better than the still-bad Ariza and the god-awful Wesley Johnson? Again, that’s proving very little — of course the team got worse when it went from giving 30 mins/game to a good player to giving those minutes to terrible players. The Bulls are 3-2 and appear to be playing better ball after replacing Justin Holiday, Wayne Selden, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot with Otto Porter? Lord, I should hope so.

One of the things that “average fans” need to understand is that you can’t just shrug off small sample size. It’s not just a disclaimer — any statistical analysis performed on such ludicrously small samples is worthless, especially in basketball where any analysis will inevitably be skewed by whether shots are falling or not. In this example, Otto is hitting better than 50% of his threes in Chicago so far. That’s largely driving his point production, outside of the Memphis game, but it’s never going to continue. So why would I care about it? It’s flukish small sample noise, not meaningful data from which to draw conclusions.

And SSS caution is especially important in the NBA, where everything is so scouting report/game plan dependent, for the purpose of trying to draw meaningful long-term conclusions from the short-term effects of a change. The sheer act of making a major change will give a team a bump in the short-term, because opponents aren’t quite sure how to defend/attack the “new look” and the team can get an advantage. We saw it last year when Wall went out — at first, the “everybody eats” crew went on a tear. It was such a different look and style of play than teams had prepared for with the Wizards, and they got the jump on some teams. But after the league had time to adjust, they came crashing back to earth. Same thing happened when Wall went down this year, except the adjustment happened more quickly since teams already had some prior experience with the non-Wall Wizards to draw from. They had a nice little 10-game burst after Wall had his surgery, but since then they’ve been getting stomped. In fact, their only wins all month came — go figure — directly after they made another major change and got a short-term bump from the Portis/Parker move. 

 

The bottom line is that all these short-term windows tell us very little in terms of meaningful analysis. It’s cliche, but for the most part, players are who we think they are — because we’ve developed those opinions over long-term observation and analysis. Relying on short-term outcomes and discarding long-term observations causes people to overreact and leap to inaccurate observations. As you indicated, this plainly happened with Wizards fans immediately after the Porter trade. Regardless of the immediate fall-out of the deal, people should have relied on the track record of Portis/Parker and understood that a few games don’t change who they are. They’re both extremely talented guys who unfortunately play losing basketball. I suspect neither will (or should) be Wizards long-term, and that’s okay. It was a salary dump deal, with the bonus of half a year of speculation on those two players.  

The same is true, though, of Otto and everyone who is overreacting to early returns (and one incredibly flukish game) in Chicago. His track record is what it is, and ignoring that to leap to grandiose conclusions about the “new Otto Porter” is ill-advised. Especially when most of the results thus far line up closely with the type of player he’s always been. Everything I said above is true, and I expect it to remain true: he’s a very solid two-way player, he’s a dangerous shooter when he has it going, he’s a great complementary piece. And you were correct to add that he’s a good floor spacer. He’s a good, useful starter, I’m really not trying to trash the guy here. But players who can’t initiate offense for themselves or their teammates have a ceiling — until he develops that ability, which seems somewhat unlikely at this point, he’ll never be more than a third fiddle on a good team. Which isn’t worth nearly $28M (plus tax), especially not to the Wizards in the current stage of their franchise. Which makes it a quality salary dump. 

[e16bball]

The short version of the above:

1. Otto Porter is a good player.

2. When he replaces (or is replaced by) bad players, the team will obviously be better off. 

3. Small sample sizes are of very little value and lead to overreactions that aren’t based in reality. Which has occurred on both sides of the Porter trade.

4. Porter’s inability to initiate offense and create for himself or teammates makes his ceiling that of a complementary player.

5. The players we got from the Bulls are talented losers who probably won’t be around for long.

6. It’s still a valuable trade for the Wizards because dumping Otto’s salary without giving up any assets to get someone to take it off your hands is a win. The opportunity to see if Portis/Parker take a step forward is just a bonus, as is the chance to improve the lottery odds.

7. The Wizards are still idiots for keeping (and playing) bums like Ariza and Johnson ahead of Dekker and Brown Jr. That part wasn’t included in the above, but it needed to be said.

 

[Skinsin2013]

Good response. But you ignored my larger sample size.

You also said "The Bulls are 3-2 and appear to be playing better ball after replacing Justin Holiday, Wayne Selden, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot with Otto Porter?"

A truer statement is, "In games Otto Porter has played in, the Bulls are 4-2 and appear to be playing better ball after replacing Justin Holiday, Wayne Selden, Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot, Bobby Portis, and Jabari Parker with Otto Porter."

This isn't a new Otto Porter. No one is claiming that. The reality is, however, that he'll get more shots (created or assisted), his usage rate will climb, and the Bulls will be better off for it... the Wiz worse off without it." The truth about Otto, as a Wiz, is that that the Wiz never figured out how to use him. John and Brad will always need their shots. I'm okay with that for Beall. But Wall is not a good shooter. And the Wiz were worse off because he was trying to become an MVP (his words) when he should have been giving up shot to others, mainly Otto. Otto's personality isn't one to demand the ball for a guy like Wall. And Brooks was too weak to challenge Wall... he caught a "FU" from Wall when he did it in practice.

A "quality salary dump" is a silly statement. A "unavoidable salary dump" is much more accurate. A "great salary dump" would have been Wall's salary.

The reality is, the Bulls will be better than the Wiz in a few years. They're just in a better spot, some quality players, no egos, about to draft a low pick, and they don't have Wall's supermax.

[Skinsin2013]

5 minutes ago, e16bball said:

The short version of the above:

1. Otto Porter is a good player.

2. When he replaces (or is replaced by) bad players, the team will obviously be better off. 

3. Small sample sizes are of very little value and lead to overreactions that aren’t based in reality. Which has occurred on both sides of the Porter trade.

4. Porter’s inability to initiate offense and create for himself or teammates makes his ceiling that of a complementary player.

5. The players we got from the Bulls are talented losers who probably won’t be around for long.

6. It’s still a valuable trade for the Wizards because dumping Otto’s salary without giving up any assets to get someone to take it off your hands is a win. The opportunity to see if Portis/Parker take a step forward is just a bonus, as is the chance to improve the lottery odds.

7. The Wizards are still idiots for keeping (and playing) bums like Ariza and Johnson ahead of Dekker and Brown Jr. That part wasn’t included in the above, but it needed to be said.

 

I'd disagree with creating offense for others. He's shown he can do that... and without turning the ball over much.

And "valuable trade." The Wiz freed up space to re-sign Sato, Bryant, and maybe one more piece... Portis? That's still a fringe playoff team near the luxury tax.

Agree with #3. But you ignored my larger sample size stat. Also, players that receive players aren't always in a great spot because other teams have to adjust. The flip side to that is that teams have to gel too.

Wholeheartedly agree with #7.

[turtle28]

18 hours ago, Skinsin2013 said:

He's not their #1 option. Maarkanen or Lavine is. Otto plays #2 to those guys. The nice thing is they spread it around pretty good. No one HAS to get their shots, unlike Wall and Beall.

He'll miss tonight most likely.

Maybe... Otto’s injuries have always seems to linger since we drafted him and only once do I remember him having a serious injuries and that was last season when it turned out he had compartment syndrome.

 

[turtle28]

2 hours ago, e16bball said:

I’m not the average fan, and I understand the theory of basketball perfectly well. It’s amusing that you would feel the need to try to “educate” me as to how offensive basketball works. 

What is there to explain to you? He’s much better than Kelly Oubre and Sam Dekker and a newly arrived, frigidly cold shooting Trevor Ariza? That’s who “replaced” him in December. Not shocking that the team was worse. He’s much better than the still-bad Ariza and the god-awful Wesley Johnson? Again, that’s proving very little — of course the team got worse when it went from giving 30 mins/game to a good player to giving those minutes to terrible players. The Bulls are 3-2 and appear to be playing better ball after replacing Justin Holiday, Wayne Selden, and Timothe Luwawu-Cabarrot with Otto Porter? Lord, I should hope so.

One of the things that “average fans” need to understand is that you can’t just shrug off small sample size. It’s not just a disclaimer — any statistical analysis performed on such ludicrously small samples is worthless, especially in basketball where any analysis will inevitably be skewed by whether shots are falling or not. In this example, Otto is hitting better than 50% of his threes in Chicago so far. That’s largely driving his point production, outside of the Memphis game, but it’s never going to continue. So why would I care about it? It’s flukish small sample noise, not meaningful data from which to draw conclusions.

And SSS caution is especially important in the NBA, where everything is so scouting report/game plan dependent, for the purpose of trying to draw meaningful long-term conclusions from the short-term effects of a change. The sheer act of making a major change will give a team a bump in the short-term, because opponents aren’t quite sure how to defend/attack the “new look” and the team can get an advantage. We saw it last year when Wall went out — at first, the “everybody eats” crew went on a tear. It was such a different look and style of play than teams had prepared for with the Wizards, and they got the jump on some teams. But after the league had time to adjust, they came crashing back to earth. Same thing happened when Wall went down this year, except the adjustment happened more quickly since teams already had some prior experience with the non-Wall Wizards to draw from. They had a nice little 10-game burst after Wall had his surgery, but since then they’ve been getting stomped. In fact, their only wins all month came — go figure — directly after they made another major change and got a short-term bump from the Portis/Parker move. 

 

The bottom line is that all these short-term windows tell us very little in terms of meaningful analysis. It’s cliche, but for the most part, players are who we think they are — because we’ve developed those opinions over long-term observation and analysis. Relying on short-term outcomes and discarding long-term observations causes people to overreact and leap to inaccurate observations. As you indicated, this plainly happened with Wizards fans immediately after the Porter trade. Regardless of the immediate fall-out of the deal, people should have relied on the track record of Portis/Parker and understood that a few games don’t change who they are. They’re both extremely talented guys who unfortunately play losing basketball. I suspect neither will (or should) be Wizards long-term, and that’s okay. It was a salary dump deal, with the bonus of half a year of speculation on those two players.  

The same is true, though, of Otto and everyone who is overreacting to early returns (and one incredibly flukish game) in Chicago. His track record is what it is, and ignoring that to leap to grandiose conclusions about the “new Otto Porter” is ill-advised. Especially when most of the results thus far line up closely with the type of player he’s always been. Everything I said above is true, and I expect it to remain true: he’s a very solid two-way player, he’s a dangerous shooter when he has it going, he’s a great complementary piece. And you were correct to add that he’s a good floor spacer. He’s a good, useful starter, I’m really not trying to trash the guy here. But players who can’t initiate offense for themselves or their teammates have a ceiling — until he develops that ability, which seems somewhat unlikely at this point, he’ll never be more than a third fiddle on a good team. Which isn’t worth nearly $28M (plus tax), especially not to the Wizards in the current stage of their franchise. Which makes it a quality salary dump. 

So, freaking glad when you’re active! Amazing post E!

[turtle28]

1 hour ago, e16bball said:

The short version of the above:

1. Otto Porter is a good player.

2. When he replaces (or is replaced by) bad players, the team will obviously be better off. 

3. Small sample sizes are of very little value and lead to overreactions that aren’t based in reality. Which has occurred on both sides of the Porter trade.

4. Porter’s inability to initiate offense and create for himself or teammates makes his ceiling that of a complementary player.

5. The players we got from the Bulls are talented losers who probably won’t be around for long.

6. It’s still a valuable trade for the Wizards because dumping Otto’s salary without giving up any assets to get someone to take it off your hands is a win. The opportunity to see if Portis/Parker take a step forward is just a bonus, as is the chance to improve the lottery odds.

7. The Wizards are still idiots for keeping (and playing) bums like Ariza and Johnson ahead of Dekker and Brown Jr. That part wasn’t included in the above, but it needed to be said.

 

Yep! Playing Ariza and Johnson over Dekker and Troy Brown, Jr is asinine! I sure hope they don’t re-sign Ariza and roll with their youth at SF for next year.