Off-Topic: The Washington Wizards Thread

[Woz]

3 hours ago, JoshstraDaymus said:

@Woz if you're looking to find a way to make fun of the franchise, this is the way here. Harrell and Kuzma to get Dinwiddie coming off the ACL tear? This is a Zardos move we are all type of familiar with.

With all of the guys they just acquired, someone is going to have to be moved as they don't have the space for them all on the roster.

They need a PG badly (if you think that even signing Neto as a backup is a good move, I don't know what to tell you). Is it a major risk? Yes. But at least I could understand it.

I just noticed that Dinwiddie declined his player option to become a free agent, so he's betting on himself as well. Trading for him would be a #SoWizards move, if you could just sit and wait for a few days and then sign him in free agency.

[turtle28]

2 hours ago, Woz said:

What is a "point forward?"

Also, Deni's also coming off an injury. Do you want to have him recover and learn a whole new responsibility set?

A point forward is a guy who’s the size of a forward who plays point guard for the team like Lebron does a lot, like Ben Simons did for Philly. 
 

Very true about coming off an injury. As for him learning a new responsibility set, I don’t see it that way. He played that way when we drafted him, in Israel he was that type of player. It was actually Scott Brooks who tried to make Deni into a true SF in the way he did Troy Brown when both are more point guard type players than wings.
 

Troy Brown should’ve been Russell Wetbrook’s back up last year but Brooks tried to make him play SF again. The guy is a PG in a SF body. 

Edited August 1, 2021 by turtle28

[e16bball]

6 hours ago, turtle28 said:

Dinwiddie is an unrestricted free agent too. They don’t need to trade Kuzma & Harrell for him, they can just sign him as a FA. 🤷‍♂️ 

No, they can’t. They’re still well over the salary cap after the Westbrook trade. They aren’t allowed to sign anyone who doesn’t come for the non-taxpayer MLE ($9.5M). 

That’s definitely not Dinwiddie. It’s also probably not Cam Payne, although the glut of better PGs on the market might drive his price down to that point.

The problem with signing Payne is that the only reason anyone would ever sign him for any amount of money is because of the way he played with the Suns. But that was in a very specific role — as what was basically a combo guard behind, and oftentimes alongside, a HOF point god. He played 18 minutes a game, often off the ball, and he was more ball-mover/shot-taker than shot creator in a lot of those minutes.

When we talk about things that are classically Washington, one of things that definitely qualifies is taking a guy who played a specific and limited role elsewhere and paying him based on projecting that prior limited role into something larger. We know that, at least when surrounded by several better guards, Cam Payne can be a quality “microwave”-style offensive spark off the bench. He was legitimately excellent in that role last year. But asking him to hold down a full-time starting PG role? That’s a monster step up. We’ve never seen him do anything close to that before. 

[turtle28]

1 hour ago, e16bball said:

No, they can’t. They’re still well over the salary cap after the Westbrook trade. They aren’t allowed to sign anyone who doesn’t come for the non-taxpayer MLE ($9.5M). 

That’s definitely not Dinwiddie. It’s also probably not Cam Payne, although the glut of better PGs on the market might drive his price down to that point.

The problem with signing Payne is that the only reason anyone would ever sign him for any amount of money is because of the way he played with the Suns. But that was in a very specific role — as what was basically a combo guard behind, and oftentimes alongside, a HOF point god. He played 18 minutes a game, often off the ball, and he was more ball-mover/shot-taker than shot creator in a lot of those minutes.

When we talk about things that are classically Washington, one of things that definitely qualifies is taking a guy who played a specific and limited role elsewhere and paying him based on projecting that prior limited role into something larger. We know that, at least when surrounded by several better guards, Cam Payne can be a quality “microwave”-style offensive spark off the bench. He was legitimately excellent in that role last year. But asking him to hold down a full-time starting PG role? That’s a monster step up. We’ve never seen him do anything close to that before. 

So what do you think we should do to get a Pg?

Should we trade Kuzma & Harrell for Dinwiddie & then give Dinwiddie a huge deal?

Should we trade for Lonzo Ball or DeVante Graham?

We’re going to have to do something to get an upgrade at PG.

[e16bball]

10 hours ago, Woz said:

With all of the guys they just acquired, someone is going to have to be moved as they don't have the space for them all on the roster.

They need a PG badly (if you think that even signing Neto as a backup is a good move, I don't know what to tell you). Is it a major risk? Yes. But at least I could understand it.

I just noticed that Dinwiddie declined his player option to become a free agent, so he's betting on himself as well. Trading for him would be a #SoWizards move, if you could just sit and wait for a few days and then sign him in free agency.

Other than the last paragraph, which is based on the incorrect premise that they can just sign Dinwiddie in FA, I agree with you and this post. 

They have a half-dozen SF/PF types (Hachimura, Avdija, Kispert, Bertans, Kuzma, and Hutchison). And that’s not including Caldwell-Pope, who will have to play a lot of his minutes as a 3rd guard alongside Beal and a PG, and will thus need minutes from the “3” spot as well. They’ve used their last 3 first round picks on that group, and they’ve got over $46M in 2021 salary committed to them. Even if you don’t care about Hutchison, which I don’t, that’s 5 guys (plus KCP) competing for minutes at 2 spots. Not enough time to go around, not to properly develop any of them. 

It’s a somewhat similar issue at C. They’ve got 3 guys for one slot between Gafford, Bryant, and Harrell. You could potentially play Harrell at the 4 — but that crowds the forward positions even more than discussed above. Is it a good use of assets to limit each of these guys to 16ish minutes a game? 

As you say, they desperately need a PG. We can debate who that should be, but it seems like a pretty solid idea to move a guy out of each of those overcrowded positions in return for a player who can start at the spot where we’re absolutely bone dry. It doesn’t necessarily have to be Kuzma and Harrell — it could be Avdija and Bryant, or some other combination — but that Dio makes the most sense to me, as I think they’d both have more value to an actual contender than to us. 

[turtle28]

15 hours ago, Woz said:

With all of the guys they just acquired, someone is going to have to be moved as they don't have the space for them all on the roster.

They need a PG badly (if you think that even signing Neto as a backup is a good move, I don't know what to tell you). Is it a major risk? Yes. But at least I could understand it.

I just noticed that Dinwiddie declined his player option to become a free agent, so he's betting on himself as well. Trading for him would be a #SoWizards move, if you could just sit and wait for a few days and then sign him in free agency.

It is true as @e16bball laid out as well that we have the opposite problem of last year where we didn’t have enough forwards and now we have a logjam at forward after drafting Kispert and trading Westbrook away for 2 guys who will need forwards minutes to see time on the floor and a C/PF who’s in a log jam with our bigs too.

I’d rather it not be Kuzma & Harrell though as I think Kuzma should be one of our starters at F - he & Rui - & Harrell is so valuable as a big off the bench. They can do a C by committee as they did last year after Bryant went down & just go with the hot hand in games, each guy will probably finish the season with 20 something minutes.

I think re-signing Neto makes a lot of sense for the Wizards or offering the MLE - which pays near $10 mil - to Cameron Payne to either be our starting PG or a microwave off the bench as E described him to me makes a lot of sense too. 
 

That move would be good for Payne, bc he’d get a chance to prove he could be our starting PG - where else is he going to get that opportunity? And, if he succeeds as a starting PG for us we can re-sign him or someone else can to a bigger contract next offseason.

Here’s how the roster is looking if we do that:

PG: Payne, Neto, Holiday

SG: Beal, KCP, Mathews

SF: Kuzma, Kispert, Deni, Hutchinson 

(maybe playing Deni in the G league makes sense for him? Someone on Twitter suggested he should’ve played there last year bc he wasn’t ready for the NBA. As long as it helps him develop, I’m fine with it, no sense it rotting away on the bench w/ no minutes.)

PF: Rui, Bertans, Gill

C : Gafford, Harrell, Bryant

Isaiah Todd will be in the GLeague this year.

[turtle28]

Any thought to the Wizards trading to get Tomas Satoransky back to be their starting PG?

[turtle28]

Gotta be Kuzma and something else like Harrell or KCP for D’Angelo Russell right? Or, Kuzma, Avdija & Harrell? I hope so.

Edited August 2, 2021 by turtle28

[turtle28]

[turtle28]

 

[turtle28]

 

I guess we won’t be trading for Sato. 😢

[e16bball]

52 minutes ago, turtle28 said:

Reading those numbers, and hearing all day about all the limitations they still have in terms of getting good veteran players into the fold, it just makes me shake my head. 

This whole plan to keep Beal and build around him just feels hopelessly destined to fail. They’re not going to have cap space to sign a max guy outright, and the elite players aren’t going to want to force their way here just to team up with Beal. Barring a miracle, in the form of one of our young guys taking the massive leap to becoming a True Star™️, I just don’t see how it’s going to be possible to put together a championship-contending team from here. 

[turtle28]

7 hours ago, e16bball said:

Reading those numbers, and hearing all day about all the limitations they still have in terms of getting good veteran players into the fold, it just makes me shake my head. 

This whole plan to keep Beal and build around him just feels hopelessly destined to fail. They’re not going to have cap space to sign a max guy outright, and the elite players aren’t going to want to force their way here just to team up with Beal. Barring a miracle, in the form of one of our young guys taking the massive leap to becoming a True Star™️, I just don’t see how it’s going to be possible to put together a championship-contending team from here. 

I agree, Beal can either say here and remain mediocre but be one of the highest paid stars in the league or he can ask for a trade take less than the full max & be on a contending team like the Warriors while we get back a huge haul to help us truly rebuild.

The Beal to Golden State trade is so enticing. Getting back Kuminga, Moody, Poole, Weisman & Wiggins while we then flip Wiggins into a PG w/ another vet or just on his own would be awesome for the Wiz long term.

[lavar703]

So are they really going to do a S&T with Brooklyn for Dinwiddie? The dude hasn’t played in a year and has had two major knee injuries. This seems like one of those Wizards deals that is going to end up being a disaster. Just keep Kuzma and Harrell. Don’t do this dumb deal. 

[MKnight82]

1 hour ago, lavar703 said:

So are they really going to do a S&T with Brooklyn for Dinwiddie? The dude hasn’t played in a year and has had two major knee injuries. This seems like one of those Wizards deals that is going to end up being a disaster. Just keep Kuzma and Harrell. Don’t do this dumb deal. 

Looks like it’s happening