2014-2015 Depth Chart Thread.....

[Ruzious]

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Otto
PF - 25 slow guys
C - Gortat

[LyricalRico]

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Otto
PF - 25 slow guys
C - Gortat

It's like a change-up in baseball. Get them used to the fastball (Wall/Beal/Otto)and then they don't know what to do when the breaking ball comes at them (Pierce et al).

[keynote]

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Otto
PF - 25 slow guys
C - Gortat

Well, Nene's first 2-3 steps are quick. It's the rest of his steps that are slow.

[doclinkin]

Care to take another stab at this with Dejuan Blair now in the mix too?

More of the same [edited]:

I'm rooting for Porter to seize the 3spot sooner over later. Else Wall better improve his jumper and half court attack. I like that we added pierce but PP + Hump + Blair replacing Booker and Ariza takes away one of Walls weapons: team speed and overall athleticism.

In favor of BBIQ and veteran cunning. Still where we have had a mismatch over anybody is our speed size and athleticism in the open court. Now we rely on John Wall to create in the halfcourt more, though we do rebound better to initiate that uptempo break -- we don't force as many misses to rebound in the first place.

Again, my concern is hearing more complaints about Wall's stunted halfcourt game, and Witt relying more on Pierce for cheap wins than featuring our youth and giving them more opportunities to struggle but improve. We have back-up for Nene's inevitable downtime, maybe we can forestall that by adding grunt muscle and a bit of shooting from a mid-range Big to sub in for him, whichever is needed. But regardless we do become more of a halfcourt team.

Good? Bad? Well to have a complete game Wall will have to learn to play well in the halfcourt situation, needs to improve, can't rely on always being the longest fastest most athletic guy out there because at some point he needs to develop the veteran dirty tricks . He succumbed to pressure and scheme in the playoffs somewhat when teams who play good transition D took away easy buckets and his confidence dipped.

Still I like John with swagger, he plays better than when he's battling doubts. The shot falls, he attacks better, passes better, doesn't force it. And team speed has been our advantage, seemed like more possessions per game often meant we won this past year. Because we turned stops into uptempo attacks, and whether or not we scored on those runs we forced the opponents to tire and scramble trying to keep up. Halfcourt set plays are not where we excel most. There are many others who play that game better.

So. It should be interesting. I want to see how JOhn develops and can play aggressive without deferring to Pierce. Fortunately there is a model, inasmuch as Rondo and Pierce developed good synergy, and I always figured John to have a chance to be much like Rondo, if a little quicker, a little more athletic, maybe a better shot eventually, if not quite as tough and competitive and devious.

So my enthusiasm is tempered until I see how the chemistry shakes out.


Sorry to be a party poopers likes ze Jennifers.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRNzZATXA8[/youtube]

[gambitx777]

So we have
Wall/Miller/???
Beal/Rice/Webster
Porter/Pierce/???
NENE/Blair/???
Gortat/Hump/Gooden

that means right now we have 12 players on the team, If we bring back Temple, Harrington and Keep our offer out to Kevin. That's the team.... kevin's offer should be pulled. Temple should not be on this team, we need another capable point guard (Jordan Crawford). Birch should make this team.
I would like to see Birch and Jordan Crawford on the team, and one of Temple and Harrington.

[My Main Man]

Wolves fan here. Just read about the Blair signing so I came here to see a current depth chart. Your team is looking really good for this season. With the Wolves never making the playoffs ever again probably, I have resigned myself to picking some other teams that I can root for come playoff time and I think the Bullets are slowly becoming that team for me. They were my underdog faves this year, but I didn't really think they stood much of a chance. With your current lineup in the East, this team could theoretically challenge just about anyone. Excited for you all.

[J-Ves]

By mid-season I think the starters will be:
Wall
Beal
Otto
Nene
Gortat

Still real solid defensively with two centers defending the middle while Otto and Wall use their length to bother shooters. Offensively the loss of Ariza and lack of 3pt shooting at PF will present problems. Until the Wizards get/use a stretch 4 the Wall/Beal to Gortat PnR will be neutered somewhat because of the lack of spacing. Hopefully Otto can hit the corner three at a high rate and the Wizards find a way to use his strong mid-range game to their advantage. I'm also hoping for a jump in efficiency from Beal.

I think they will use a 10-man rotation when fully healthy with Pierce being the first player off the bench, playing most of his minutes at SF with some at PF. Webster and Miller will get the backup guard minutes, while Hump and Blair get the backup PF and C minutes.

Temple, Rice, Gooden and whoever else(Birch?) is on the roster are the deep bench and won't get regular minutes while everyone is healthy.

[Aussie22]

So we have
Wall/Miller/???
Beal/Rice/Webster
Porter/Pierce/???
NENE/Blair/???
Gortat/Hump/Gooden

that means right now we have 12 players on the team, If we bring back Temple, Harrington and Keep our offer out to Kevin. That's the team.... kevin's offer should be pulled. Temple should not be on this team, we need another capable point guard (Jordan Crawford). Birch should make this team.
I would like to see Birch and Jordan Crawford on the team, and one of Temple and Harrington.

Don't see Crawford ever returning to the Wiz, wouldn't settle for a reserve role with limited minutes.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[closg00]

With the Blair & Hump signings and QO out-there for Kevin. Do you think the FO is expecting Nene to be DNP when he returns from Brazil?

[Dat2U]

Again, my concern is hearing more complaints about Wall's stunted halfcourt game, and Witt relying more on Pierce for cheap wins than featuring our youth and giving them more opportunities to struggle but improve. We have back-up for Nene's inevitable downtime, maybe we can forestall that by adding grunt muscle and a bit of shooting from a mid-range Big to sub in for him, whichever is needed. But regardless we do become more of a halfcourt team.

Good? Bad? Well to have a complete game Wall will have to learn to play well in the halfcourt situation, needs to improve, can't rely on always being the longest fastest most athletic guy out there because at some point he needs to develop the veteran dirty tricks . He succumbed to pressure and scheme in the playoffs somewhat when teams who play good transition D took away easy buckets and his confidence dipped.

Still I like John with swagger, he plays better than when he's battling doubts. The shot falls, he attacks better, passes better, doesn't force it. And team speed has been our advantage, seemed like more possessions per game often meant we won this past year. Because we turned stops into uptempo attacks, and whether or not we scored on those runs we forced the opponents to tire and scramble trying to keep up. Halfcourt set plays are not where we excel most. There are many others who play that game better.

So. It should be interesting. I want to see how JOhn develops and can play aggressive without deferring to Pierce. Fortunately there is a model, inasmuch as Rondo and Pierce developed good synergy, and I always figured John to have a chance to be much like Rondo, if a little quicker, a little more athletic, maybe a better shot eventually, if not quite as tough and competitive and devious.

So my enthusiasm is tempered until I see how the chemistry shales out. Sorry to be likes ze Jennifers.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRNzZATXA8[/youtube]

I agree, were not going to see the best of this team until they actually play to Wall’s strengths and improve the spacing offensively. That means a lot of Porter/Rice at SF & Pierce getting some decent run at the 4.

[long suffrin' boulez fan]

Again, my concern is hearing more complaints about Wall's stunted halfcourt game, and Witt relying more on Pierce for cheap wins than featuring our youth and giving them more opportunities to struggle but improve. We have back-up for Nene's inevitable downtime, maybe we can forestall that by adding grunt muscle and a bit of shooting from a mid-range Big to sub in for him, whichever is needed. But regardless we do become more of a halfcourt team.

Good? Bad? Well to have a complete game Wall will have to learn to play well in the halfcourt situation, needs to improve, can't rely on always being the longest fastest most athletic guy out there because at some point he needs to develop the veteran dirty tricks . He succumbed to pressure and scheme in the playoffs somewhat when teams who play good transition D took away easy buckets and his confidence dipped.

Still I like John with swagger, he plays better than when he's battling doubts. The shot falls, he attacks better, passes better, doesn't force it. And team speed has been our advantage, seemed like more possessions per game often meant we won this past year. Because we turned stops into uptempo attacks, and whether or not we scored on those runs we forced the opponents to tire and scramble trying to keep up. Halfcourt set plays are not where we excel most. There are many others who play that game better.

So. It should be interesting. I want to see how JOhn develops and can play aggressive without deferring to Pierce. Fortunately there is a model, inasmuch as Rondo and Pierce developed good synergy, and I always figured John to have a chance to be much like Rondo, if a little quicker, a little more athletic, maybe a better shot eventually, if not quite as tough and competitive and devious.

So my enthusiasm is tempered until I see how the chemistry shales out. Sorry to be likes ze Jennifers.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnRNzZATXA8[/youtube]

I agree, were not going to see the best of this team until they actually play to Wall’s strengths and improve the spacing offensively. That means a lot of Porter/Rice at SF & Pierce getting some decent run at the 4.

I'd love to see a lot of that... don't think, however, that it is really in Randy's repertoire

[fishercob]

The Wiz have 96 minutes at the 4 and 5.

Gortat is going to get 32ish.

That leaves 64 minutes for Nene, Hump, Blair and Gooden.

When all hands are on deck -- understanding there will be night-to-night fluctuations -- I think that means:

Nene (25)
Blair (12)
Hump (20)
Gooden (7).


If Gortat gets hurt, then I think Seraphin (if he's still on the roster) starts to dress. Blair's minutes up to 20-25. Pierce also can obviously play some 4 if needed.

Bottom line is that I love our depth of front.

At the point, we're obviously fine as long as John and Dre are healthy. If someone gets hurt, we'll need another guy.

On the wings, we have 96 minutes for Beal, Pierce, Porter and Rice. If our Summer League stars are ready for prime time, the Wiz will be sitting pretty. If not, it will be dicey until Webster comes back fully healthy -- particularly if Beal or Pierce miss time.

[dckingsfan]

The rotation looks great if one of Porter or Rice emerges as a legit full time starting player who plays above-average defense every night (or if Webster recovers strongly from back surgery. But if that doesn't happen, the team looks a bit weak at SF, particularly defensively. Hopefully, they can more or less maintain last season's level of play thanks to their significantly improved bench. Gotta hope the wheels don't come off of Miller though. And Beal needs to stay healthy while Webster is out.

I think you hit the nail on the head (at least for us to improve from last year).

1) Health - Wall, Beal, Webster, Pierce & Nene have all been injury prone at different parts of their careers. We need to have them relatively (not all out at once) during the season to improve on the 44 wins of last year. And we don't need a freak injury tossed in.

2) Young guys have to step-up. Porter and Rice need to build off of SL and show that they can compete in the L. It is important for two reasons for this season - namely to reduce the minutes that Beal and Pierce play. Keeping Beal under 35 (arbitrary) and Pierce under 30 (again arbitrary) may mean no season ending injury.

3) Somehow we are going to need to figure out how to pickup the defensive slack with Ariza gone. If 2 happens, then Pierce and Beal will be fresher (always helpful on the defensive end). And that also applies to the minutes that Gortat is on the bench, we need our FC folks to step-up and defend.

4) And then lastly, we are only going to go as far as Wall/Beal improve. If they stay the same, it will be really hard for the team to make a jump.

[dobrojim]

Not sure why Gooden is so far down on many folks' depth chart. He almost
maybe even does qualify as a stretch 4 as he does have range. Hump also
but maybe slightly less so. (all this w/o looking at any actual data).

I really like the way Gooden played for us last year stepping in with the
season 2/3rds over and contributing right away. He might do that much
better after training camp and full involvement with the team.

we'll improve some by having an actual bench of competent players
and maybe some more by the continuing maturation of Wall/Beal.
Hopefully OP/PP won't be awful in contrast to TA.

[doclinkin]

[...I...] put together this one for why I think Néne should move to a 6th man role. It would really balance out the rotation and could work with viable options on board now.

http://wizofawes.com/2014/07/18/should- ... sixth-man/

Excerpt:

Do the Washington Wizards really want to put our five best offensive players in the starting lineup (sorry Glen Rice Jr, I can’t put you up there yet!). Assuming a starting lineup of John Wall, Bradley Beal, Paul Pierce, and Marcin Gortat at their respective positions, you already have four players in the lineup who need their touches. Paul Pierce replaces Trevor Ariza, who was more of an off the ball starter for the Wizards and Brad Beal should have the ball run through him more as he becomes increasingly adept to creating his own offense.

I like your point that perhaps the team is not best served by having a starter who is sure to be out of the line up at some point in the season and will cause chemistry issues while starters learn to adjust to playing with his back up. Plausible reasonable argument.

As for the above. Personally I'm of the opinion that Paul Pierce is the player who meshes least well with the starters. He is a shot creator who works best with the ball in a slower half-court set, where Wall's skill set works best when he has greyhounds to run with him. Nene plays into the uptempo pace by being the last defensive stopper we have, well leastways against P&R Bigs. John can't run rampant if we are taking the ball out of bounds every time after a made basket. Hump, DJ, Gooden, Stretch Pierce, none of these guys will force misses at quite the same rate, and they'll put more pressure (and fouls) on Gortat to make up the difference on covering penetration. Nene is nimble and a wide load, he's tough to drive around and traps well while making interior passes tricky trying to hit the roll man. Nobody else is going to do that.

In addition, if we have a winning future, it is based around the chemistry of our 3 top 3 picks. Now is the time to start seeing how that works. Wall, Beal, and Otto, playing at their optimal level (the Georgetown/Summer League version of Otto, if he can translate) would seem to be an ideal fit with each other. Otto's unselfish all court game, his passing, midrange, hints of long range, interior craftiness, his length, youth, end to end speed, willingness to run, ability to finish in the open court -- even his lack of ego and ability to blend and be forgotten by the defense, would seem to sinter well with Wall's uptempo attack distorting defenses and Beal's range and similar high-IQ game at the 2 guard. Beal and Otto are prototypical players at their respective positions, each does exactly everything you traditionally expect from a SG and SF respectively.

I want to see that squad develop together. But they are young and do need the leadership on the floor of a guy like Nene to keep the spacing underneath for John to attack with Nene's midrange ability; they need the P&R option he provides for both Beal and Wall, and his range also allows the slighter slimmer Otto to get free underneath so he does need to bang with the beasts in order to get points in the paint when he has a length (if not size) mismatch down low (and Nene's ability to box out 2 players at once allows Otto's sneaky rebounding to also have an effect).

A second unit with Miller and Pierce creating shots and taking people down low, while Hump or Gooden stretches the range a little and DJBlair beats the back-ups bloody, seems to me a good change of pace. Yes they will slow the game down, but they will control the ball and efficiently score and give the starters a breather. And a guy like Glen Rice doesn't need to work hard to figure out where he fits since he'll be playing next to Professor Miller, who will find him when he's right.

Me I'm going with:
Wall
Beal
Otto
-- all playing the motion attack game, youth coming up together
backed up by Rice coming in for either of Beal or Otto.

Starting:
Nene
--on limited minutes, backed up by Gooden, Humphries
Gortat
-- backed up by DJ Blair, Humphries

But playing a solid dose of the 2nd unit of
Professor
Rice
Truth
Gooden/Hump
DJBlair

All together. When Nene is inevitably injured, I suspect Humphries will tend to soak up those minutes. Though I like the new longer ranged Gooden's synergy with the 2nd unit better.

[doclinkin]

Another issue with Nene in the 2nd unit is how often he comes up with 'injuries' when asked to play Center. If you stick him in the line up with shorter players he will be asked to bang with the bigger guy more often than he thinks he ought to...

[jivelikenice]

Another issue with Nene in the 2nd unit is how often he comes up with 'injuries' when asked to play Center. If you stick him in the line up with shorter players he will be asked to bang with the bigger guy more often than he thinks he ought to...

I've gone back and forth on Otto vs Pierce starting. I think to start the season at least I'd give Pierce the nod. He fits in least well based on last year's offense, but this offense has to evolve to be able to work with a shot creator with John. Plus I think there's a lot that John and Brad especially can learn by sharing the floor with Pierce. I think Otto will get his 20-25 minutes a night regardless and can probably push for the starting gig as injuries occur and the season develops.

Regarding Néne, him playing against Centers on the 2nd unit is a good point but maybe mitigated by Humohries or Blair's presence?

[stevemcqueen1]

Nene is going to start. Kris Humphries and DeJuan Blair are 20 MPG players at most, and they're not pushing Nene to the bench. Their minute totals aren't based on a projection either, that's what they've been playing. They'll back up Nene and Gortat, and Gooden will compete with Blair for minutes as the back up C. He'll probably end up getting his minutes in the rotation when Nene misses games. When Nene plays, he'll probably play 26-28 MPG. Gortat will probably play 32 MPG, but we'll have the luxury of keeping that number around 30 MPG if we want. Seraphin won't play unless more than one guy gets hurt.

Pierce will play 26-28 MPG most likely. Otto and GRJr are mysteries. They'll be competing with each other and Webster for the leftover minutes that Pierce and Beal don't play. Beal probably plays 35 MPG. Webster will come back slowly and probably sit the bench unless Otto/GRJr fall flat. Otherwise, it'll take an injury to one of the four guys in front of him right now to play. Temple will not play either, unless there are injuries in front of him.

Wall is going to play 35 MPG at least and Miller will get all of the leftover PG minutes.

[nuposse04]

Bored so I thought I'd try my hand at dividing up the minutes and the reasons why.

Wall(32)/Miller(14)
Beal(33)/GR JR (13)
Pierce(16)/Porter(25)/Webster (7)
Hump(23)/Blair(15)/pierce (6)/Nene(4)
Gortat(30)/Nene(18)

I want to keep Wall and Beal as low as possible,mostly due to concerns of them breaking down. Generally I want to see the 2nd unit be of Miler, GR JR, Porter, Blair and Nene. I think Blair and Nene compliment each other well tbh.Nene does have range on mid J, and Blair's effectiveness on put backs would be optimized off misses. I also think Blair moves well without the ball so Nene could feed him on some cuts in the post. Also Miller and Nene should make things WAY easier on Porter and GR JR. They move generally well.

My only concern with the 2nd unit is defense. Miller isn't horrible but he's not going to shut anyone down. GR JR and Porter have the tools to be very good but we gotta see it first. Blair is actually a worse defender then Booker so he needs to be paired up with a competent and above average defender in Nene IMO.

I would ask Hump to work on his 3 pt shot this season as well. He shot I wanna say either 46-48% from 16ft-3pt line this past season. That is pretty impressive, he's a good option and spacer from there as it is, but if we can open up even more space for Wall/Gortat to run the pick n' Roll then we should. Both Gortat and hump will clean the glass, Hump is actually a better defender then Booker and probably can do all the little things we need em to. If we run the offense through Gortat, we saw what dividends it pays. He was 17-12 post all star break per 36 on high efficiency. We don't need him to play 36 mins a game necessarily (nor do I want him to) but if we can get quality minutes by using him as the primary post option, we ought to optimize our investment in em.

Last season post all star break Pierce also played damn well, if I recall correctly that is also when Deron Williams was actually worth a damn. Consider we have Wall who IMO is better, and probably will be better this season, we should be able to use Pierce well offensively, he'll probably be Webster-esque defensively.

I guess the only issue I can see with how I divided up minutes is players getting in rhythm :/

[Ruzious]

As far as I know, Doron Lamb and Seth Curry haven't signed with anyone. Either would be a nice addition for the final spot on the Wiz roster - especially since I'm not comfortable assuming Webster and/or Rice and/or Temple will prove solid as the backup 2.