Bradley Beal

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I felt all along that putting him in the starting lineup was a bad idea. He is only 19 and i think it makes sense for him to play off the bench until he shows that he is comfortable in the NBA.

Naming Beal starter was similar to Flip Saunders naming John Wall team captain his first game all over again, IMO.

Jordan Crawford is 23 years old, in his third year, and one option would have been to start him at SG. Another would have been to reward Martell Webster for playing great in preseason with the starting SG spot. Webster is a veteran who has a lot of size at SG. That wouldn't happen because of the draft position of Beal, but on merit Webster is better right now. Also, I think Cartier Martin shoots it much better than Beal right now. He would be a more effective SG overall IMO than Beal.

The best thing about not starting Beal from day one would have been it put less pressure on him. I think Beal would have proven himself worthy of starting by playing well off the bench. As things look right now, Beal is better coming off the bench. He just needs steady minutes to grow as a player and to help the Wizards as a sub IMO.

[nate33]

I don't know about that CCJ. Remember, Beal had a rock solid preseason and was arguably playing better than Crawford anyhow. Webster hadn't played a minute of SG in the preseason so he really wasn't an option.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

nate, I agree Beal was solid and he DID outplay Crawford IMO. Still, he's 19 and if I were a coach I would have started Crawford just to let Beal fight for minutes and demonstrably beat Crawford out.

(If I were a GM the first thing I would have done after drafting Beal was trade Crawford. The guy Beal should have been behind to start the season would have been someone like Lou Williams FWIW.)

Starting Beal and having him struggle was the wrong call. Not starting him he would have only gone up from there.

[nate33]

nate, I agree Beal was solid and he DID outplay Crawford IMO. Still, he's 19 and if I were a coach I would have started Crawford just to let Beal fight for minutes and demonstrably beat Crawford out.

(If I were a GM the first thing I would have done after drafting Beal was trade Crawford. The guy Wall should have been behind to start the season would have been someone like Lou Williams FWIW.)

Starting Beal and having him struggle was the wrong call. Not starting him he would have only gone up from there.

I think you are unfairly criticizing Wittman with 20/20 hindsight. Wittman claims to run a meritocracy. How could he not start Beal after Beal outplayed all the other SG candidates in preseason? If Beal didn't start, everyone on the board would have complained just as much.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Fair enough, nate, but Beal as a rookie needed to be handled differently IMO. History says he was going to struggle in the regular season. Even Kobe came off the bench when he was 19.

Also, as the only rookie on the team I think meritocracy should not have applied. Sounds unfair but a great leader treats people differently. As a rule there should be a meritocracy, but the coach has discretion as far as I am concerned.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/WAS/2013.html

nate, why is Beal second in minutes played? He has played 357 minutes (as of 11/29) to Webster's 257 minutes.

[Halcyon]

I don't think Beal starting initially was an issue. He did play ok in the preseason, and Crawford + Webster are not long term solutions for the Wiz, most likely. They put faith into Beal being ready out of the gate, and unfortunately they've been wrong so far. After a dozen+ games, I think it's time to scale it back a bit and adjust to the reality of the situation, which is that there are players better than Beal at his position on this team. And I think that's OK, not the end of the world. I think the most important thing for success is being able to adapt along the way, so I don't blame the coaches for not being able to correctly start the "right" player, because it wasn't that obvious that we had ANY starting caliber SG on the roster at the beginning of the year. Now if they keep putting Beal in there at starter, setting him up to keep failing, then I'll have an issue.

[nate33]

Fair enough, nate, but Beal as a rookie needed to be handled differently IMO. History says he was going to struggle in the regular season. Even Kobe came off the bench when he was 19.

Also, as the only rookie on the team I think meritocracy should not have applied. Sounds unfair but a great leader treats people differently. As a rule there should be a meritocracy, but the coach has discretion as far as I am concerned.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/WAS/2013.html

nate, why is Beal second in minutes played? He has played 357 minutes (as of 11/29) to Webster's 257 minutes.

I said earlier that I don't think Beal should be starting anymore. My point is that I think it's unfair to criticize Wittman for starting him on opening day. And once Wittman started him, I think it was prudent to give Beal a little time to figure things out, and also to confirm that his lackluster play wasn't merely a cold shooting streak. It's not a good idea to yank a young starter just 3 or 4 games into the season. It can wreck his confidence. You can make a case that Wittman should have pulled him from the lineup after 8, 9 or 10 games, but now we're just splitting hairs. The point is, Wittman has given Beal a fair shot, it's now time for a different option. Overall, I don't think Wittman has made a poor decision on this front.

I agree with you about Webster. Clearly, he deserves more minutes and Wittman has taken too long to realize it.

[fishercob]

I am porting this over from the "predict Beal's stats" thread. The quoted posts from nate and me are from the end of June:

I think he'll only play about 22 minutes a game so I'm not expecting too much. He's just a 19-year-old rookie.

I think he'll be much better in his second season. Remember, Harden didn't really make an impact until his 2nd year, and didn't emerge as a borderline star until his 3rd. And Harden had 2 years of college.

Yes. Everyone, please keep your rookie expectations for BB3 (?) under control.

Just for a little, non-scientific comparison, here's a look at Kobe, Harden, Paul George, Monta Ellis, Joe Johnson, Eric Gordon as rookies. Kobe was 18, everyone else was 20.

It's going to take some time.

WIth all the irrational Beal hate being spewed, keep in mind two things:

(1) His struggles were foreseeable. Not just by his early season struggles at FLorida (btw, how short of a memory do people have -- this kid stunk the early part of last season and then became The Man on a very good college team), but when looking at historical comps for rookie teeanged guards. That subset of players just doesn't come in and dominate. There's an adjustment period.

(2) Particularly given #1, Ernie and the Wizards have done a terrible job of putting Beal in a position to succeed. They're playing him way too many minutes. When he's on the floor, he's being asked to do way too much -- there are 10 year veteran deferring to Beal and looking to him to create offense. Is he missing open looks? Absolutely, but his his head is likely a mess given his undefined role, the fact that he has too much on his shoulders, etc. The point is not to make an excuse for Beal. The point is that Ernie sucks.

There are litlerally dozens of moves the Wizards could have made this summer apart from going "all-in" on the OkaRiza deal that would have made Beal's transition easier. Everything from making a similar deal for a vet SG like Ben Gordon to signing the likes of OJ Mayo, to bringing in more offensively skilled front court players like Scola or RYan Anderson or Brand who could have taken some scoring burden off our teenager.

Long term, I'm not worried. I think Beal is mentally tough enough to get through this. Short term, it's frustrating for all involved and yet ANOTHER example of the putrid idiocy of Ernie Grunfeld. Suck it, Rico!

Beal's struggles were predictable, and I do not see them as indicative of the fact that he's any sort of bust.

[truwizfan4evr]

Should the wizards send Bradley Beal to the D-league just like the thunders doing for Lamb?

[Illuminaire]

No. The Thunder are doing that for Lamb because they already have two starting caliber SGs, they are already contenders, and Lamb's development is less important than competing for a championship. Lamb will not get much opportunity to play on the real squad, so they're letting him get reps in the D-league for a while.

Beal is in a completely different situation. For one, we're not contending, so we can afford to invest in his development even if it means a few less wins in the near term. Second, there is no one noticeably better on the roster than him anyways, so what's the point in not giving him minutes?

[Knighthonor]

Should the wizards send Bradley Beal to the D-league just like the thunders doing for Lamb?

that would be a good idea. Or if possible, send him temporarily to a team that know how to develop. Wizards cant seem to do that. And it bites them in the butt every time.

[tontoz]

[I think you are unfairly criticizing Wittman with 20/20 hindsight. Wittman claims to run a meritocracy.

And that has proven to be false. Witness all the games that Ariza and Vesely started.

[tontoz]

From before the first game..

If it was my call i would have Beal coming off the bench to start the season. He is only 19 and it is a loooong season. I see no need to rush him.

If he plays well off the bench then fine go ahead and move him into the starting spot. If he struggles i think it will have less effect on him and the team if he is coming off the bench.

I know Crawford is a mindless chucker but if you start Beal from day 1 and he struggles it will be an awkward situation.

The current situation was easily predictable.

[Nivek]

As fish and nate have pointed out, players like Beal tend to struggle when they first enter the league. Then they typically get better. In some cases, a lot better.

Beal is the least of the Wizards problems. I have little doubt that he's going to be a perennial All-Star once they trade him to OKC or the Spurs.

What's wrong with the Wizards is management. Everything else -- poor player selection, craptacular medical team, nonsensical evaluations and reasoning, substandard coaching, nonexistent player development -- is the result of management decisions made by Leonsis and Grunfeld.

[Knighthonor]

nonexistent player development .

But how you develop players in a way that other teams are doing?

like what is the wizard's development doing so different?

[Nivek]

nonexistent player development .

But how you develop players in a way that other teams are doing?

like what is the wizard's development doing so different?

As I've posted in other threads, I think the issue is actually less with what the Wizards do to develop players and has much more to do with player selection. Player development is far more about the work that the individual player does independently than it is about what the team can do. A coach can show a player how to do things, but the players still has to do it. The only way to develop a skill is practice -- constant repetition with focus on doing it properly each time.

Players that improve -- that add news skills -- rarely are doing it with a coach holding their hand every step of the way. Great ones often go off and work on something truly on their own during an offseason. Others might work with a coach periodically, but the skill itself is built by endless repetition on his own in the gym.

The Wizards have made a fetish of picking guys who MIGHT be good IF they add some skill or set of skills. But, they don't seem to have invested much effort in picking guys who are willing to do the kind of work necessary to add that skill.

[payitforward]

As fish and nate have pointed out, players like Beal tend to struggle when they first enter the league. Then they typically get better. In some cases, a lot better.

Beal is the least of the Wizards problems. I have little doubt that he's going to be a perennial All-Star once they trade him to OKC or the Spurs.

What's wrong with the Wizards is management. Everything else -- poor player selection, craptacular medical team, nonsensical evaluations and reasoning, substandard coaching, nonexistent player development -- is the result of management decisions made by Leonsis and Grunfeld.

+1

[Knighthonor]

nonexistent player development .

But how you develop players in a way that other teams are doing?

like what is the wizard's development doing so different?

As I've posted in other threads, I think the issue is actually less with what the Wizards do to develop players and has much more to do with player selection. Player development is far more about the work that the individual player does independently than it is about what the team can do. A coach can show a player how to do things, but the players still has to do it. The only way to develop a skill is practice -- constant repetition with focus on doing it properly each time.

Players that improve -- that add news skills -- rarely are doing it with a coach holding their hand every step of the way. Great ones often go off and work on something truly on their own during an offseason. Others might work with a coach periodically, but the skill itself is built by endless repetition on his own in the gym.

The Wizards have made a fetish of picking guys who MIGHT be good IF they add some skill or set of skills. But, they don't seem to have invested much effort in picking guys who are willing to do the kind of work necessary to add that skill.

but it cant just be some accident for the wizards to continue to draft players like that, can it?

[Nivek]

Knight -- We're going in circles now. It's not an accident. See my previous post.

[WizarDynasty]

It's the organizations job to ensure Beal becomes a elite ball handler so we can trade for high draft picks if we can't resign him. Plain and simple.
Same with Vesely.

NOt having a system in place to ensure that player are tranforming into experts, only drops the value of Wizard assets. You improve an player's value with the hope of selling it for more than you paid. the problem with the wizards organization is that they have unqualified "upgraders" that oversee that our unfinished draft products transforms into a finished marketable product in a quick turn around time. We drafted the world class sports cars with missing pieces but don't have a clue how install the missing pieces for the project sports cars to compete and win. We expect for the projects to figure it out on their own what pieces they are missing. if the project sports cars could do that on their own, they would have done so already and been drafted in a higher slot.
YOu should have never bidded on an unfinished work if didnt have the tools to finish it and get a higher resale value.
Valuable lesson for leonsis. Don't expect projects to figure out what their weaknesses are on their own if they have a great work ethic because they would have already fixed the problem on their own. Don't bring a generalist to fix a specialized problem on a project sports car. A family doctor isn't going to know how to perform heart surgery.
We have project sports cars with specialized problems and our projects aren't qualified to diagnose and fix their own problems.
The problem with Grunfeldian culture is that it believes that a hardworker should be also be an expert at diagnosing what his basketball weaknesses are and also knowing the expert solution on how to fix. Hardwork does not fix a specialized problem. Players are not trained to figure out what they are doing wrong. Players are not trained to figure out if they have improper handspeed while dribbling the ball. they are trained mainly to follow instructions.
Wizard culture has to factor these inherent limitation into the new leonsis culture so that the turn around time is quicker. Wizards front office should be highly trained at the areas that projects lack wisdom. Wizard front office should be the equivalent of heart surgeon ---where as a player only can describe a sympton of his chest hurting. Front office should figuratively be able to open the chess and fix the value in the heart. Then the patient or player gets up from the table and is able to function better after the surgery not knowing at all what the heart surgeon did to his heart except he is now healthy versus being sick.