2013-2014 Wizard's lineup

[hands11]

If were starting anyone but Nene & Okafor up front then it's because of injuries. To start anyone else makes little sense considering the lack of quality options.

Webster is a lock IMO to start at the 3. You don't give him full MLE money to be a backup 2 and plus the synergy b/w Martell, Brad & John is already there.

Temple is the default backup 2 for now... until Rice is ready to take on the role if at all.

Porter is the 3rd string SF... I assume until he shows enough so that were able to trade Ariza without missing a beat.

Biggest question is who's going to be the 3rd & 4th bigs in the rotation? I see five guys fighting for two rotation spots. Problem is, outside of Booker, none of the five is really worthy of consideration. That's what's scary. If Okafor or Nene are down for any amount of time, out of the 5 backups, 4 of them are among the worst front court players in the entire league and the 5th is incredibly injury prone.

Sounds like my line ups and rotations would work then. Keep Nene and Okafor fresh splitting time and it gives both room to operate in the post. And it allows Randy to spread the floor with Al and Trevor A at PF. If they need size, they can put Nene there. Plus Kevin or Ves are putting in a lot of work this summer. Need to evaluate their progress this camp and see if they can earn some burn.

I think there is a good chance Al has a Webster type experience here. Coming off injury. Healthy as he has in several years. Not wearing a brace. Lost 30 lbs. Motivated on a one year deal. Hungry for some wins after an off year last year. Re-united with Nene.

Nice to finally have more vets then available starting slots. That's with me considering Wall a vet and yes, Beal already feels like a vet. How cool it is to have a 20 year old vet.

Wall, Beal, Webster, Trevor A, Al, Nene and Okafor. That's 7 vets and only 5 starting slots. And 8 when you consider Mayor as a lock to back up PG.

Nice progress to think we have 8 legit players who you know what you are going to get. They know they belong. They know their roles. They understand the NBA game. Pretty cool.

[nate33]

I think the Wizards would be better off in most situations using Ariza as a stretch four instead of Harrington. Ariza's a better player overall, a better 3pt shooter, and would likely do just as well on the boards as Harrington.

That's where I'm at too. In general, if we are playing against a non-low post threat PF like Ibaka, or a stretch four like Ilyasova, then we should play Ariza at PF. If we're playing a low post brute like Boozer or Griffin, then we'll need Booker or Seraphin at PF to play post defense.

I don't see a regular role for Harrington unless somebody gets hurt. Maybe he steals whatever minutes are leftover at PF after Nene and Ariza have had their fill. I guess in games when Okafor isn't a good matchup so Nene plays exclusively C, there will be some extra PF minutes to dole out.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

Harrington averaged 23 and 28 minutes with the Nuggets. He's averaged 29 for his career. Last season, he only played about 11 minutes with the rebuilding Magic, and Harrington was mostly injured.

Veteran players will always get the benefit of a doubt with this coaching staff. I suspect Harrington will play pretty huge minutes, at least as much as he did with Denver.

If Harrington for whatever reasons doesn't play much I expect him to go the way of Stephen Jackson on the Spurs. However, I don't see that happening. The guys who aren't going to play are Singleton, Vesely, and probably Booker. Seraphin almost has to play a C, but I suspect Harrington will play some C on this team.

[hands11]

Harrington averaged 23 and 28 minutes with the Nuggets. He's averaged 29 for his career. Last season, he only played about 11 minutes with the rebuilding Magic, and Harrington was mostly injured.

Veteran players will always get the benefit of a doubt with this coaching staff. I suspect Harrington will play pretty huge minutes, at least as much as he did with Denver.

If Harrington for whatever reasons doesn't play much I expect him to go the way of Stephen Jackson on the Spurs. However, I don't see that happening. The guys who aren't going to play are Singleton, Vesely, and probably Booker. Seraphin almost has to play a C, but I suspect Harrington will play some C on this team.

I see Kevin and Ves getting minutes boiling down to two things.

If Kevin wants to play, he has to be a reliable rebounder and move toward the basket more on offense and defense. More energy. Most power.

If Ves wants to play, he has to be able to shoot from somewhere. He needs to start acting like an NBA basketball player that was draft #6.

Both have more upside, but with Booker, you know he will rebound. They also know he will put a body on someone. And flush it down. Coaches like knowing what they will get game to game. Only thing I think that would keep Randy from turning to him would be injury or if they need more length, girth. Unless of course one of those two really steps it up. They better be hungry. No free bee minutes on this team anymore. To many vets on this team.

[Nivek]

Harrington's 3pt shooting may be useful in situations, but he'll have to be able to do enough of the usual PF chores to avoid giving back whatever the Wizards might gain on offense.

I'd happily make a gentleman's bet that Harrington plays more minutes for the Wiz than Booker.

Terms: I dunno. Say-- you write something I want you to -vs- the opposite for me.

I'm not taking that bet because I think you're right -- I expect they will play Harrington more minutes than Booker. Whether that's a good decision or not is a different matter.

[LyricalRico]

Veteran players will always get the benefit of a doubt with this coaching staff. I suspect Harrington will play pretty huge minutes, at least as much as he did with Denver.

Exactly. I also would assume he has the same expectation, which is why he signed here instead of elsewhere.

[doclinkin]

Harrington's 3pt shooting may be useful in situations, but he'll have to be able to do enough of the usual PF chores to avoid giving back whatever the Wizards might gain on offense.

I'd happily make a gentleman's bet that Harrington plays more minutes for the Wiz than Booker.

Terms: I dunno. Say-- you write something I want you to -vs- the opposite for me.

I'm not taking that bet because I think you're right -- I expect they will play Harrington more minutes than Booker. Whether that's a good decision or not is a different matter.

Also:

Booker's style vs size seems to leave him injury prone, plus he's a more likely throw-in on a trade than Stretch AL. My bets were thoroughly hedged on that one.

[Dat2U]

Sounds like my line ups and rotations would work then. Keep Nene and Okafor fresh splitting time and it gives both room to operate in the post. And it allows Randy to spread the floor with Al and Trevor A at PF. If they need size, they can put Nene there. Plus Kevin or Ves are putting in a lot of work this summer. Need to evaluate their progress this camp and see if they can earn some burn.

I think there is a good chance Al has a Webster type experience here. Coming off injury. Healthy as he has in several years. Not wearing a brace. Lost 30 lbs. Motivated on a one year deal. Hungry for some wins after an off year last year. Re-united with Nene.

Nice to finally have more vets then available starting slots. That's with me considering Wall a vet and yes, Beal already feels like a vet. How cool it is to have a 20 year old vet.

Wall, Beal, Webster, Trevor A, Al, Nene and Okafor. That's 7 vets and only 5 starting slots. And 8 when you consider Mayor as a lock to back up PG.

Nice progress to think we have 8 legit players who you know what you are going to get. They know they belong. They know their roles. They understand the NBA game. Pretty cool.

8 legit players? Where? It certainly isn't Harrington & Maynor. While you can define them as veterans. But they can also be defined as terrible by analyzing their play the last few years. I think your thinking is somewhere close to the Wizards front office. Your making assumptions based on the fact guys are "veterans" with "experience". Neither of those means anything if the quality of the player is below or at replacement level.

IMO we've got 6 legit NBA players in Wall, Beal, Webster, Ariza, Nene & Okafor. Hopefully Porter joins that list at some point. Booker is probably the best player out of anyone else on the roster but injuries & inconsistency have been a hallmark of his career. No one else is really even close or passable.

As far as Al Harrington having a renaissance. He's had exactly two good seasons his entire NBA career. The last one coming in '07-'08, almost 6 years ago. So yeah, that might be wishing upon a star in hopes that fantasies can come true.

[Nivek]

Hmm, 8 legit players?

I'd say 6 --

1. Wall
2. Nene
3. Okafor
4. Ariza
5. Webster
6. Beal

Porter is a maybe. Booker too, if he can ever stay healthy. I'll put Rice as a "maybe" as well.

Harrington might make for a decent rotation guy if he gets healthy and returns to the below average form he displayed a couple years ago.

Definite "not legitimate NBA players" barring MAJOR improvement -- Maynor, Temple, Seraphin, Singleton, Vesely

[nate33]

Hmm, 8 legit players?

I'd say 6 --

1. Wall
2. Nene
3. Okafor
4. Ariza
5. Webster
6. Beal

Porter is a maybe. Booker too, if he can ever stay healthy. I'll put Rice as a "maybe" as well.

Harrington might make for a decent rotation guy if he gets healthy and returns to the below average form he displayed a couple years ago.

Definite "not legitimate NBA players" barring MAJOR improvement -- Maynor, Temple, Seraphin, Singleton, Vesely

Some of this depends on what you consider to be "legit". I'd say our top 6 guys are legit starting-caliber players. They're all guys who could earn 25+ minutes a game on a .500 team.

I think Booker and Harrington are also "legit" players in that they're good enough to earn minutes on a .500 team without a coach cringing about putting them on the floor. They're not starters to be sure, but they're not an embarrassment either. (I'm assuming Harrington reverts back to his 2011/12 form on a per minute basis, but on fewer total minutes.)

I agree that the rest of the guys - Maynor, Temple, Seraphin, Singleton and Vesely, cannot be characterized as "legit" players because no winning team would find minutes for them unless there was foul trouble or a rash of injuries. I think Seraphin and Maynor have a chance to break into the "legit" category, but they'll have to show improvement.

Porter and Rice are question marks for now.

[Nivek]

Good point nate. On a performance basis, Booker is a legit rotation player. The problem with him has been health. A healthy Harrington is below average, but still could be a rotation player for most NBA teams.

[Chocolate City Jordanaire]

I have a different point of view about roster construction. I think talent might not be as important as fit into a mutually agreed upon role between player and coaches. A guy like Temple might not be a great talent but he's a great fit. He's an excellent role player. Temple might be better on the roster than a guy like Shabazz Muhammed IMO. Muhammed was a lottery-worthy talent.

I have to see how well guys like Maynor fit with the players around them, and how the coaches utilize them before I write them off either way.

I think a guy like Nate Wolters might not be the athlete or "talent" that Glen Rice Jr.'s D-League playoffs showed him to be. However, my suspicion is that 7 days a week and twice on Sundays he would have been a better fit than Rice Jr. Having disparate mindsets might be just about as important as great talent alone. I think a plodder who managed to have a great career at S. Dakota State as a scorer/playmaker with good handles but limited athleticism, might be a better fit that a dude with an attitude while at Ga Tech, before he got kicked off the team.

I could be wrong, but I think whole person might be something worth considering more than measurable data like height, reach, vertical leap, etc. Some guys have their father's surname but not his game. Austin Rivers had no business going 10th IMO.

Talent is there with Rice Jr., and maybe he'll be a solid citizen, too. Time will tell.

Likewise, the Wizards certainly do have a collective of disparately-skilled guys, Rice included. I know they don't have a superstar (Wall's not there yet). They have very little depth up front. Their big men with the best games are over 30. They drafted poorly in 2011. Nivek sees 6 guys with surefire talent. I don't dispute him there. What I think they have has terrific balance and potentially superior role players. Webster, Ariza, Harrington, give threes and Ariza gives defense as well. Okafor is a selfless big man who only does the little things but does them very well. Booker can really be a brute and an energizer. Vesely ... is tall. He can run and dunk if nobody puts a body on him. Seraphin can score in the post very well. Beal and Wall are studs and they have role players all around them. Nene when healthy is also a stud. The team has potential.

I think they might just be a really good fit together this season. Thus, my ridiculously over-the-top prediction of 53 wins in the other thread.

One thing I do know is this lineup is deeper and more balanced offensively and defensively than any Wizards team I've seen in the past 25 years.

[payitforward]

I have a different point of view about roster construction. I think talent might not be as important as fit into a mutually agreed upon role between player and coaches....

I don't think either of those concepts is of much help. How do you judge "talent?" The only relevant criterion in my mind is productivity. That simple, and that's what wins games.

So why do you need the term "talent" -- especially given people tend to judge it based on abstractions like "ability to get his own shot" or how athletic a guy looks or how smooth. Or else on physical attributes like wingspan or standing reach. All that stuff just confuses the issue. Basically, the more productive a guy has been in the past the more productive he's likely to be in the future -- with the sole complicating factors being injury and the overall arc of first increasing and then decreasing productivity as the guy goes through his career.

So that's what makes it reasonable to predict success for Nate Wolters -- he was productive in college, and that makes it more likely he'll be productive in the league.

As to "fit", I don't think that's a real thing, I think it's just an idea. The team with the better players (players who are more productive than those on the other team) wins the game. That's true by definition, because the two teams' productivity stats 100% tell you which team won the game. No exceptions. And those stats are nothing more than adding up the stats of the individual guys who played. Full stop and nothing more.

So... better players make a better team -- simple. Rather than the complicated idea that somehow a better team makes the players better -- complicated, abstract gobbledygook.

[hands11]

Veteran players will always get the benefit of a doubt with this coaching staff. I suspect Harrington will play pretty huge minutes, at least as much as he did with Denver.

Exactly. I also would assume he has the same expectation, which is why he signed here instead of elsewhere.

Well he did kind of mention that in his interview.

[jivelikenice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mhqs1ZLbw78

Who wins between the current squad and this team?

[dckingsfan]

I have a different point of view about roster construction. I think talent might not be as important as fit into a mutually agreed upon role between player and coaches....

I don't think either of those concepts is of much help. How do you judge "talent?" The only relevant criterion in my mind is productivity. That simple, and that's what wins games.

So why do you need the term "talent" -- especially given people tend to judge it based on abstractions like "ability to get his own shot" or how athletic a guy looks or how smooth. Or else on physical attributes like wingspan or standing reach. All that stuff just confuses the issue. Basically, the more productive a guy has been in the past the more productive he's likely to be in the future -- with the sole complicating factors being injury and the overall arc of first increasing and then decreasing productivity as the guy goes through his career.

So that's what makes it reasonable to predict success for Nate Wolters -- he was productive in college, and that makes it more likely he'll be productive in the league.

As to "fit", I don't think that's a real thing, I think it's just an idea. The team with the better players (players who are more productive than those on the other team) wins the game. That's true by definition, because the two teams' productivity stats 100% tell you which team won the game. No exceptions. And those stats are nothing more than adding up the stats of the individual guys who played. Full stop and nothing more.

So... better players make a better team -- simple. Rather than the complicated idea that somehow a better team makes the players better -- complicated, abstract gobbledygook.

Intangibles vs. Tangibles - an interesting discussion that probably will never go away. I think we have all been on teams, coached teams or watched teams that couldn't work together and vastly underacheieved. So...

I think I would lean slightly toward a combination that CCJ brings up. There is definitely something to team. One of the things that Pop does on the Spurs is make sure he has players that conform to the schemes. I would argue that the whole is better than the sum of the parts.

Likewise on the Wizards - when they began working as a team on defense in changed the abstract gobbledygook that made them a decent team.

So I think that fit does matter past the first 3 or 4 players. You have to have your core and build around the core.

[Rafael122]

I liked that starting lineup last night. With Okafor and Porter out I'd go with:

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Ariza
PF - Booker
C - Nene

Bench/Backups:
PG - Maynor/Temple
SG - Rice Jr.
SF - Webster
PF - Harrington
C - Seraphin

If healthy, I think Harrington/Webster/Rice would be enough scoring punch off the bench. The minutes distribution is still fuzzy to me, but I think the starting 5 plus Harrington/Webster would be the ones who play the most.

[TGW]

I liked that starting lineup last night. With Okafor and Porter out I'd go with:

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Ariza
PF - Booker
C - Nene

Bench/Backups:
PG - Maynor/Temple
SG - Rice Jr.
SF - Webster
PF - Harrington
C - Seraphin


If healthy, I think Harrington/Webster/Rice would be enough scoring punch off the bench. The minutes distribution is still fuzzy to me, but I think the starting 5 plus Harrington/Webster would be the ones who play the most.

I can live with this.

I think the Vesely experiment is over before it started. I would limit Vesely's minutes to spot duty at home games and garbage minutes.

[dckingsfan]

I liked that starting lineup last night. With Okafor and Porter out I'd go with:

PG - Wall
SG - Beal
SF - Ariza
PF - Booker
C - Nene

Bench/Backups:
PG - Maynor/Temple
SG - Rice Jr.
SF - Webster
PF - Harrington
C - Seraphin


If healthy, I think Harrington/Webster/Rice would be enough scoring punch off the bench. The minutes distribution is still fuzzy to me, but I think the starting 5 plus Harrington/Webster would be the ones who play the most.

I can live with this.

I think the Vesely experiment is over before it started. I would limit Vesely's minutes to spot duty at home games and garbage minutes.

After the first couple of preseason games, it seems like the weak link is Maynor, no?

[TGW]

Yes he is, but that's who they signed to be the backup. Temple can play spot minutes at the point, but it's not his best position.