Our Projected Depth Chart

[hands11]

The tank was planned, but it doesn't mean it was the best strategy for the Wizards and especially John Wall. The Wizards squandered precious developmental years for John while Ernie worked-on clearing-up the rest of his mistakes.

I fail to see the productiveness of a comment like that. It doesn't mean it was best strategy. It doesn't mean it wasn't.

Your claim that they squandered a precious developmental year for Wall is also not provable. And even if they didn't maximize his opportunity for that one year at best, you could say it was squandered for one year. But what if it helps them do a better job of maximizing more of the following years? Then it was worth it to not maximize it one year in his second year. In a strike shortened year with a team that was still getting cleaned up, a planned tank last year was a viable approach. If you were going to do it, the pain of doing it last year was less and the timing was good. It was only Walls second year. He is still very young. So the tank last year may have been the best plan.

There is no way to prove if it was the best plan or not since the only plan that we can actually see get tested. We will get a good look at that this year.

The planned tank last year wasn't the plan I promoted initially before that draft but it is what they did and in hind site, it made good sense to do it that way. Other ways could have worked but Im ok with what they did.

I'm moving on and focusing on evaluating what I think they will be able to do this year and forward. It is what they are doing. May as well live in the reality of what is.

[nate33]

The tank was planned, but it doesn't mean it was the best strategy for the Wizards and especially John Wall. The Wizards squandered precious developmental years for John while Ernie worked-on clearing-up the rest of his mistakes.

You gotta be kidding me, closg00.

You were leading the angry mob against EG back when he made "win now" trades like trading our lotto pick for Mike Miller in a misguided effort to try and keep winning. Now that EG has finally taken that advice and decided to bottom out and rebuild, you are criticizing him again.

How can anybody possibly take your criticisms of EG seriously?

[closg00]

The tank was planned, but it doesn't mean it was the best strategy for the Wizards and especially John Wall. The Wizards squandered precious developmental years for John while Ernie worked-on clearing-up the rest of his mistakes.

You gotta be kidding me, closg00.

You were leading the angry mob against EG back when he made "win now" trades like trading our lotto pick for Mike Miller in a misguided effort to try and keep winning. Now that EG has finally taken that advice and decided to bottom out and rebuild, you are criticizing him again.

How can anybody possibly take your criticisms of EG seriously?

I did not express myself clearly so let me re-state my thoughts.

The way that the team was re-constructed around Wall, specifically the no-offense 2011 draft and off-season, compounded John's weakness's as a point guard the following season. It was painful to watch the team try to score.

Shoring-up the offense is being addressed somewhat now, but even in that pursuit our efforts have been half-assed.

[bawizards]

Seraphin NEEDS to start this year guys. IDC if Okafor or Nene are better. I say this because we arent going to be able to trade for a star player with Ariza/Okafor and some glue guys like Booker and Vesley who are on there rookie deal. I doubt we can ship nene out in a deal for another star, I doubt even Kanh is that stupid to take on Nene deal in a full out rebuild mode. Seraphin needs time to develop and let the league know he is a potential top 7-10 center. A potential top 7-10 center, young glue guys, a few draft picks and 20 million in expiring deals might be enough to get a guy like Love/Aldridge/Cousins whoever is going to be the next disgruntled superstar. Even if we can get a disgruntled star through a trade i highly doubt we will have the money to keep Seraphin Wall and Beal around while taking on a star player. There is a chance Kahn would be dumb enough to take on Nene deal. Wall/Beal/whoever/Love/Seraphin would be a dream in which everyone styles match perfectly, but chances are that will never happen

[rockymac52]

I've been doing a lot of statistical analysis on our team heading into this season, and one of the things that keeps bothering me is our usage distribution.

A player's Usage Percentage is a percentage of team plays that are used by that player while he is on the floor. So in theory, if our starting lineup had a perfectly balanced play distribution, roughly meaning each of the 5 starters took the same amount of shots (or offensive plays, more accurately), then each of them would have a Usage Percentage of 20%. 20% + 20% + 20% + 20% + 20% = 100% (duh).

However, in all practicality, the distribution will never be quite that even. It's more likely to be something like 30%/25%/20%/15%/10%, where two players take on a larger role on offense (ideally your better offensive players who can maintain a higher efficiency while also increasing their usage) and two players take on a smaller role on offense (ideally your worse offensive players who will actually increase their efficiency by having a smaller usage).

But think of it this way, if we start out with each lineup being perfectly distributed where everyone on the court has a 20% usage rate, then it follows that for each player that takes on a bigger offensive role (greater than 20% usage), at least one other player has to accordingly take on a smaller offensive role (less than 20% usage) to counteract that. The usage rates of the 5 players on a court at any time can only add up to 100% while they're all on there - it's impossible to be any higher or any lower.

So if you look at the usage rates of our 14 current players from last season (Beal obviously doesn't have any stats from last year, and using Nene's stats in his 11 games with the Wizards), here's what we've got:

Wall: 24.9%
Price: 17.7%
Mack: 16.9%
Crawford: 28.1%
Beal: n/a
Ariza: 18.4%
Webster: 13.6%
Singleton: 11.5%
Martin: 17.8%
Nene: 23.1%
Booker: 15.6%
Vesely: 12.7%
Okafor: 17.2%
Seraphin: 18.2%

Now, obviously some of these guys' stats are from their teams from last season, so it doesn't all add up perfectly. We can expect that some players will have a smaller usage rate this coming season, just as some will have a larger usage rate.

But here's what jumps out at me, and concerns/intrigues me: of those 14 players (13 given Beal), only 3 of them had a usage rate above 20% last season - Wall, Crawford, and Nene. Is that sustainable and/or realistic? Maybe Beal will come in and have a usage rate over 20%, although for a rookie that's pretty rare. Maybe some of the new guys or our younger players will take on bigger roles this coming season. Who knows?

Last season we could rely on guys like McGee, Young, and Blatche to all have usage rates over 20%, which allowed the rest of our young and offensively challenged roster to have usage rates below 20%, helping them earn a slightly higher offensive efficiency rating than they would have otherwise. But like I said, it's gotta add up to 100%. Even if all of the players on our roster shoot at much better efficiencies when their usage is around 15%, and we'd ideally like them shooting only that often, the reality is the 5 guys on the court have to add up to 100% at the time, so at least one guy, and probably two or three, need to be willing and able to take on a larger role and usage rate.

Also, it's worth mentioning that even though Wall and Crawford had above average usage rates, neither was very efficient on offense. Wall's offensive efficiency was pretty below average, and Crawford's was actually terrible. Crawford had the worst offensive efficiency on our entire roster, as well as the worst defensive efficiency on our entire roster. And somehow he managed to also be rewarded with the highest usage rate. That, my friends, is the ultimate recipe for disaster. Even if he gets a little better this season, that simply needs to stop.

So who's going to be taking more shots now?

[rockymac52]

At the moment, our 5 big men are pretty efficient, both offensively and defensively. But only Nene has an above average usage rate. He's going to have to continue to produce with that high usage rate for us. That shouldn't be a problem. The real problem is what happens if/when he gets injured and we need to replace that production and usage. Could get ugly.

Next up I'd like to see Okafor take on a slightly larger role in the offense, because he's a veteran and has produced at a high level with a slightly larger usage rate in the past, so I know he can do it. All he needs to do is produce at around a 20% usage rate. Seraphin is almost there as well, and he's clearly developing before our eyes, so I think we can expect him to get closer to the 20% average usage rate this season, possibly a little above (but that might be pushing it).

The real issue is who takes the shots at PG, SG, and SF. Right now we've got Wall with a relatively high usage rate, and only marginal offensive efficiency. Then we've got Crawford with a very high usage rate, and a very low offensive efficiency. While Crawford is personally happy to take more shots because he thinks he's MJ, this is not helping us win, it's actually hurting us quite a bit. The reality is we need SOMEONE to take on these bigger roles on offense, it's just bad news that Wall and Crawford are those somebodies so far. I'm worried that we're actually stunting their development in many ways by having them take more shots. While they might sadly be our best options (Crawford is NOT, don't get confused), I'm hesitant to give them so many touches on offense. Ideally they have average or slightly below average usage rates, and they can earn more touches as they prove they can produce efficiently. By giving them the touches from the get go, regardless of if they produce at a high level, we're teaching them the wrong way to play basketball. They are literally trying to do too much. We need this to change.

The problem is, once again, we need some guys to take control of the offense and have higher usage rates, but we simply don't have any good options. It's better than it's been in the past, but it's still not pretty. Hopefully Beal develops into our guy who can have at least a 25% usage rate, if not higher, and produce an above average offensive efficiency while doing so. To ask him to do this as a rookie might be too much, but in the next year or so that's the ideal situation. He'd help alleviate a lot of the pressures currently being placed on our guards offensively. Ariza has the potential to take on a larger role as well, but the problem is he is a much better and efficient player when he has a lower usage rate around 15-17%.

We need somebody to step up and earn a higher usage rate by producing efficiently on offense, but that's easier said than done, and it doesn't appear we have that guy on the roster yet (maybe Beal - hope!) (and Webster can score efficiently, but at a low usage rate, not to mention he's weak on defense, countering it).

I'm beginning to come around to the often suggested Kevin Martin trade. I hate the guy because of how bad he is on defense, but his offense is so good that he still have a positive net contribution to teams, or an average/null one at worst. And since he can produce very efficiently on offense while still having very high usage rates, he'll help our other players on the floor decrease their usage rates, thus increasing their offensive efficiency, and we can also put more defensive minded players who might not be skilled offensively out on the court with him.

We need someone to play a big role on offense, otherwise we're going to continue to have Wall and Crawford trying to do too much, and playing very poorly and inefficiently as a result.

[rockymac52]

Last season there were 78 players in the NBA who had a usage rate of 20% or above and also had an offensive efficiency rating of 104 or above (104 = average, roughly). There were only 37 of them who play PG, SG, or SF. Only 18 at SG or SF (since Wall isn't going anywhere).

This includes the likes of Kobe, LeBron, DWade, etc. Guys we aren't acquiring any time soon.

Some of the potential guys I think might be a good fit, and somewhat realistic:
Kevin Martin
Rodney Stuckey
Marcus Thornton
Mo Williams (eh...)

And then in theory Harden and Ginobili, though we'd probably have to trade away Beal, who might be our answer.

[nate33]

Seraphin NEEDS to start this year guys. IDC if Okafor or Nene are better. I say this because we arent going to be able to trade for a star player with Ariza/Okafor and some glue guys like Booker and Vesley who are on there rookie deal. I doubt we can ship nene out in a deal for another star, I doubt even Kanh is that stupid to take on Nene deal in a full out rebuild mode. Seraphin needs time to develop and let the league know he is a potential top 7-10 center. A potential top 7-10 center, young glue guys, a few draft picks and 20 million in expiring deals might be enough to get a guy like Love/Aldridge/Cousins whoever is going to be the next disgruntled superstar. Even if we can get a disgruntled star through a trade i highly doubt we will have the money to keep Seraphin Wall and Beal around while taking on a star player. There is a chance Kahn would be dumb enough to take on Nene deal. Wall/Beal/whoever/Love/Seraphin would be a dream in which everyone styles match perfectly, but chances are that will never happen

If Seraphin turns out to be a top 7-10 center, I probably wouldn't trade him. I'd look to trade some combination of Nene, Okafor, Booker and future picks for the next disgruntled star.

Either way, I'm not really in any hurry to forcefeed Seraphin minutes. Seraphin should play as many minutes as he earns. If he is indeed a top 7-10 center, then he certainly would be one of the two best bigs on the roster and will start alongside Nene. If he's not yet better than Okafor or Booker, then he should come off the bench. There's no need to overthink this.

[nate33]

So if you look at the usage rates of our 14 current players from last season (Beal obviously doesn't have any stats from last year, and using Nene's stats in his 11 games with the Wizards), here's what we've got:

Wall: 24.9%
Price: 17.7%
Mack: 16.9%
Crawford: 28.1%
Beal: n/a
Ariza: 18.4%
Webster: 13.6%
Singleton: 11.5%
Martin: 17.8%
Nene: 23.1%
Booker: 15.6%
Vesely: 12.7%
Okafor: 17.2%
Seraphin: 18.2%

Now, obviously some of these guys' stats are from their teams from last season, so it doesn't all add up perfectly. We can expect that some players will have a smaller usage rate this coming season, just as some will have a larger usage rate.

But here's what jumps out at me, and concerns/intrigues me: of those 14 players (13 given Beal), only 3 of them had a usage rate above 20% last season - Wall, Crawford, and Nene. Is that sustainable and/or realistic? Maybe Beal will come in and have a usage rate over 20%, although for a rookie that's pretty rare. Maybe some of the new guys or our younger players will take on bigger roles this coming season. Who knows?

Last season we could rely on guys like McGee, Young, and Blatche to all have usage rates over 20%, which allowed the rest of our young and offensively challenged roster to have usage rates below 20%, helping them earn a slightly higher offensive efficiency rating than they would have otherwise. But like I said, it's gotta add up to 100%. Even if all of the players on our roster shoot at much better efficiencies when their usage is around 15%, and we'd ideally like them shooting only that often, the reality is the 5 guys on the court have to add up to 100% at the time, so at least one guy, and probably two or three, need to be willing and able to take on a larger role and usage rate.

Also, it's worth mentioning that even though Wall and Crawford had above average usage rates, neither was very efficient on offense. Wall's offensive efficiency was pretty below average, and Crawford's was actually terrible. Crawford had the worst offensive efficiency on our entire roster, as well as the worst defensive efficiency on our entire roster. And somehow he managed to also be rewarded with the highest usage rate. That, my friends, is the ultimate recipe for disaster. Even if he gets a little better this season, that simply needs to stop.

So who's going to be taking more shots now?

Some good thoughts here, rockymac

Nene would obviously be our first choice to carry the offensive load. He's the only guy on the roster who has ever maintained a high efficiency with an average or higher usage rate. In his last full season in Denver, he managed a USG% of 18.8 and a ORtg of 124. Unfortunately, last year his ORtg dipped down to just 105 when his USG% rose to 22.5 (although the league ORtg dipped about 3 points due to the lockout, so maybe we can assume that he could do a 108 in a normal year). His performance in Washington looks a bit flukey with his USG% up around 23.1 and his Ortg at 116.

Given our roster, I don't think we have the luxury of cutting back Nene's possessions so that he can maintain his usual hyper-efficiency. I'll take modestly above-average efficiency with a high usage rate. Maybe we can get a 24% USG% along with a 110 ORtg. That's slightly better than he did in Denver two years ago, which seems doable without a lockout and given the small sample size that suggests Wittman knows how to utilize him well in Washington.

The next best option is Wall. Last year his USG% was 24.9% with a 100 ORtg. We need dramatic improvement out of him - hopefully a 28% USG and a 107 ORtg. That's about halfway between Rodney Stuckey and Russell Westbrook (both from two seasons ago) so that doesn't seem like too big of an expectation.

If those guys can combine from 52% USG and an ORtg of 108, we should be in pretty good shape. The other three guys on the floor can average a USG rate of just 16% each. Seraphin, Booker, Okafor, Webster and Martin have already demonstrated an ability to do so with efficiency. Beal probably could too. Ariza might be a problem. He needs to channel the guy he used to be in LA.

That leaves Crawford. I just think Crawford is a real bad fit in the starting unit if Wall and Nene are going to carry the load. Crawford seems like a guy who's efficiency doesn't get much better with fewer touches so he's a lousy complementary player. I really think we're better off with him on the second unit, hopefully doing a rough imitation of Wall as the high usage guard when Wall sits. Maybe he can post an ORtg of 102 or so when playing against backups (up from his current 97). That's not great but it's only modestly below league average and could work with a second unit where nobody besides Seraphin can really be counted on to be a primary scorer.

[rockymac52]

Nate, any idea on where I could find Crawford's split stats for usage rate depending on him being the starter vs. him coming off the bench?

I feel like that would be necessary to validate your hypothesis that his ORtg can increase a large amount like 5 points just by playing against backups instead of starters. I hope that's the case, but I'm just skeptical. He played 32 games last season off the bench, and he started in 32 as well. And collectively, he was terrible from an efficiency standpoint.

I get that he's the guy who can theoretically make his own shot better than the rest, but when his efficiency is so low, it's killing us that he has such a high usage rate. I get that there may not be a better option to take those possessions from our second unit outside of Wall and Nene, and perhaps Beal, but maybe that means we just have to try and keep everybody at 20% or very close to it. Crawford has one of the highest usage rates in the league, and one of the lowest ORtgs (and DRtgs, sadly). He's KILLING us.

[verbal8]

So if you look at the usage rates of our 14 current players from last season (Beal obviously doesn't have any stats from last year, and using Nene's stats in his 11 games with the Wizards), here's what we've got:

But here's what jumps out at me, and concerns/intrigues me: of those 14 players (13 given Beal), only 3 of them had a usage rate above 20% last season - Wall, Crawford, and Nene. Is that sustainable and/or realistic? Maybe Beal will come in and have a usage rate over 20%, although for a rookie that's pretty rare. Maybe some of the new guys or our younger players will take on bigger roles this coming season. Who knows?

So who's going to be taking more shots now?

Some good thoughts here, rockymac

Nene would obviously be our first choice to carry the offensive load. He's the only guy on the roster who has ever maintained a high efficiency with an average or higher usage rate. In his last full season in Denver, he managed a USG% of 18.8 and a ORtg of 124. Unfortunately, last year his ORtg dipped down to just 105 when his USG% rose to 22.5 (although the league ORtg dipped about 3 points due to the lockout, so maybe we can assume that he could do a 108 in a normal year). His performance in Washington looks a bit flukey with his USG% up around 23.1 and his Ortg at 116.

Given our roster, I don't think we have the luxury of cutting back Nene's possessions so that he can maintain his usual hyper-efficiency. I'll take modestly above-average efficiency with a high usage rate. Maybe we can get a 24% USG% along with a 110 ORtg. That's slightly better than he did in Denver two years ago, which seems doable without a lockout and given the small sample size that suggests Wittman knows how to utilize him well in Washington.

The next best option is Wall. Last year his USG% was 24.9% with a 100 ORtg. We need dramatic improvement out of him - hopefully a 28% USG and a 107 ORtg. That's about halfway between Rodney Stuckey and Russell Westbrook (both from two seasons ago) so that doesn't seem like too big of an expectation.

I agree that Wall and Nene should be the high usage guys for the Wizards.

If those guys can combine from 52% USG and an ORtg of 108, we should be in pretty good shape. The other three guys on the floor can average a USG rate of just 16% each. Seraphin, Booker, Okafor, Webster and Martin have already demonstrated an ability to do so with efficiency. Beal probably could too. Ariza might be a problem. He needs to channel the guy he used to be in LA.

I think Booker and Seraphin could bump their usage up and stay efficient. If Webster or Martin can, that could really help the Wizards improve this season. Given that he was differential to inferior talent in college, I expect that Beal will be low usage at least as a rookie. Hopefully other players bump up their usage and allow Ariza to remain a low usage player. From his career stats, it looks like high usage leads to low efficiency for him.

That leaves Crawford. I just think Crawford is a real bad fit in the starting unit if Wall and Nene are going to carry the load. Crawford seems like a guy who's efficiency doesn't get much better with fewer touches so he's a lousy complementary player. I really think we're better off with him on the second unit, hopefully doing a rough imitation of Wall as the high usage guard when Wall sits. Maybe he can post an ORtg of 102 or so when playing against backups (up from his current 97). That's not great but it's only modestly below league average and could work with a second unit where nobody besides Seraphin can really be counted on to be a primary scorer.

I agree that Crawford is a concern. I think the best possibility is for him to be back-up PG and use some of those possessions as assists. It might be worth taking a look at Ariza or Webster out of position at SG, rather than starting Crawford there.

[rockymac52]

Ariza is going to be interesting in that regard.

Like you said, we want Ariza to put up numbers and play like he used to in LA. Lower usage and thus a higher offensive efficiency. When he tries to do too much on offense (higher usage rate), his ORtg goes down considerably. Still fine, overall, but not nearly as good as it was when he was doing less. So ideally he'll be doing less. BUT, he is one of the few players who can handle a larger offensive workload, and maintain a relatively adequate offensive efficiency.

As much as I want the efficient role player Ariza that we saw in LA, I'm willing to accept the less efficient, higher usage Ariza we've seen recently, given that the alternative is giving those possessions to Crawford. We need other people to take one for the team and decrease their offensive efficiency in order to take the ball out of Crawford's hands. It's so sad, but so true.

[rockymac52]

I also really wish we could let Wall tone it down a bit and only have to post average to slightly above average usage rates. Something between like 20% and 23%. For a guy who's struggles on offense are well documented, I don't like the idea of asking him to INCREASE his usage rate to something like 28%. We're doing him a disservice by not having any other players on the roster who can take on a bigger workload offensively. It's forcing him into the role of inefficient high usage player. He doesn't have to be that guy, in theory, but on this team with so few offensive options, we don't really have a choice, and he has to be that guy. It's unfortunate.

[nate33]

I also really wish we could let Wall tone it down a bit and only have to post average to slightly above average usage rates. Something between like 20% and 23%. For a guy who's struggles on offense are well documented, I don't like the idea of asking him to INCREASE his usage rate to something like 28%. We're doing him a disservice by not having any other players on the roster who can take on a bigger workload offensively. It's forcing him into the role of inefficient high usage player. He doesn't have to be that guy, in theory, but on this team with so few offensive options, we don't really have a choice, and he has to be that guy. It's unfortunate.

For reference, here are the usage rates of other prominent PG's

Russell Westbrook - 32.7%.
Deron Williams - 30.1%
Kyrie Irving - 28.7%
Monta Ellis - 28.7%
Tony Parker - 27.7%
Brandon Jennings -25.9%
Chris Paul - 24.3%
Rodney Stuckey - 23.7%

Maybe 28% is pushing it, but 26% should be something Wall can handle. He was at 24.9% last year. FWIW, Brandon Jennings posted an ORtg of 106 in the lockout year (when everyone was down about 3 points). So we're really only asking that Wall be about as good as Jennings but with more assists.

[nate33]

Nate, any idea on where I could find Crawford's split stats for usage rate depending on him being the starter vs. him coming off the bench?

I feel like that would be necessary to validate your hypothesis that his ORtg can increase a large amount like 5 points just by playing against backups instead of starters. I hope that's the case, but I'm just skeptical. He played 32 games last season off the bench, and he started in 32 as well. And collectively, he was terrible from an efficiency standpoint.

I get that he's the guy who can theoretically make his own shot better than the rest, but when his efficiency is so low, it's killing us that he has such a high usage rate. I get that there may not be a better option to take those possessions from our second unit outside of Wall and Nene, and perhaps Beal, but maybe that means we just have to try and keep everybody at 20% or very close to it. Crawford has one of the highest usage rates in the league, and one of the lowest ORtgs (and DRtgs, sadly). He's KILLING us.

Crawford's scoring numbers look about the same as a starter or reserve. He scored almost exactly the same number of points per minute on the same FG%. The only difference is that he was a slightly better 3-point shooter as a reserve, and he averaged more assists per minute.

But it's worth noting that he spent his time as a starter later in the year when he should have played better. He spent his time as a reserve early in the year when he would have been suffering from the lack of training camp (and the absence of Nene). Adjust for these factors and Crawford was probably a couple of ORtg points better as a reserve than as a starter.

So take his 97 ORtg. Bump him 1 point for being a reserve. Bump him 3 points for training camp (the absence of training camp cost the whole league 3 points in ORtg), and another 2 points for organic improvement and now we're talking about an ORtg of 103. That's not so great in a league where we expect an average ORtg of 107, but for 12 minutes a game when Wall sits, we can endure it.

[rockymac52]

Easy there Nate, let's not get ahead of ourselves with these boosts to Crawford's efficiency.

Clearly ORtg's were down league-wide, and it's a fair assumption that it was the result of the lockout in some way or another. But to automatically give Crawford a 3 point boost? I dunno, seems like a lot. Not to mention, if you're giving every other player in the NBA that same 3 point boost, it kinda renders it meaningless.

Adding 1 point for now being a reserve... I mean, sure, I guess. But the problem is he may very well end up in our starting 5. 2 points for organic improvement? I mean, yes, it's only his third season, and yes, players tend to get better in those first few years as they adjust to the NBA game and develop their skills, but I think adding 2 points is the optimal situation here. Can we just add 2 points to all of our young players, because younger players TEND to get better as they grow older? Don't think so. If that's the case, just bump our entire team's ORtg up about 2 points, and all of a sudden, we have a good offense. It doesn't quite work that way, unfortunately.

[Nivek]

I think those boosts to Crawford's ortg are way arbitrary. Looking for players similar to Crawford's age/position/efficiency/usage yields a list that includes guys like:

• - Rex Chapman -- who improved to an ortg of 106 in his 3rd season, and then went right back to the level of his first two seasons
• - Dell Curry -- who improved 3 points per 100 possessions from year 2 to year 3, and then held at that level until his 5th season when he started to figure out he was a 3pt specialist (and coaches began to better value the 3pt shot)
• - Darrell Griffith -- who got less efficient in year 3, and remained both high usage and inefficient throughout his career
• - Flip Murray -- who didn't have a season of even close to average efficiency until he was 29 years old. His efficiency dipped slightly, but remained above average.
• - Steve Burtt -- a smallish, slowish guard who played in the league sporadically (making the rounds of the league's bottom-feeder teams -- Golden State, the Clippers, the Bullets)
• - Larry Hughes -- remained high usage and inefficient throughout his career, except for that contract year in Washington where he was high usage and efficient. That was the best season of his career, and a big statistical outlier. If he was a baseball player, we'd suspect performance enhancing drugs.

I'll noodle around some more if/when I have some time, but every time I've looked at this subject, I've found no reason to think Crawford is likely to improve his efficiency enough to make him a worthwhile player, even in a limited role.

[rockymac52]

Why haven't we heard anything about the Wizards looking at Leandro Barbosa?

He's probably the best remaining free agent at this point, and he intends to come back to the NBA, although he clearly doesn't have that many good options right now. I keep hearing how he's going to end up with the Lakers because they're the Lakers and they're stacked and they get who they want, yada, yada, yada.

Is Barbosa not a great fit for what this team needs?

The Wizards can offer him up to $3.4 Million a year, using the MLE, I believe. Considering he's still without a team, he's probably only receiving vet minimum deals so far. So he'd probably be interested in anything $2 Million per year or more, although I'm not sure he'd want a contract at that small of a rate for anything more than 2 years, and possibly even 1. But hell, let's say we can only get him on a 1 year deal. Why not? I'd even pay him the MLE at $3.4 Million even if his market value is slightly less, just to get the deal done. Again, why not?

Barbosa is 29 years old. He's Brazilian (debatable whether connections like this - w/ Nene - actually matter or not, but it's cool and worth noting, IMO). He's a small SG who is generally thought of as too small to guard opposing SGs but not capable of going up against opposing PGs on offense. However, I think Wall is more than capable of guarding opposing SGs if need be, so that could work out just fine.

Barbosa is simply put, good on offense, bad on defense. He's incredibly fast (he'll fit in perfectly), and he's very good at driving to the basket, and he's also a very good 3 point shooter. Sound like something we need? The problem is that he's a terrible on-ball defender, so as good as his offense is, it is often mostly counteracted by his defense, making him just an average or slightly above average player at the end of the day.

However, what he does do that's incredibly valuable to us in particular (in addition to being deadly from 3 point range), is maintain a very good offensive efficiency with a very high usage rate! Exactly what I've been preaching on in these last few posts. He fits the bill! For his career Barbosa averages a usage rate of 22.8% with an ORtg of 109. That's very good. In the past few years he's shown he can go up to 24 or 25% as well, although his ORtg has declined accordingly, although still respectable.

I'd much rather have him eating up the offensive possessions than Jordan Crawford.

Thoughts?

[nate33]

Don't get me wrong, Rockymac. I'm not trying to defend Crawford here. I'd certainly prefer another option. I just don't think we have that option on the roster. If Wall and Nene are sitting, Seraphin is really the only guy I can envision with a usage rate above 20% (and that's pushing it for a low post big). Guys like Vesely, Booker and Martin and Mack can't really do much better than 18%. So that leaves Crawford (or possibly Beal) as the only guy who can take on the extra scoring load.

Also, I agree that if you bump Crawford because of a league-wide boost, it's meaningless. But I'm still giving him those points because I'm assuming the league will revert to it's average ORtg of 107 rather than last year's 104. If you prefer to ignore the boost, then we can say that Crawford will post an ORtg around 100 in a league that averages 104.

[nate33]

This discussion is helping me remember why Wittman played Nene off the bench last year. Wall had the ability to facilitate the offense and allow otherwise poor shot creators like Booker, Vesely and Martin a chance to get some shots up with reasonable efficiency. But when Wall sat, we were desperately in need of a player who could be a primary option without the benefit of a dynamic point guard. Nene was perfect.