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Or more importantly, when Nene was healthy?

Not exactly sure. But they showed a stat that our defensive rating with Nene in the lineup would have been good for 3rd in the league. And our ORTG with him was quite high too.



Edit: Washington's 5 man lineup of Wall/Beal/Ariza/Nene/Gortat ranked 5th in point differential:

http://www.sbnation.com/nba/2014/3/27/5 ... oenix-suns

just as illmatic said. I cant tell you are winning percentage but I can tell you tht our starting group was top 5 in the NBA even with the big 2 in the east dominanting and all the great west teams. However, it was offset by having literally the worst bench in the NBA by far. We wre the worst. Then we got Miller & Gooden with Porter, Webster, Booker, and Harrington all getting healthy. Now our bench is as good as anyone when there on and that makes us a tough out. Also, we are the #1 rated 4th quarter D in the NBA

Much like our record with Nene.

The team struggled early to find an identity and maybe thought they could win games just by showing up. By the time Washington got into a bit of a groove with him in the lineup, he got hurt, but truthfully, he was nicked up early in the season to begin with.

Unfortunately that's been the main issue with Nene since he joined, he simply can't stay healthy.

Meh, I think Nene takes too much guff from the board for his injuries. Nene knows his body. He knows that he's not an 82-game, 3000 minute player. When he gets hurt, he knows the best thing to do is rest so he can get his body right.

My guess is that he could have come back much earlier from his injury but didn't want to play at 75% and re-injure something. Instead, he waited until he was 100% healthy and now he's feeling good.

That may very well be true, Nate.

That Nene frequently needs rest to get over his frequent injuries does not mitigate the fact that the has to pay him a lot of money not to play basketball at a high level for somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of available games every season. I don't think it's "too much gruff" to feel uneasy about a dude who really does have chronic injury issues.

And Nene picked the right time to get injured/rest up. They played an incredibly easy schedule when he was out.

bwgood77 wrote:Or more importantly, when Nene was healthy?

Starting lineups:
Wall - Beal - Nene - Booker - Ariza 0-1
Wall - Beal - Gortat - Nene - Ariza 14-13
Wall - Beal - Gortat - Nene - Webster 3-2
Wall - Ariza - Gortat - Nene - Webster 4-1

Total 21-17 (0.568) with Nene in the starting 5.

Hypnotizer wrote:

bwgood77 wrote:Or more importantly, when Nene was healthy?

Starting lineups:
Wall - Beal - Nene - Booker - Ariza 0-1
Wall - Beal - Gortat - Nene - Ariza 14-13
Wall - Beal - Gortat - Nene - Webster 3-2
Wall - Ariza - Gortat - Nene - Webster 4-1

Total 21-17 (0.568) with Nene in the starting 5.

So that gets us to 46 wins...

Yeah, I was just trying to figure out what seed they would have gotten or if they would have been favored had they been healthy all year. But you have to figure it took time for Gortat to mesh the right way.

With the Suns out, I'm pulling for a Wizards/OKC finals.

Hopefully Nene can stay healthy.

Illuminaire wrote:That may very well be true, Nate.

That Nene frequently needs rest to get over his frequent injuries does not mitigate the fact that the has to pay him a lot of money not to play basketball at a high level for somewhere between 25 and 50 percent of available games every season. I don't think it's "too much gruff" to feel uneasy about a dude who really does have chronic injury issues.

I guess my issue is that I feel people are criticizing Nene as if he's lazy or not "tough enough" to play hurt. I feel like they're questioning his competitiveness and devotion to the team.

I think that's unfair. I think Nene is doing exactly what is best for the team by nursing his injuries and taking extra time to come back.

Now, if you want to criticize Nene for being injury-prone, that's a fair criticism. On a dollar per minute played basis, he's certainly not a bargain. But as we saw last night, he is still capable of being an elite player. When he is 100% healthy, that $13M a year contract isn't bad at all. As long as he can be healthy for the playoffs, I'll live with it.

I've never understood the "trade Nene at all costs" philosophy. As far as I'm concerned, we are better team with Nene and his $13M contract than we are without it. I won't be interested in dumping him until I believe there is something better we could be doing with that money. As far as I can tell, something better won't come along until 2015 (Love) or 2016 (Durant, Horford, Noah).

For me, the issue isn't Nenê's toughness, it's that he legitimately has injuries that sideline him or limit his effectiveness for extended stretches of the season. The Wizards are fortunate that he was able to be healthy for the playoffs.

This season, the Wizards were a bit worse on offense with Nenê on the floor, but were considerably better on defense. The Wizards were better overall with Nenê in the game this season, although my numbers would suggest there could be some lucky shirt theory involved.