GT #10: Bullets @ Raptors 7:30 PM (MSN/980 AM)

[gambitx777]

Yeah Jordan Poole is not doing himself any favors.

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[9 and 20]

What a throwback to some of our greatest, most embarrassing hits. Sweet memories that last a lifetime. Go Wiz! You did your best!

[rapluva]

As a Raptor fan.. I felt bad for th Wizards fan base.. they played so well yesterday and yes the Raps did play like crap.. Not sure what direction the Wizards are taking but there are so many positives on your current team.

Bilal is an awesome rookie.. plays defense and can score..needs to work on his left hand..

Gafford is a nice athletic center

Tyeus Jones is nice..so is Avidja

Build around those players.. Poole is a scorer..not a winner honestly.. I think he is young and needs to take a look in the mirror and understand the game more..has some really bad habits from GSW... he ain't Steph.. he needs to understand that.. Kuzma and him can net you some much more nicer pieces and the team could build from there.

This loss however is on the coach.. he is happy I'm guessing to take his reviews home..that ball clearly went off Pascal..the league will mention that the refs missed it in the last 2 minute report.

[Godymas]

i can't believe we lost that, was just score watching, but we were killing Toronto

this is 100% a classic last season game, up big at the half only for a massive slow collapse when any real basketball needs to be played, embarassing

[dobrojim]

I posted this in the Deni thread and my comments really would be more appropriate here

In reply to Nate's comments about Deni

WallToWall wrote:
The individual improvement over the last few games has been good. He is playing within himself, and as much as possible, within the framework of the offense. His shot selection has been good, as has been his accuracy. He is starting to show range on his shot, and a more varied portfolio of shots. All good improvements. His individual defense has suffered a bit so far, but I attribute that to the whole team defense being atrocious. He will be 23yo in a few days. 14pts, 6rbs, 3assists on good efficiency an his new declining contract is quite a nice deal for the team. I really like his outlook. - end of Wall2Wall quote

Nate wrote- I think his individual defense has been quite good, and his team defense has been very good. I couldn't be happier with the way Deni has played. If this keeps up, he is an above-average starter in this league - the type of guy every team would love to have.

Per 36 minutes, he is averaging:
20.4 points
8.4 rebounds
5.0 assists
1.7 steals
1.7 turnovers
.652 TS%

Heck, those are All-Star caliber numbers, all while being the best (and only) defender on the team. And he is doing it without the crutch of having Porzingis space the floor for him.

He is pretty much the only bright spot of this horrific season. I guess Kuzma has been solid too, though his defense has slipped.

my reply to Nate

I agree with this. That said, last night at the end of what was otherwise another solid effort by Deni,
he made b2b horrible plays (TOs) that created positive mo for a TOR team that had looked pretty
awful all game up to that point. What does Deni take away from that game?

But the biggest culprit in the outcome was definitely WUJ for sitting Gaff down
and keeping him on the bench. We needed some D to get transition opportunities which
would get our offense going again. That was a significant aspect to our building a big lead.

Horrible loss to watch with the silver lining being at the end of the season
when we're "battling for lottery position" a loss here or there could be the
difference (looking at just one year, 1987, here) between an opp to take a decent or
an outstanding player. In 1987, we took Muggsy with the 12th pick. The three players taken
just before Muggsy were Reggie Miller, Ho Grant and Derrick McKey.
PiF might point out that Polynice was taken just ahead of those 3. But then
the next three ahead of Polynice were Kevin Johnson, Kenny Smith
and Scottie Pippen. Looking at the names after Muggsy, I can't
remember any of them being impactful players (edit Mark Jackson). Of course you always
want to draft well, but sometimes that requires having an earlier slot.
And 1987 could be an outlier year in that regard. Hard to say for sure
who or how many(!) impact players will be drafted in 2024.

Bilal looked really good last night. He made a bunch of outstanding plays.
We got a heartbreaking loss in a rebuilding year. The immediate question
is what will our young players learn from it. The long term question is how
tight will the bottom of the standings be at the end of the year. One slot
and therefore one loss can make a difference.

I've been wondering about WUJ for some time. AS a guy who began watching
this franchise was his father was a rookie, I'm pulling for him. But this game was
illuminating in a way that was really bad for him. So 'in game', he was horrible.
Is he a good enough developmental coach to have any positive future for us?

Agree with those who say JD should be getting some burn. After being
completely horrible at the beginning of last year he could only go up, and he has.
Playing him a bit more would be helpful in deciding what his future might look like.
Him not being in the rotation at all doesn't give us any real data. It only suggests
that WUJ hasn't seen enough from him in prax to put him in regular if still minimal
rotation minutes.

[CntOutSmrtCrazy]

This loss isn't solely on WUJ, but I'm still waiting on someone to tell me one damn thing that he does well, or seemingly does well.

With that said so thoughts:

-Jones/Poole hasn't worked, and I have a hard time believing will work. Both are better suited for off the bench roles given their massive limitations on defense, and they're not giving you enough on offense, intangibles to justify starting. Obviously, we don't have much we can do other than move Poole to the point (could be a ballhandling disaster though) and start Bilal. Give us more size, defense, and we won't constantly be under pressure from the guard spots. Their minutes should be staggered as much as possible, but that's not to say there can't be instances, when they are both playing well, where they can play together.

-Deni was having a great game through most of the third but proceeded to end the game with 4 TOs/1 AST (he had 5AST/0 TOs before that). He was also a fantastic +20 until he was part of the unit that ended the game and ended -2. Didn't watch the game live, was watching from phone, but it looks like he had a couple of sloppy passes that hurt momentum.

-Kuzma had a nice scoring night but had 6 TOs and 5 PFs, only 3 rebounds in almost 40 minutes too.

-Looks like WUJ benched Gafford when he was having a super solid night with 14 points, 9 rebound, 3 assist, 3 blocks, and a steal.

-22 TOs, outrebounded by 10, and only 12 FTs look like some key culprits to this loss.


What the hell happened? What did WUJ do with the lineups that helped add another blown lead to his belt.

[mhd]

As a Raptor fan.. I felt bad for th Wizards fan base.. they played so well yesterday and yes the Raps did play like crap.. Not sure what direction the Wizards are taking but there are so many positives on your current team.

Bilal is an awesome rookie.. plays defense and can score..needs to work on his left hand..

Gafford is a nice athletic center

Tyeus Jones is nice..so is Avidja

Build around those players.. Poole is a scorer..not a winner honestly.. I think he is young and needs to take a look in the mirror and understand the game more..has some really bad habits from GSW... he ain't Steph.. he needs to understand that.. Kuzma and him can net you some much more nicer pieces and the team could build from there.

This loss however is on the coach.. he is happy I'm guessing to take his reviews home..that ball clearly went off Pascal..the league will mention that the refs missed it in the last 2 minute report.

We're tanking LOL. Why do you think our roster doesn't have any size. We don't have a legit backup center for a reason. Bilal and maybe Deni are the only Wizards who are part of the future. Everyone else is a placeholder. I'm happy with the loss last night.

[dobrojim]

BTW, someone needs to explain to Chris Miller that FT line extended cannot be
in the FT circle. One would think that was pretty obvious. Mentally draw a line
across the court directly over the FT. That's FT line extended.

It's also ironic that as soon as he says something like 'nice screen' set by...
the ref blows his whistle and calls an offensive foul.

[NatP4]

The FO is tanking. WUJ is actively trying to win every game. Basically went to an 8 man rotation last night.

He thinks he can save his job by winning 31 games as opposed to playing and developing young players

[Tyrone Messby]

Hahaha wow just saw the box score? HOW? Oh wait that’s so Wiz. Honestly not even mad, I hope we lose as many games as possible this year for the tank. Get another top draft pick and then bring in some vets who know how to win in 2 years or so. What an epic collapse even by Wiz standards.

[closg00]

As a Raptor fan.. I felt bad for th Wizards fan base.. they played so well yesterday and yes the Raps did play like crap.. Not sure what direction the Wizards are taking but there are so many positives on your current team.

Bilal is an awesome rookie.. plays defense and can score..needs to work on his left hand..

Gafford is a nice athletic center

Tyeus Jones is nice..so is Avidja

Build around those players.. Poole is a scorer..not a winner honestly.. I think he is young and needs to take a look in the mirror and understand the game more..has some really bad habits from GSW... he ain't Steph.. he needs to understand that.. Kuzma and him can net you some much more nicer pieces and the team could build from there.

This loss however is on the coach.. he is happy I'm guessing to take his reviews home..that ball clearly went off Pascal..the league will mention that the refs missed it in the last 2 minute report.

We're tanking LOL. Why do you think our roster doesn't have any size. We don't have a legit backup center for a reason. Bilal and maybe Deni are the only Wizards who are part of the future. Everyone else is a placeholder. I'm happy with the loss last night.

This kind of loss is demoralizing, we are tanking, but we still need to win some games otherwise everyone will quit completely.
Hopefully the FO has seen enough of Wes that they are thinking about his eventual replacement.

[Kanyewest]

This loss isn't solely on WUJ, but I'm still waiting on someone to tell me one damn thing that he does well, or seemingly does well.

With that said so thoughts:

-Jones/Poole hasn't worked, and I have a hard time believing will work. Both are better suited for off the bench roles given there massive limitations on defense, and they're not giving you enough on offense, intangibles to justify starting. Obviously, we don't have much we can do other than move Poole to the point (could be a ballhandling disaster though) and start Bilal. Give us more size, defense, and we won't constantly be under pressure from the guard spots. Their minutes should be staggered as much as possible, but that's not to say there can't be instances, when they are both playing well, where they can play together.

-Deni was having a great game through most of the third but proceeded to end the game with 4 TOs/1 AST (he had 5AST/0 TOs before that). He was also a fantastic +20 until he was part of the unit that ended the game and ended -2. Didn't watch the game live, was watching from phone, but it looks like he had a couple of sloppy passes that hurt momentum.

-Kuzma had a nice scoring night but had 6 TOs and 5 PFs, only 3 rebounds in almost 40 minutes too.

-Looks like WUJ benched Gafford when he was having a super solid night with 14 points, 9 rebound, 3 assist, 3 blocks, and a steal.

-22 TOs, outrebounded by 10, and only 12 FTs look like some key culprits to this loss.


What the hell happened? What did WUJ do with the lineups that helped add another blown lead to his belt.

It does feel like the young guys are developing like Bilal and Deni Even Kuzma has taken a step forward.

The Wizards aren't also supposed to win these games. According to Vegas, the Wizards were -6.5 underdogs to the Nets. Against the Raptors, the Wizards were -9.5 underdogs.

I understand why people are upset because of the nature of the losses with leads. But maybe overall I just feel like the Wizards aren't very talented. Take the Raptors, if you assume that Kuzma is the best player, going into the season, a majority would have taken Siakim, Scottie Barnes, and OG over him.

I don't reall like Wes Unseld Jur but the bigger problem is Jordan Poole, roster construction. The Wizards depth isn't even all that great considering they don't have a viable backup center.

Granted Unseld and the Wizards should be slightly better but my expectation going into the season is that hey would finish with 22 wins just based on the talent of the rest of the league.