2021 Offseason & Offseason Grades

[FAH1223]

Another wing option: Rudy Gay off the bench?

Most guys being mentioned, guys like Rudy Gay and Otto Porter, were small forwards in their youth but have slowed down and bulked up over the years to play PF. We are already in pretty decent shape at PF with Rui, Hachimura and Avdija all being best-suited to play that position. What we need is a more agile guy with good perimeter shooting and ball handling. We need a true SF.

Trying to think of guys on cheap.

How about Snell?

[nate33]

Maybe I'm going senile, but about Wiggins? GSW have huge lux tax issues (they are 40 million over right now!). Here's a 3-way I just thought of that works in the trade machine:

Wiz trade Bertans+Bryant (expiring)+Hutchison (expiring) for Wiggins+#34+#35
GSW trade Wiggins+#14 for Bertans+Jerome
OKC trade Jerome+#34+#35 for Hutchison (expiring)+Bryant (expiring)+#14

GSW saves roughly 12.2 million is salary (which equates to 76 million is lux tax savings) while getting Bertans (who is a great fit for them) and Jerome.

OKC consolidates some young talent in getting #14 (and giving up the valuable Jerome on a cheap deal).

We get Wiggins to fill the gaping hole at SF (He shot 38% last year from 3) while getting two high 2nds for young cheap bench players.

It's an interesting idea. But I think we could extract their first round pick in the transaction (their own 2021 pick, not the Minny pick).

We could roll with Westbrook's and Wiggins' gargantuan contracts over the next 2 years, and then get a clean slate in 2023. A Westbrook, Beal, Wiggins, Hachimura, Gafford lineup looks pretty good to me. And then add two mid 1st round picks. If we're willing to pay the luxtax, we could resign Lopez.

[DCZards]

I agree with you about Deni. The guy has too good of a feel for the game to be used exclusively as a finisher on offense.

I disagree a bit with Rui. Yes, he can create his own midrange shot, but it's not really I skill I'd like to focus on developing at the moment because it's a low percentage shot. I think Rui will be much better off as a stand-in-the-corner guy who occasionally cuts to the rim. I'd be okay if he didn't take one step-back midrange shot all summer long and instead focused on catch-and-shoot corner 3's. We saw in the playoffs how useful he can be if he can stick that 3-pointer. Now I'd like for him to shoot 4-5 a game at 37% instead of 2-3 a game at 33%.

If he ever masters the catch-and-shoot 3, then he can get back to working on his one-on-one shot-creation skills. And even then, I really want him to focus on post-up moves against shorter defenders so he can punish mismatches. I'm not that interested in his step-back midrange shot. That should only be a bail-out shot, not a regular feature of our offense.

Totally agree that the most important thing that Rui can do this offseason is work on being a better 3pt shooter. But I disagree with the notion he should not focus on his midrange game.

Rui's midrange shot has the potential to become one of his strengths. Guys like Chris Paul, Kawhi, Derozan and Embiid absolutely destroy opponents with their midrange shooting. I'm not suggesting that Rui will get to their level but I'd like to see him approach it by continuing to develop his midrange game.

[NatP4]

So true. It’s hilarious that people used to call Scott Brooks a player development coach. If they want Deni and Rui to succeed, they have to play to their strengths.

Deni needs the ball in his hands, his biggest strength going into the draft was his ability to be a secondary playmaker. Not a spot up/stand in the corner guy.

Rui needs isolation possessions, his biggest strength is his ability to create his own shot. Not a spot up/stand in the corner guy.

I agree with you about Deni. The guy has too good of a feel for the game to be used exclusively as a finisher on offense.

I disagree a bit with Rui. Yes, he can create his own midrange shot, but it's not really I skill I'd like to focus on developing at the moment because it's a low percentage shot. I think Rui will be much better off as a stand-in-the-corner guy who occasionally cuts to the rim. I'd be okay if he didn't take one step-back midrange shot all summer long and instead focused on catch-and-shoot corner 3's. We saw in the playoffs how useful he can be if he can stick that 3-pointer. Now I'd like for him to shoot 4-5 a game at 37% instead of 2-3 a game at 33%.

If he ever masters the catch-and-shoot 3, then he can get back to working on his one-on-one shot-creation skills. And even then, I really want him to focus on post-up moves against shorter defenders so he can punish mismatches. I'm not that interested in his step-back midrange shot. That should only be a bail-out shot, not a regular feature of our offense.

I really didn’t even watch the playoffs, so I can’t comment on that, but I’ve been skeptical that Rui will ever even take enough 3s to matter. Ideally, he spots up more and just lets it fly.

[DCZards]

No need for the rhetorical excess, Dat -- have I ever called you a liar?

Let's not waste time on Troy -- he's gone. Probably I should have written that he was already good "in many ways," since we both know that there were ways in which he wasn't good. Nor did we know we could trade him for Gafford!

Still, given that Troy his second season when he was younger than all but 3-5 players in the league, & given that his numbers improved pretty much across the board, yes, he was quite good.

Note that I didn't compare him to Gafford -- that kid is a phenom! At this point, he looks like one of the 4-6 best players out of the '19 draft.

Where did you have him rated, btw? Why don't you link back to your tiers for the 2019 draft; it'd be rewarding to see how right you were about that one.

It's too early to tell how right Dat (or anyone else) was about the 2019 draft. We'll be able to tell which players in that draft have had the best first two seasons, but I'd expect it to take at least 4-5 years before we can begin to tell which of those players had the best careers.

[pcbothwel]

Another wing option: Rudy Gay off the bench?

Most guys being mentioned, guys like Rudy Gay and Otto Porter, were small forwards in their youth but have slowed down and bulked up over the years to play PF. We are already in pretty decent shape at PF with Rui, Hachimura and Avdija all being best-suited to play that position. What we need is a more agile guy with good perimeter shooting and ball handling. We need a true SF.

Trying to think of guys on cheap.

How about Snell?

Hard pass. Snell is more or less a poor mans Bertans. You cant have more than one of those guys on the team, and he wont be as cheap as you think. Some team needing a shooter will give him ~MLE money.

[prime1time]

...From the sound of it, next season will probably hinge on the grow the growth of Hachimura and Avidja. It’ll be interesting to see how there respective roles change.

I think the value from Bertans will be more clearly seen when we get another knock down shooter who can play big minutes. When there’s only one on the floor teams can easily take him away. With two, good shooters we’ll start to see a real difference in terms of floor spacing and allowing Beal/Westbrook to work.

I think that coaching and your two posts are linked.

The offense, they run to the corner and camp. They don't hit the 3 effectively so they don't have to be covered closely reducing spacing and allowing Bertans to be blanketed.

Either one of the two or both need to be able to hit the corner 3 at a high rate or the offense needs to change (or both).

Like last off-season, this next season will hinge on the improvements of the youngsters. Well, and improvements in the offensive and defensive schemas.

So true. It’s hilarious that people used to call Scott Brooks a player development coach. If they want Deni and Rui to succeed, they have to play to their strengths.

Deni needs the ball in his hands, his biggest strength going into the draft was his ability to be a secondary playmaker. Not a spot up/stand in the corner guy.

Rui needs isolation possessions, his biggest strength is his ability to create his own shot. Not a spot up/stand in the corner guy.

This is a lot of truth here, but it’s lacking context. The goal is to have players on your team that can do everything if you have great 3-point shooters but they can’t put the ball on the floor those players are limited. The organizational plan is to draft players like a Rui/Deni and then improve their shooting. Leaving us with players that are multi-faceted. It’s easy to knock the organization for a player not fitting their first or second year here, but their is a method to the madness.

The real question is it worth taking players that don’t fit 100% with your personnel on day one, where if things work out they can become very good players. Personally I’d say yes. How well Avidja fit into this roster his first year in the league is irrelevant in the big picture. If Avdija improves his 3-point shot the Wizards will become a much better team.

As far as the offense goes, I think that at some point down the road we’ll move on from Westbrook and start to have an offense that is much more ball movement based. In the short term, I think we have to hope that Russ and Beal cut their shot attempts and the Wizards move from force feeding Beal and Westbrook to taking what the defense gives them. I don’t think Deni or Rui was ready for that this year but hopefully next year they will be. Also, if you play for a good team, there will be moments where you are providing spacing, standing around the 3-point line.

No good team is going to take the ball out of the hands of a star and put it in the hands of Rui or Deni. Now, we want them to get to the point where they can be effective 3-point shooters, then here and there run the offense through them. Like Bogdan for the Hawks Bojan for the Jazz or Mikal Bridges for the Suns. Imo, teams need a good mix of elite 3-point shooters like Bertans and good shooters/all around offensive players.

Ultimately it’s way too early to make any definitive statements about the success/failure of the Wizards approach. Hopefully Deni and Rui both improve their shooting and overall play next year.

[pcbothwel]

Maybe I'm going senile, but about Wiggins? GSW have huge lux tax issues (they are 40 million over right now!). Here's a 3-way I just thought of that works in the trade machine:

Wiz trade Bertans+Bryant (expiring)+Hutchison (expiring) for Wiggins+#34+#35
GSW trade Wiggins+#14 for Bertans+Jerome
OKC trade Jerome+#34+#35 for Hutchison (expiring)+Bryant (expiring)+#14

GSW saves roughly 12.2 million is salary (which equates to 76 million is lux tax savings) while getting Bertans (who is a great fit for them) and Jerome.

OKC consolidates some young talent in getting #14 (and giving up the valuable Jerome on a cheap deal).

We get Wiggins to fill the gaping hole at SF (He shot 38% last year from 3) while getting two high 2nds for young cheap bench players.

It's an interesting idea. But I think we could extract their first round pick in the transaction (their own 2021 pick, not the Minny pick).

We could roll with Westbrook's and Wiggins' gargantuan contracts over the next 2 years, and then get a clean slate in 2023. A Westbrook, Beal, Wiggins, Hachimura, Gafford lineup looks pretty good to me. And then add two mid 1st round picks. If we're willing to pay the luxtax, we could resign Lopez.

There is really no conceivable way to make a Wiggins trade unless it was part of some Beal trade/rebuild. He's bad enough that he does nothing in terms of making this team better given the players we would need to give up in terms of salary to get him. But he's just serviceable enough that GSW wont pay much to dump him.

[NatP4]

It’s easy to knock the organization from top to bottom actually. Rui and Deni were both the wrong picks. Rui is quite literally awful at everything. The organization hired and did not remove the worst coach in the NBA for 5 full seasons in which he has misused every single player on the roster and failed to run an organized offense. The team resembles a thrown together YMCA squad.

It makes little to no difference if you draft for fit or for BPA if the player that you are fitting people around has a 30% usage rate despite averaging 4.7 turnovers and over 10 missed shots per 36 minutes. You aren’t going to develop the BPA if you make them stand in the corner and watch anyways.

The problem has always been: they gave a supermax contract to a player that was completely done in the NBA. Tried to make the best of it and trade for an extremely flawed over the hill star player and now they are half way trying to compete and halfway trying to rebuild. You’ve gotta pick one.

IMO the reason this doesn’t seem like as much of a “problem” situation is because this team has conditioned the fanbase to get excited for 2nd round exits instead of a championship.

[payitforward]

No need for the rhetorical excess, Dat -- have I ever called you a liar?

Let's not waste time on Troy -- he's gone. Probably I should have written that he was already good "in many ways," since we both know that there were ways in which he wasn't good. Nor did we know we could trade him for Gafford!

Still, given that Troy his second season when he was younger than all but 3-5 players in the league, & given that his numbers improved pretty much across the board, yes, he was quite good.

Note that I didn't compare him to Gafford -- that kid is a phenom! At this point, he looks like one of the 4-6 best players out of the '19 draft.

Where did you have him rated, btw? Why don't you link back to your tiers for the 2019 draft; it'd be rewarding to see how right you were about that one.

It's too early to tell how right Dat (or anyone else) was about the 2019 draft. We'll be able to tell which players in that draft have had the best first two seasons, but I'd expect it to take at least 4-5 years before we can begin to tell which of those players had the best careers.

Quite right overall. But, of course some things come clear more quickly than others.

E.g. there's no question that Daniel Gafford was a tremendous bargain at #38.

[payitforward]

Maybe I'm going senile, but about Wiggins?

...Wiz trade Bertans+Bryant (expiring)+Hutchison (expiring) for Wiggins+#34+#35....

I'd love to trade Bertans.
I'd love to have a couple of high R2 picks.
Bryant like any other player is tradable in the right deal.
But, you'd have to put a gun to my head to make me do this proposed deal.

Wiggins is not a good player; he's a bad player. Why trade for a bad player?

But, wait -- that's not all. Wiggins also makes $31.6m next year & $32.6m the following year.

[payitforward]

Maybe I'm going senile, but about Wiggins? GSW have huge lux tax issues (they are 40 million over right now!). Here's a 3-way I just thought of that works in the trade machine:

Wiz trade Bertans+Bryant (expiring)+Hutchison (expiring) for Wiggins+#34+#35
GSW trade Wiggins+#14 for Bertans+Jerome...

It's an interesting idea. But I think we could extract their first round pick in the transaction (their own 2021 pick, not the Minny pick).

We could roll with Westbrook's and Wiggins' gargantuan contracts over the next 2 years, and then get a clean slate in 2023. A Westbrook, Beal, Wiggins, Hachimura, Gafford lineup looks pretty good to me. And then add two mid 1st round picks. If we're willing to pay the luxtax, we could resign Lopez.

I don't understand this, nate.

1. After the trade, we are at just under $110m for Brad/Russ/Wiggins.
2. Add Rui, Deni, Gill & Gafford, plus Mathews @$2m, & we have 8 players for $125m.
3. Add their #10 pick, our #15 pick & the 2 R2 guys, & we are at almost $135m for 12 players.
4. Suppose we re-sign Lopez at $3m.

Ok... now we are in the luxury tax with 13 players. 4 of those players are rookies, Gill has played 200 NBA minutes. Mathews has played 1400 NBA minutes. Neither Rui nor Deni has established himself in the league. We really don't know what we'll get from either of them.

Wiggins has proved over a bunch of years that he's a bad player; better than the awful he was does not equal "good."

Moreover he also takes 30% more shots than an average wing. Hard to imagine adding a worse match at the wing to start alongside Brad & Russ.

As I say... I don't get this at all. Someone feel free to explain.

[9 and 20]

A trade for Wiggins would definitely qualify as a big swing. We'd have a handful of expensive guys and lots of young, inexpensive recent draft picks. It could work, maybe? Wiggins has been better these past few years, so he's on the upswing? If it were Wiggins and their pick for Bertans/Bryant/Hutchison, I might do it. Adding 2 mid-first round picks to Gafford, Rui, and Deni is definitely building for the long term.

I had another thought - sign and trade Derozan for Westbrook. Spend the both the entire MLE and the first round pick on guards to play with Beal. Derrick Rose or TJ McConnell, maybe. Plus one of the combo guards in the draft.

[nate33]

Maybe I'm going senile, but about Wiggins? GSW have huge lux tax issues (they are 40 million over right now!). Here's a 3-way I just thought of that works in the trade machine:

Wiz trade Bertans+Bryant (expiring)+Hutchison (expiring) for Wiggins+#34+#35
GSW trade Wiggins+#14 for Bertans+Jerome...

It's an interesting idea. But I think we could extract their first round pick in the transaction (their own 2021 pick, not the Minny pick).

We could roll with Westbrook's and Wiggins' gargantuan contracts over the next 2 years, and then get a clean slate in 2023. A Westbrook, Beal, Wiggins, Hachimura, Gafford lineup looks pretty good to me. And then add two mid 1st round picks. If we're willing to pay the luxtax, we could resign Lopez.

I don't understand this, nate.

1. After the trade, we are at just under $110m for Brad/Russ/Wiggins.
2. Add Rui, Deni, Gill & Gafford, plus Mathews @$2m, & we have 8 players for $125m.
3. Add their #10 pick, our #15 pick & the 2 R2 guys, & we are at almost $135m for 12 players.
4. Suppose we re-sign Lopez at $3m.

Ok... now we are in the luxury tax with 13 players. 4 of those players are rookies, Gill has played 200 NBA minutes. Mathews has played 1400 NBA minutes. Neither Rui nor Deni has established himself in the league. We really don't know what we'll get from either of them.

Wiggins has proved over a bunch of years that he's a bad player; better than the awful he was does not equal "good."

Moreover he also takes 30% more shots than an average wing. Hard to imagine adding a worse match at the wing to start alongside Brad & Russ.

As I say... I don't get this at all. Someone feel free to explain.

I think Wiggins is a better player than Bertans. He's a legit above-average defender who shot 38% from 3-point range on a respectable number of attempts. If you can cut out some of his 2PA's, which won't be needed on a team with Beal and Westbrook soaking up possessions, his efficiency would be likely to improve a bit more. And he plays our position of greatest need, providing us a respectable wing stopper who won't brick all of his 3's. He's also younger than Bertans and extremely durable. (I don't think he's young enough to improve much more, but he certainly won't begin an age-related decline anytime soon.)

And even the financial impact isn't so bad when you factor how long Bertans' contract is. Wiggins' contract lines up with Westbrook's nicely, giving us a 2-year window at being a veteran, competitive team (though surely not good enough to contend). That will hopefully convince Beal to resign next summer, and then the summer after that, when Westbrook and Wiggins are let go, we are set up to rebuild around a younger core. The only downsides are the loss of Bryant, and the money. The money I'm not worried about. Ted can pay the luxtax for 2 years. So the only real cost is Bryant - a guy who will be an unrestricted free agent in a year anyhow.

[trast66]

Saving $72 million is not a factor for GSW ownership next year, they can go deep in playoffs.

Can you imagine going to Steph Curry and saying we got two guys who have no chance of staying on the floor (Bertans/Bryant) in a playoff series in order to save money? He would be on the Lakers within a week.

[payitforward]

Well, that's an articulate rationale, nate, thanks. I do not agree with it, but... so what? Esp. since, obviously, it isn't likely to happen!

Even if Wiggins were definitively "a better player than Bertans," I could not see making this move. Per my details above, it makes it hard to assemble a roster w/o a real swerve, as it were, from amy path that leads to a contending team.

What I do see in your response is an unvoiced concession that signing Bertans for the size/length of contract we gave him was a significant error. Well, actually, if that's so, then the real & even worse mistake was not taking the Celtics offer of a R1 pick for the guy. Had Tommy taken that offer, he'd have made his own little miracle: he'd have turned a TPE (which is what we gave for Davis) into a R1 pick.

Is that the only way to move Bertans -- to take a terrible player with an awful contract, because at least it's shorter than his? Quite an indictment, that, of Tommy's decision. & secondarily of the enthusiasm on this board for making this move we now can't get out of.

How long do you think it would be before this same board was trying to figure out why everyone wanted to trade Thomas Bryant? Not too long I don't think.

Above all, you don't get better by trading young players who've already accomplished something & obviously have upside for guys who have demonstrated that they're bad. I.e. by burying your mistake under the next mistake. We had enough years of that under Ernie Grunfeld.

[TGW]

How sad is this roster that there is a serious conversation as to whether to go after Wiggins or not.

[pcbothwel]

How sad is this roster that there is a serious conversation as to whether to go after Wiggins or not.

By who, Tommy? Because a bunch of fans posting on fan board about trades doesnt make anything sad. People are just bored and tossing around ideas.

Wiggins is an above average wing defender that averaged a per 36 of 20 & 5 on slightly above average efficiency (TS: 57%). He is a starting caliber wing on some teams, and at the very least rotation worthy on playoff teams. His salary makes him impossible to add to this team, so we should just move on with the discussion.

[DCZards]

This narrative about Wiggins being a terrible player is rooted in the past and ignores his improved play, especially last season.

[nate33]

This narrative about Wiggins being a terrible player is rooted in the past and ignores his improved play, especially last season.

Agreed. It's easy to conflate "overpaid" with "bad", when it's not the case. Wiggins was a respectable starter last season. He plays legitimately good defense, and hits his 3 point shots. He's an underwhelming rebounder and he doesn't get to the line, so it's not like he is a star or anything, but he's not bad. He would be the 3rd or 4th best player on our roster (depending on how you grade Gafford given his limited minute load).

The problem is that Wiggins is a $15M dollar player being paid $30M.