For the month of October, Mitch Pratt, Andrew Kasmarek and Charlie Tritschler will be previewing the NBA teams for the exciting 2013-2014 season.
What I know…
- They had a miserable start last year (4-28 to get things poppin’) with an injured John Wall. Do nott expect them to start the year on a 12 game losing streak either.
- If you remember from my “Doldrums” series from last year, Wall improved his shooting percentage from downtown from 7% (3/42) in ’11-’12 to 27% last year. Huge news for Wizards fans.
- Al Harrington will come off the bench and continue to try and get buckets.
- Washington endured a plethora of injuries last season.
Additions/Subtractions:
They pretty much stood pat. They added Harrington, whom I just mentioned. And they also drafted Otto Porter out of Georgetown. The NBA draft is a crapshoot and this class was not exactly the most heralded ever, but I really think Porter can play. At Georgetown he dominated in his sophomore season, averaging 17 and 8 and shot nearly 45% from downtown. He is 6'8" and has a wingspan Jay Bilas creams over. I am excited to see how John Wall can utilize him.
They pretty much stood pat. They added Harrington, whom I just mentioned. And they also drafted Otto Porter out of Georgetown. The NBA draft is a crapshoot and this class was not exactly the most heralded ever, but I really think Porter can play. At Georgetown he dominated in his sophomore season, averaging 17 and 8 and shot nearly 45% from downtown. He is 6'8" and has a wingspan Jay Bilas creams over. I am excited to see how John Wall can utilize him.
They also brought in Eric Maynor, a reliable backup point guard, and Glen Rice Jr. a scorer from the D-league, to give them extra depth in the backcourt.
What I have been pondering…
This is one of those “will they make the jump” teams. For the last couple weeks I have been comparing these guys to teams like Cleveland, Detroit, and Toronto and have tried to determine who will finish where. They have some talent right now. Wall is arguably the fastest MF’er in the league. He flies down the court, and with shooters like Bradley Beal and Martell Webster (who shot a ridiculous 46% from 3-land last year), Wall should have plenty of space to maneuver en route to the basket.With Wall/Beal/Webster/Maynor/Trevor Ariza I like their wings and ball handlers. They all can compete day in day out. Their frontcourt does scare me a little bit. My man Jan Vesley, whom I had the most hope for after open–mouth-kissing his hotEuropean girlfriend on draft day a few years back, has been awful. He is softer then Charmin. But, still has the size to make things happen. This is a do or die year for him.
Aside from Vesley, they are going to roll with injury-prone Nene, already injured Emeka Okafor and Kevin Seraphin. Seraphin for those who don’t know is he a 6’ 9” brute who shows raw potential, but is somewhat immature. He lacks focus, but when he channels in properly, Seraphin becomes a headache for defenses. Also for what is worth he just losthis pet snake “Snakey”, and he honestly seems like a pretty good guy to hang out with. So I’m going to pull for Seraphin and I think you should too.
Some more food for thought on the Washington Wizards is this; they were ravaged by injuries last year; however, they were honestly pretty damn good when the core nucleus played together. With Wall, they were 24-25, which is nothing spectacular, but nonetheless competitive. With Wall and Nene, they were actually above .500 and posted a 22-19 record which is playoff worthy in the East. And then with Wall, Nene, AND Beal all playing together, which only happened 22 games, they were 15-7, a winning percentage of 68%. Which is more then sufficient, and borderline juggernaut[1].
So really the question is not whether these guys will jump up competitively, we know they are competitive. It is more so can they stay healthy enough to get to the next level? Again last year Wall (33 games), Beal (26 games), Trevor Ariza (26 games) and Nene (21 games) all missed huge chunks and it killed Washington.
Predictions…
I’m seeing this guys making “the jump” into playoffdom. Wall impressed me three years ago when he did this, and I have been waiting for his Wizards to blossom ever sense. In fact, after LeBron lost to Dallas and my life was spiraling out of control[2], I even blogged that the Wizards because of Wall were going to become my “next favorite team”[3]. With Okafor out already, they will immediately need to prove they can stay healthy, but to me as long as Wall stays in uniform and out of street clothes, there will be playoff basketball in Washington for the first time in six years.
At season’s end expect Wall to be hoisting the “Most Improved Player” trophy and his merry band of pranksters to gut out the eighth seed and finish above .500 for the first time since ’07-’08, when the trio of Gilbert Arenas, Caron Butler, and Antawn Jamison took them to fifth seed in the Eastern Conference.
Abracadabra,
Andrew
[1] I just managed to tell you that a team with a 29-53 record last year was a borderline juggernaut. I have set the over/under on “people that accidentally agreed with me the Wizards are that good” at three. I’m pretty sure I only have five or six readers, so if you did accidentally agree let me know on twitter or something. @doobiemcgee
[2]Literally went to AA for a while around this time.
[3]This notion goes against fandom I understand. Someday I will write a blog about how I think NBA faness is different from all other sports and not as regionalized as football, baseball, college sports, etc.…
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