Washington Wizards
Face of the Franchise
Wizards Lose But Still Can Say, “At Least We’re Not The Kings”
Source: https://www.bulletsforever.com/wash...but-still-can-say-at-least-were-not-the-kings
The best thing about the Sacramento Kings is that the Wizards can say, “At least we’re not the Sacramento Kings.”
Yes, the Kings beat the Wizards, 128-115 last night. It was their 12th victory of the year — just two more than the Wizards. But Sacramento has been bad while also being the league’s third oldest team (weighted for minutes). The Wizards at bad and young, which means they can still peddle hope. The Kings don’t even have that.
The Kings have no hope of being good with their current roster. They need to sell off their veterans for young players and draft picks. Their challenge is similar to where Washington was when Michael Winger and Will Dawkins took the helm — the older guys are pretty good with limitations and flaws, but their contracts are out of line with their production.
Their biggest challenge is the poor leadership of their owner Vivek Ranadive, which is something that likely won’t be rectified until he sells the team.
The game itself was at least somewhat entertaining. The Kings went on a 19-0 run to close the first quarter with a 19-point advantage. The teams played more or less even the rest of the way — the Wizards closing the gap to under five points a couple times in the second half. Each time, Sacramento responded with a run of their own to expand the margin.
It’s hard to overstate how bad Washington’s defense was in this one. The Kings entered the game with the league’s second worst offense, and with a generous helping of open and wide-open shots, posted a 128 offensive rating (points per possession x 100). That’s 18 points above their season average, and more than 12 points above league average.
The Kings achieved this absurd efficiency despite committing 18 turnovers and shooting just 19-30 on free throws. They connected on 15-31 (48.4%) from three-point range and posted an effective field goal percentage of 67.3%.
Russell Westbrook, a career 30.8% three-point shooter, shot 6-9 from deep, which boosted his three-point percentage this season to 35.7%.
Overall, the Wizards got decent production from their starting group (missing Khris Middleton and Bilal Coulibaly). Their bench — with the exception of Malaki Branham, who played probably the best game of his career — was a disaster.
Thoughts & Observations
- Credit to head coach Brian Keefe for some tank-tastic lineup choices. For several (disastrous) minutes, he had a group out there that include AJ Johnson, Will Riley, Jamir Watkins, and Marvin Bagley III. I think the fifth was Bub Carrington. That grouping meant they had no one who could threaten the defense or lead an effective offense.
- The Wizards were -22 in Johnson’s 11 minutes of action.
- They were -19 in 22 minutes with Riley on the floor.
- Carrington played 38 minutes and took just four shots, but was still productive overall with 9 assists and 2 steals.
- Carrington has an odd mix of attributes. He’s 6-4 and rebounds at a level that suggests good size, strength, athleticism and competitiveness. He defends like a small, slow, weak guy — bigger players score at will when he defends in the post, quicker players drive with little resistance, his closeout are ineffective. He rarely drives, generates paint touches or gets shots at the rim, but is still an above-average playmaker. He’s shot well from deep, but has been astonishingly bad converting the few inside shots he gets.
- While I liked seeing Justin Champagnie in the starting lineup, and his overall production was decent, I thought his defensive work was subpar — especially early in the game.
Four Factors
Below are the four factors that decide wins and losses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).
The four factors are measured by:
- eFG% (effective field goal percentage, which accounts for the three-point shot)
- OREB% (offensive rebound percentage)
- TOV% (turnover percentage — turnovers divided by possessions)
- FTM/FGA (free throws made divided by field goal attempts)
FOUR FACTORS WIZARDS KINGS LGAVG eFG% 55.0% 67.3% 54.4% OREB% 17.5% 30.8% 26.2% TOV% 11.0% 18.0% 12.8% FTM/FGA 0.178 0.235 0.212 PACE 100 99.7 ORTG 115 128 115.7 Stats & Metrics
PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).
PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples sometimes producing weird results.
POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.
ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. League average so far this season is 115.1. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.
USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%.
ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.
+PTS = “Plus Points” is a measure of the points gained or lost by each player based on their efficiency in this game compared to league average efficiency on the same number of possessions. A player with an offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) of 100 who uses 20 possessions would produce 20 points. If the league average efficiency is 114, the league — on average — would produced 22.8 points in the same 20 possessions. So, the player in this hypothetical would have a +PTS score of -2.8.
Players are sorted by total production in the game.
WIZARDS MIN POSS ORTG USG +PTS PPA +/- Bub Carrington 39 81 158 11.9% 4.0 123 2 Tre Johnson 30 62 109 24.9% -1.0 121 -1 Kyshawn George 24 50 131 24.4% 1.9 146 -12 Alex Sarr 28 58 128 25.0% 1.7 123 -5 Justin Champagnie 27 56 149 17.4% 3.2 119 -12 Malaki Branham 13 28 145 25.6% 2.1 240 11 Marvin Bagley III 19 40 110 19.8% -0.4 13 -8 AJ Johnson 11 24 63 25.2% -3.2 -9 -22 Jamir Watkins 26 55 67 14.5% -3.8 -25 0 Will Riley 22 46 68 19.5% -4.3 -64 -18 Anthony Gill 1 2 0 34.7% -0.9 -318 0
KINGS MIN POSS ORTG USG +PTS PPA +/- Russell Westbrook 31 65 145 25.4% 4.8 240 0 Precious Achiuwa 28 57 171 15.3% 4.8 212 -2 Zach LaVine 32 67 136 15.1% 2.0 128 10 Dennis Schroder 20 42 156 23.5% 3.9 203 12 Nique Clifford 19 39 135 18.6% 1.4 173 19 Domantas Sabonis 21 44 116 26.0% 0.0 126 14 Dylan Cardwell 19 39 149 14.2% 1.9 109 23 Maxime Raynaud 22 45 101 15.7% -1.1 89 -7 DeMar DeRozan 33 68 111 21.0% -0.7 51 -7 Malik Monk 16 33 60 27.0% -4.9 -103 3
Source: https://www.bulletsforever.com/wash...but-still-can-say-at-least-were-not-the-kings