What the Wizards Should Do When the Lockout Ends… at LinesMaker

What the Wizards Should Do When the Lockout Ends…

We’re try­ing to be opti­mistic about the lock­out here at PBT, and as part of that we are look­ing at what all 30 NBA teams should do when the lock­out ends. And we’re stick­ing with when, not if, it ends. To see the full West­ern Con­fer­ence list, click here.

Last sea­son in Wash­ing­ton D.C.: For a team with a lot of young, tal­ented play­ers, the Wiz­ards were just flat out bad. They won only 23 games, they were 28th in the NBA in offen­sive effi­ciency, 24th in offense. Defen­sively they blocked shots and not much else. On offense the Wiz­ards didn’t take a lot of threes and didn’t make a lot when they did (they shot 33.2 per­cent from deep, 28th in the league). John Wall was slowed by injuries most of the sea­son and seemed to be find­ing his way in his rookie NBA sea­son. Andray Blatche and JaVale McGee were con­sis­tently inconsistent.

Since we last saw the Wiz­ards: They got new uni­forms and logos, which are actu­ally throw backs to an older, Bul­let look. The Wiz­ards are red, white and blue now. It’s bet­ter than the blue at least.

They also had a nice draft, but it adds more ques­tions and youth to a team with plenty. They drafted Jan Vesely (he of the girl­friend you remem­ber from draft night), who is big and tal­ented and raw. They also picked up for­ward Chris Sin­gle­ton and guard Shelvin Mack, both of whom likely will make the team but we’ll see how much run they get.

When the lock­out ends, the Wiz­ards need to… Sign Nick Young to keep him in house, grow up and start to play some defense. Then run more.

Nick Young is enter­ing the last year of his rookie deal, the Wiz­ards extended a qual­i­fy­ing offer and they need to keep him around. He’s not an All-Star, but he is devel­op­ing into a qual­ity two in the league who a num­ber of teams around the league covet. This is a team that needs points, and while Young needs to be more effi­cient get­ting them, he can get the points.

The Wiz­ards already have about 14 guys that will be on the ros­ter (if all three rook­ies and a cou­ple other guys are brought back with Young), but what they could use is a vet­eran point guard to back up Wall and be a steady­ing influ­ence on this team. Earl Boykins could work. Over at SB Nation Mike Prada likes two-guard Reg­gie Williams most recently of the War­riors, and that works for me, too. But they need a vet­eran who can show guys how to be pro­fes­sion­als and win.

Aside that, there will be grow­ing pains for a young Wiz­ards team, hope­fully for them just fewer of them. They need to learn from the mis­takes of last sea­son and take steps for­ward. It’s going to be grad­ual, like what we’ve seen over the past sev­eral sea­sons in Okla­homa City. The thing is, OKC gets very con­sis­tent play from its stars, the Wiz­ards do not. Wash­ing­ton has to, espe­cially from Blatche and McGee, two wildly tal­ented guys who can­not put it together.

What they really need to do more is run. They ran some last sea­son — ninth fastest pace in the NBA, which was a big step up — but that is not enough with this roster.

Watch­ing John Wall in per­son at the Impact Train­ing Series, I was reminded just how insanely fast he is with the ball in his hands. Wall is healthy now — he had nag­ging injuries all last sea­son — and much more explo­sive now than he was. He’s at the other end when the defend­ers are just get­ting back and turn­ing around. Add in Vesely — a big that really moves well up and down the court and can fin­ish — plus Young, Blatche and McGee and you have a lot of guys who can close out in tran­si­tion. Washington’s sec­ondary break with bigs trail­ing the play should be deadly, and they should run drag screens all game long (where the trail­ing big sets a high screen for Wall or who­ever has the ball, before the defense sets). This team should be a beast in transition.

But here’s the thing — tran­si­tion offense starts with good defense. Not just mak­ing steals (although that’s nice) but get­ting the stop, the rebound and throw­ing a smart out­let pass to start every­thing. Keep tak­ing the ball out of the bas­ket and your run­ning game can stall out. With the block­ing machines that are McGee and Blatche in the paint, the Wiz­ards have a good pres­ence in the paint. But Washington’s help rota­tions, defen­sive deci­sions and indi­vid­ual defense was just bad. That is the end where the Wiz­ards need to improve if they are seri­ous about improv­ing as a squad.

The Wiz­ards com­mit­ment to defense will deter­mine just how big a step the team takes next season.

Related Posts:

• What the Celtics Should Do When the Lock­out Ends
• Cough­lin: Giants TE Ballard’s Catch Should Have Counted
• Civic Pride: Writer Says Nick Diaz Should Nab ‘Stock­ton­ian of the Year’ Award
• Saban: Vot­ers Should Pick 2 Best Teams
• Kevin Mar­tin Heads to the Gym (And Other Lock­out Reactions)

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