What does the future hold for the Washington Wizards?

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By Nolan Gelbard

The NBA trade deadline and All-Star Weekend are firmly behind us and teams now enter into their final playoff push.

With just 19 games left in their 2021-22 campaign, the Washington Wizards sit at 29-34, 7.5 games back of a guaranteed playoff spot, but only 1.5 games back of the NBA play-in tournament. The Wizards were one of the most active teams at the recent trade deadline, making roster adjustments to possibly set them up for success not only in 2022, but for years to come.

The objective for teams at the deadline is to try not only to improve the roster, but also create roster flexibility. We can look at the Wizards' improvements by using FiveThirtyEight’s RAPTOR, which stands for Robust Algorithm (using) Player Tracking (and) On/Off Ratings. This metric is a plus-minus statistic, simply meaning a positive number is good and a negative number is bad. RAPTOR calculates how many points a player creates offensively and allows defensively every 100 possessions and then scales that number relative to a league-average player. This can be used to see how the players involved in the trades stack up against the rest of the league.

The most impactful trade was that with the Dallas Mavericks. The Wizards acquired Kristaps Porzingis, who ranks third highest in total RAPTOR for the Wizards, behind Bradley Beal (out for the season) and Deni Avdija. More importantly, they were able to get out of Davis Bertans’ contract. According to Spotrac’s value rankings, which measures a player’s value based on their contract compared to production, Bertans ranks 145/145 of all active forwards in the league. Trading Bertans also helped the Wizards to go over $10 million below the luxury tax, a mechanism to control team spending in which teams pay a penalty for each dollar they exceed over the predetermined tax level. The chart below examines the Wizards payroll moving forward.

The Wizards were also able to acquire multiple second round picks in these trades when they were only guaranteed one in the next 7 years. It can be very difficult to find success in the NBA draft, so CNS examined how the Wizards compare against the rest of the league. To find this, CNS used FiveThirtyEight’s Wins Above Replacement (WAR) statistic. Data from all players' first four years in the NBA were collected, because that is often the length of a rookie contract. This data was compiled based on overall draft selection, then averaged. Each team’s draft selections from the past decade were compared to the average value expectancy given their pick number. The results of this analysis are presented in the chart below.

If you would like to see how this was calculated click here. Click to hide

What the draft value over expected chart shows is that over the last decade the Wizards have been the sixth-worst team in the NBA at drafting. On average, every player the Wizards have drafted since 2010 is contributing 0.35 less wins per year than the average player drafted at the same selection. The chart seen in the “WAR” tab shows how each team's drafted players compare to that of a replacement level player, a player who can be added for minimal cost. Over the last decade the Wizards rank 18th in the NBA at drafting impactful players. On average, a player drafted by the Wizards over the last decade increases the team’s success by 0.99 wins per year. During this time, the Wizards have had six lottery picks, three of which were in the top three. Only one of these players (Bradley Beal) is still with the team.

Still, two of the teams below them in draft value over expected, seen in the chart above in the DVOE tab, have won championships during this time. The draft is where a team traditionally builds long-term success, but free agency is often where a team can make a difference. Tommy Sheppard took over as general manager in 2019 and Wes Unseld Jr. was hired as the new head coach this past offseason. With new leadership, comes new culture.

Success in the current season still remains to be seen. The Wizards have not been the most productive team on either side of the ball. They are in the bottom half of the league in both offensive (20th) and defensive (24th) rating, which is the amount of points a team scores per 100 possessions. But they have the third easiest strength of schedule remaining and are 13-11 against their remaining teams this year. Most importantly, they were finally able to add Porzingis to the lineup and he’s already making an impact on the team. He scored 25 points on 58.3% shooting in only 21 minutes in his debut Sunday night against the Pacers.

The Wizards’ next game is Wednesday, March 9th against the Los Angeles Clippers at 10:30pm EST.