Stats, commentary, analysis
After a busy day of transactions, the Washington Wizards tromped the Brooklyn Nets for a third straight victory — their first three-game win streak of the season.
The big news of the day was general manager Will Dawkins sending Kyle Kuzma, Patrick Baldwin Jr. and a 2025 second round pick to the Milwaukee Bucks for Khris Middleton, AJ Johnson and a 2028 first round pick swap. The team also dealt Jonas Valanciunas to the Sacramento Kings for Sidy Cissoko and two second round picks.
The return for Kuzma and Valanciunas is both disappointing and fine. They should have dealt Kuzma for the first the Dallas Mavericks paid to acquire PJ Washington. With Kuzma playing poorly most of the season (he rates right around replacement level in my PPA metric this year), this was as good as they were going to get.
Middleton is aging and often injured. He’s played decently when he’s been able to get on the court. He’s just not available enough for a team that aspires to do more than get bounced in the first round of the playoffs. Maybe Kuzma’s efficiency goes up playing with Damian Lillard and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and he ends up helping the Bucks a bit.
Washington will now get a look at AJ Johnson, an athletic 20-year-old guard with potential, who hasn’t been able to get minutes with the Bucks. They’ll also have that pick swap, which could prove valuable as the Milwaukee roster ages and declines.
For Valanciunas, the Wizards get Cissoko, an athletic 20-year-old forward with potential, who couldn’t get minutes with the San Antonio Spurs. He ended up with the Kings in the De’Aaron Fox trade from a few days previous. One report says the Wizards will waive Cissoko, which doesn’t make much sense on the surface. His salary for next season is non-guaranteed.
And, they’ll add those two second round picks to their arsenal of second rounders.
The return may feel meager, but this was about as good as they could reasonably have expected to get. The team isn’t dealing from a position of strength with their veterans. Their over-21 crew is comprised mostly of players who aren’t very good, or who are aging, or both. At least they acquired a few more potential future assets. And they may not be finished dealing.
On the floor, the Wizards played a fun game. They hit 20 threes while the Nets fired blanks, and that was enough to take a 25-point lead and close out with a 17-point advantage.
Bright Spots for the Wizards
- Bilal Coulibaly notched the first triple-double of his young career — 11 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists — and was the team’s third most productive player. Ahead of him: 19-year-old Bub Carrington, and 21-year-old Kyshawn George. Coulibaly’s 6 turnovers tanked his efficiency and lowered his overall production.
- Carrington played an excellent game — 16 points on 8 shots, 4-6 from three, 4 rebounds, 10 assists, and just 1 turnover. His offensive rating (points produced per possession x 100) was 180.
- Like his fellow rookie, George hit shots (6-8 from the floor, 5-7 from three) and had 7 rebounds, 3 assists, a steal and a block. His ortg: 189.
- Jordan Poole was good despite a so-so shooting night — 19 points, 3 rebounds, 8 assists. He shot 6-15 from the floor and 3-10 from deep, but his ortg was a solid 114.
- Corey Kispert hit some threes and finishes on drives.
- In his first start of the year, Richaun Holmes was productive — 9 points on 4-5 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 assists and a block. His physicality and athleticism gave Nets bigs problems inside.
- Justin Champagnie was solid off the bench — 11 points on 8 shots, including 2-5 from three.
- In his first extended action of the season, Tristan Vukcevic overcame a terrible start to turn in some creditable basketball. He’s not shy about taking shots, even from extreme range. An interesting prospect.
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)
In the table below are the four factors using the percentages and rates traditionally presented. There’s also a column showing league average in each of the categories to give a sense of each team’s performance relative to the rest of the league this season.
Stats & Metrics
Below are a few performance metrics, including the Player Production Average (PPA) Game Score. 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).
Game Score (GmSC) converts individual production into points on the scoreboard. The scale is the same as points and reflects each player’s total contributions for an average NBA game. The lowest possible GmSC is zero.
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 last season was 114.8. 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.