Stats, analysis, commentary.
The Washington Wizards have been in a stretch of schedule challenging enough that my handy prediction machine thought they’d lose 16 in a row. Their losing streak currently sits at 14, and the Wizards aren’t likely to win either of their next two.
If they lose both, they’d tie the franchise record for consecutive losses at 16. At that point, they’re favored against the Charlotte Hornets and have a decent chance of steering out of the skid there.
If you want maximum entertainment value, and you’ve developed the capacity for deferred gratification, you might root for the Wizards to lose to Charlotte and keep on losing throughout March. Why?
Because after that Charlotte game, the Wizards have 10 more highly losable games. If they could manage to lose all 10, they’d be at 27 consecutive losses. And their next opponent at that point: the Detroit Pistons, who earlier this season set the NBA’s all-time record for futility with 28 straight defeats.
March 29 could be wildly entertaining with the Wizards desperately competing to avoid tying the losing streak record facing the Pistons desperately trying to share the shame. It’s improbable that we’ll get a matchup with those kinds of stakes this season, but I would be entertained.
Anyway, the prediction machine now thinks the Wizards will top out at 15 wins this season, which would be the worst record in franchise history.
Here’s where the Wizards rank in team strength metrics:
- Strength of schedule adjusted scoring margin → 29
- Offensive rating (points scored per 100 possessions) → 26
- Defensive rating (points allowed per 100 possessions) → 29
The Wizards are number one in pace, which if you watch the games you surely know because it’s exactly the kind of thing the play-by-play guys should mention once to give fans some foreshadowing of whether the game will be up-and-down or more half court, but that they instead intone nine times before the half.
Moving on, before he coached in the NBA, former Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver formalized what he dubbed the Four Factors that determine who wins and loses in basketball. The four: shooting from the floor (measured by effective field goal percentage to account for the three-point shot), ball handling (measured by turnover percentage), rebounding (measured by rebounding percentage), and free throws (measured by free throws made divided by field goal attempts).
Here’s where the Wizards rank through 60 games:
Four Factors — Offense
- efg — 18
- tov% — 18
- oreb% — 29
- ft/fga — 29
Four Factors — Defense
- defg — 28
- dtov% — 14
- dreb% — 30
- dft/dfga — 15
The takeaway here is that the Wizards aren’t doing much of anything well. What matters most on offense is making shots and avoiding turnovers. They’re below average in each, and they’re at the bottom of retrieving their own misses and getting to the free throw line.
One defense, what matters is making the other team miss and getting the rebound. The Wizards are at the bottom in both areas.
Washington has been marginally more competitive since Brian Keefe replaced Wes Unseld Jr. in the head coaching role. The difference, after accounting for differences in strength of schedule, amounts to about 0.7 points per 100 possessions.
Among the problems any coach would have is constructing a decent offense around Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma. Poole’s efficiency so far this season is -15.5 points per 100 possessions relative to league average. For Kuzma, it’s -10.3. Combine that inefficiency with elevated usage (24.6% for Poole; 28.7% for Kuzma), and it’s a recipe for ranking 26th in offense.
Poole and Kuzma rank last and fourth from last in my plus points metric, which compares a player’s efficiency to league average over the same number of possessions used. Their inefficiency likely isn’t a long-term problem for the Wizards since neither is likely to be around if the team can ever be good. But they’re both major factors in why the team is as bad as it is.
As long as I’m on Poole, I’m going to suggest that readers resist the desire to believe that moving him to the bench has fixed anything. Since getting dropped from the starting lineup, Poole has had two good games — vs. the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers, three awful games — Denver, Oklahoma City, Golden State — and one subpar game (by NBA standards) — Los Angeles Clippers.
His PPA (my overall production metric — in PPA, 100 is average, higher is better, 45 is replacement level) in his 52 games as a starter: 49. Coming off the bench: 59. A bit better, but not close to enough.
Bringing him off the bench was supposedly about giving him more of an on-ball role in the offense, which would make him more comfortable and boost his performance. In reality, his per minute touches coming off the bench have remained below his season average with the Wizards, well below his touch rate in Golden State, and well below his touch rate in his first 10 games with the Wizards.
And, his efficiency hasn’t changed. Through 52 games as a starter, his offensive rating was 100. In six games off the bench, it’s 101.
I concur with The Athletic’s David Aldridge that it’s too soon to make Poole a write-off. He’ll be highly paid over the next three seasons after this one, and they have to make a go at salvaging him. Plus, there are reasons Golden State gave him a lucrative extension, the Wizards new front office was willing to trade for him, and folks like Kevin Garnett thought he might lead the NBA in scoring. There was likely some irrational exuberance in all that, but the point remains that he’s been a productive player on good teams. The Wizards need him to find that level again — at a minimum.
But Aldridge, like other observers, has the causation going in the wrong direction. Meaning, Poole isn’t bad because he wasn’t getting touches in an on-ball roll. His touches dropped because he was bad.
Part of the problem with the “he should be on-ball but these idiot Wizards coaches are screwing up” diagnosis is the failure to recognize that Poole wasn’t really an on-ball player in Golden State. Washington tried him in a similar role…and he failed spectacularly. They tried reduced responsibility…and he continued to fail. Now they’re trying him in a bench role in hopes that he’ll play better.
Unfortunately, I don’t think there’s an in-season solution for Poole’s terrible play this season because the problem has nothing to do with Unseld and the coaching staff being stupid. His woes aren’t being caused by sharing a backcourt with Tyus Jones or not getting the ball enough.
On/off data show that when Poole and Jones are on the court together, Poole has gotten better shots, has shot a better percentage, and commits fewer turnovers (by a TON), In other words, Poole’s usage is lower, and he’s more efficient when he’s on the court with Jones.
Pro tip: if you want to make the case that they’re incompatible, stick to the defensive end. Because, yikes!
So what’s the solution? Poole putting in work. He needs to work on his body (strength, balance, core), his skills and his mind. He needs to learn how to make the flashy dribbles and quick spins move him from one place to another in a way that his defender doesn’t get there first. He still needs to learn to dribble without carrying. He needs to become a better shooter. And he has to learn how to be a better decision-maker.
Player Production Average
Player Production Average (PPA) is an overall production metric I put together. It rewards players for doing things that help a team win like making shots, playmaking, defending, and rebounding, and dings them for things that hurt the cause of winning like missing shots, committing turnovers, defending poorly and fouling.
Each factor is weighted based on regression analysis that determined how each category relates to winning. In PPA, 100 is average, higher is better, and replacement level is 45.
Here’s where the Wizards stand through 60 games:
Rotation
- Tyus Jones → 142
- Marvin Bagley III → 127
- Deni Avdija → 114
- Kyle Kuzma → 104
- Corey Kispert → 68
- Jordan Poole → 50
- Landry Shamet → 47
- Bilal Coulibaly → 46
- Richaun Holmes → 37
Non-Rotation
- Hamidou Diallo → 154
- Jared Butler → 70
- Eugene Omoruyi → 67
- Justin Champagnie → 63
- Anthony Gill → 35
- Patrick Baldwin Jr. → 28
- Jules Bernard → 18
- Johnny Davis → 2