The Official Washington Wizards Thread

[Burgold]

Good writeup, but I disagree with you on DC being a basketball town. The Redskins have been #1 since I was a little boy. I think the Bullets were always 2nd with the Capitals 3rd.

I think DC is a football town first and a college basketball town second. There's a lot of love for the Hoyas or Maryland out there... and even George Mason ever since their Cinderella season. I think this area has adopted all of those teams to a degree.

We can even root for AU and GW.

The Wizards are a team we want to like, but the NBA has never really, really been embraced in my lifetime the way football or college bball has.

[stevemcqueen1]

Poythress, Archie Goodwin, Nerlens Noel, Isaiah Austin on CBS right now.

[BRAVEONAWARPATH]

TOP 100 prospects per Draftexpress.

http://www.draftexpress.com/rankings/Top-100-Prospects

[StillUnknown]

14 games into the season and the draft is already the best part of our season.

FML

[Destino]

Unless there is a can't miss star the draft isn't going to fix anything on this team. This team can't develop talent and one and done players aren't finished polished players.

[stevemcqueen1]

Man Noel is a beast and Comparing him too Vesley is a insult and is plain wrong. Noel offensively is developing but he knows how too finish around the rim, he's a true PF with the frame too gain weight and be a center. Noel is a rebounding magnet with 10 times the athletic ability than Vesely. Defensively is where the comparison is just a smack in the face, Noel is already an elite shot blocker and a defender.

Vesely sucks and its not because he's a white lanky Euro, he lacks any skill set. He's a bad power forward and a terrible small forward. He sucks at rebounding and he is clearly the worst offensive player in the league. His defense is average at best,other than the occasionally lob alley hoop that happens once every 5 games he sucks.

The Wizards are a terrible team and it only magnifies his flaws but on a playoff team I am not sure he makes the team.

I've seen Noel twice now, against Maryland and against Baylor, and neither time was that great. He's got more in common with Vesley than he has different.

Basically he hasn't done anything against legit competition except some rebounding and playing some D.

Alex Len straight up dominated him in the Maryland game.

Noel got a lot of offensive rebounds today but it wasn't because he's some dominant rebounder. It was him getting his own rebounds over and over again because he kept missing shots at the rim. He also got a bunch of uncontested rebounds off of missed FTs. He's a good bouncey athlete to get those offensive rebounds but he's not strong and gets boxed out even on the defensive glass by weaklings like Isaiah Austin. He was only averaging 8 RPG going into today.

He's a better rebounder than Ves, but Ves is poor. Noel is not a great rebounder.

I don't see special hands with Noel like I did with Davis. They're better than Vesely's, but again, Ves doesn't have great hands.

Offensively, Noel has no game. He's no better than Ves and in fact, Ves was one of the best finishers in his class during the draft. Noel's touch looked absolutely awful today and he looked terrible trying to finish through contact. He went 3/15. How the **** do you do that when you take all 15 shots within a foot of the rim? He was the #1 HS player in the country last year and he has no scoring skills whatsoever. He never dribbles. It's literally all put backs, dunks, and cuts at the rim where he doesn't take a single dribble. No post offense. All he can do aside from try and pogo stick put backs on the offensive end is pass in the high post--again, sound like Vesely?

Ves is a better passer than Noel at this point too.

Noel is 32/64 from the field this year. Sounds decent until you realize the types of shots he takes. I'm serious, I would be surprised if a single one of those shots came after a dribble or came outside of one or two feet from the rim. His shooting has been ****ing awful this year. And the only reason it looks even passable is because he shot for a high percentages against Moorehead St, LIU Brooklyn, and Lafayette. Against a real team? Maryland - 2/6. Duke - 5/11. Notre Dame - 4/10. Baylor - 3/15.

Athletically Ves has a better first step than Noel and is easily as good a leaper. Not that it matters though since Ves can't dribble at all. Noel looks like he has a better body than Ves and might actually be able to put on some weight, but right now, he's no stronger than Ves and until he gets stronger, he is going to have all the same problems in the NBA at getting position and finishing through contact that Ves does.

Defensively, Noel is pretty good but he's not the presence Davis was, got outshone by Alex Len, and he also didn't look any more special and disruptive than Isaiah Austin, Willie Caulie Stein, and Cory Jefferson did. He's good, but not great. If anything Isaiah Austin really flashed better ability to protect the rim there at the end of the game. He had a sick block on Noel that pretty much killed any momentum Kentucky was trying to build.

I'm not buying the hype on Noel. He's a project. He's basically just got a good NBA body with potential and good athleticism and then he's an energy and IQ player with absolutely no offensive skills whatsoever. He's a rich man's Ves. Ves in a better body. Alex Len and Cody Zeller are both much better players than Noel.

[Fight4RGIII]

I'll make my judgement on the Kentucky players in March. At this point, I don't care about position. Take the BPA in June, period.

[stevemcqueen1]

Unless there is a can't miss star the draft isn't going to fix anything on this team. This team can't develop talent and one and done players aren't finished polished players.

There is no can't miss star. Noel is a garbage candidate for first overall. He's a huge project with no skills. Shabazz looked like a decent candidate before he started playing this season but he really hasn't looked like anything like a #1 pick perimeter player should. Scoring was supposed to be his main thing and it just hasn't come as naturally and easily to him as it should have.

Alex Len has looked really good but nobody was talking about this kid for first overall prior to the season, that should give pause.

Cody Zeller is super smart and skilled but he does not have the kind of body a first overall big man should have. T Rex arms. He'll probably be a fantastic scorer at every level, but I doubt he's ever a good NBA defender.

Don't know anything about Rudy Gobert other than he's a string bean with freakish length.

Archie Goodwin is pretty good but he's a scoring combo guard and you don't take a player like that first overall.

Poythress has a good NBA body for a SF and he scores a ton but he's short to play PF in the NBA so I'm not sure he's got a home position. He's kind of a poor man's MKG. And MKG wouldn't have been a great #1 overall pick himself.

I liked James McAdoo going into the year, not #1 overall material, but he hasn't been a factor at all against UNC's good competition. Nothing about his game stands out. He'd be a solid #5 pick maybe. Harrison Barnes was a better prospect, had a well developed mid range game and a true NBA position.

Not buying the hype on Mason Plumlee. He's a senior and fully grown man dominating skinny boys. He'll probably be a decent NBA player but he's not some future star.

Isaiah Austin is somewhat intriguing but he has a bad body for the NBA. He's got the skinniest legs I've ever seen and does not have a lot of functional strength at all. He's long and he can shoot though, and he's got some post moves. Pretty good shotblocker that can be disruptive. But again, he just doesn't have the body to be an NBA big man. Maybe his lower half will get bigger eventually, I don't know. Seems far away though, and it's not like he's been some dominant player to this point so that you'd be interested in taking a chance on him #1 overall.

Shabazz seems like the only player in the class who you'd expect to become a star. He's still the only player I really want for us, but he needs to pick it up on the court to make one feel good about taking him first. This is a really lackluster class. I think there are going to be a lot of teams trying to trade out of the top picks.

[Burgold]

Has any team ever gotten less bang for the buck than the Washington Wizards with their 2 No. 1 draft picks. Kwambe Brown clearly failed the team and John Wall while not a bust on the court in three seasons has failed to lead the team past the lottery.

[Fight4RGIII]

Literally, our only hope with this team is that Wall takes his game to superstar level, fill the team with shooters, solid defenders, and solid rebounders.

[stevemcqueen1]

Literally, our only hope with this team is that Wall takes his game to superstar level, fill the team with shooters, solid defenders, and solid rebounders.

That's the formula for every team.

We need to give John the tools to succeed though. The only time John has actually gotten to play with a single other good NBA player in his career were the 11 games Nene played in last season. And Nene only played in 5 of those for more than 25 minutes. For five games of his career, John got to play with one other good NBA starter.

John's probably had the worst surrounding cast you could possibly give him. Easily worse than any of the surrounding casts any of the other #1 picks have gotten in a while.

[Destino]

If Wall can be a 20+ ppg player he needs is a second star, decent GM, and a real damn coach/system. He might even be worth a max deal. If he's a 16ppg inefficient scorer with no shooting range than he's worth a lot less. I think he's got it in him but he doesn't need more rookies or idiot coaches trying to find rotations via the trial and error method.

Despite finally winning a game the wizards remain at least 3 games behind the NBAs bad teams. The bobcats of this season.

[stevemcqueen1]

If Wall can be a 20+ ppg player he needs is a second star, decent GM, and a real damn coach/system. He might even be worth a max deal. If he's a 16ppg inefficient scorer with no shooting range than he's worth a lot less. I think he's got it in him but he doesn't need more rookies or idiot coaches trying to find rotations via the trial and error method.

Despite finally winning a game the wizards remain at least 3 games behind the NBAs bad teams. The bobcats of this season.

I'm about ready to give up hope on the GM/coach/system front. We're just totally impotent as fans. You've got to figure if we're excruciatingly bad--like 10-15 win territory, Wittman and EG have to be fired right? But we all know what's going to happen. Wall and Nene will get healthy right at the end of the year and rip off another winning streak.

How do we get him those players? I'm searching for answers and I see hardly any decent paths to take. Would trading for guys like Pau Gasol do anything or would he turn into another Shard? I mean trades for vets have pretty much been our downfall for the past four or five years.

We can't do anything with our draftees though. Kevin Seraphin is the only pick who has actually developed new skills and improved as a player in God knows how long. And why do I get the feeling all of that improvement comes as a result of him playing for French teams and being involved in their national team?

So far the NCAA season has been a big disappointment for me. I was hoping Shabazz would come out rocking and he hasn't looked that special. Noel and McAdoo are worse than I thought they'd be. Was never that crazy about Zeller.

It's depressing but we're just going to have to hope for a top two pick and go with Zeller or Bazz and realize we're not getting that much upside from the pick. I think it's got to be one of those two because they've already got well developed skills. We have shown no ability to develop new skills in our players whatsoever.

[stevemcqueen1]

caught a little of the UCLA game last night. They lost again. To a decent team on the road though. But it's definitely a bit troubling that a team with the #1 or #2 recruiting class has been this bad so far. And they haven't gotten better since Shabazz started playing (2-3 in that span, good win over Georgia, but bad loss to Cal Poly canceling it out)

Shabazz shot 7/12 for 16 points and 4 rebounds. That's right around his averages of 16 & 5.6.

Some things that stand out to me about Shabazz so far:

- Similar to Joe Johnson and James Harden, he's more of a SF type than SG type skill-wise IMO, but because of his height, he's probably going to have to play more at the 2 in the NBA. I think he could play SF against most NBA SFs but big ones like Carmelo are going to give him problems. He looks like a legit 6'5 to 6'6", bigger than Beal. Seems like he has long arms and he's got an NBA ready body bulk wise. Not going to have change his body once he gets to the league. It's eerie how much he looks like James Harden out on the court. All he needs is the beard.

- He scores in a variety of ways but he doesn't seem to be that assertive offensively. When is he going to take over a game and drop 30 on a team? He's willing to play within the team I guess. I was looking for more of an alpha scorer in him. Again, this is really reminiscent of James Harden IMO.

- He stops the ball a bit. He's not selfish, he's an ISO scorer and shooter and not a drive and dish type. Better rebounder than I thought. His rebounding numbers have been pretty good so far but they haven't been consistent.

That's about all I've got. Really haven't seen enough of him to conclude more. It's been a very disappointing start to the season for his team. I don't want to make too much out of these games though. He does have skills and I still like him the best as a fit for us. We need a scorer.

[RonArtest15]

I like Shabazz a lot. He's got a little refining to do while at UCLA, but he's NBA ready.

I also like Noel - but just not for the Wizards. He's a little more rough around the edges and we don't need another project on this roster. We need guys who are ready to step in and contribute right away.

I think we had this discussion leading up to the draft this year. Most of us were in the MKG/Robinson camp - although would be fine if the team went with Beal. For those of us who were in the MKG/Robinson corner, we viewed them as the most NBA ready of the prospects projected in the top-5/10 players. Now, obviously Robinson has had his ups/downs, but MKG has been an absolute beast in the early part of the season.

Shabazz would step in and immediately help this squad. Assuming he falls to #3 in the 2013 draft HAHAHAHAHA.