9/10/2023 0 Comments 2018 washington wizards roster![]() Of concern: his career is starting to look more like Jason Richardson than Ray Allen. At just 25 years old, he should be entering his prime. Last season, Beal was an All-Star for the first time, but his overall performance was a step down from the previous campaign. In my forecast of the team’s record, I used the multi-year performance measure.īeal is among the game’s more productive shooting guards, but backcourt production is dominated by point guards. Using last year’s performance, MILK predicts a PPA of 125. These same issues arise using the MILK model. An approach that uses a multi-year performance measure forecasts something in the middle. If I ignore last season and plug in the 2016-17 PPA, the model suggests he could go as high as 169 (Wall’s best season so far is a 165). My forecast model projects his PPA at 132, but that’s based on last season, which was heavily affected by his knee problems. Wall’s projected PPA depends a lot on assumptions about his health. Brooks and the coaching staff would be wise to find ways to ease the regular-season burden on Wall to keep him healthy and preserve him for the playoffs.ĭaily Digits: Keeping pace with John Wall For the players most like Wall through history, playing a full schedule became increasingly difficult past age 27. Wall’s meh 2017-18 could be dismissed as an injury-plagued down year, or it could be a sign of things to come. At 28 years old, he’s no longer young, and players like him in the historical record haven’t aged well. No player on the team has as much uncertainty in his forecast as Wall. I call that approach MILK, which I took from sports economist David Berri, who once wrote that NBA players age like milk. Those predictions aggregate into a projection of the team’s record.įor the heck of it, I’ll also include a predicted PPA based on an age-adjusted career curve. Then it looks at what those players went on to do, runs it through a fancy-schmancy algorithm and voila-predicts what the Wizards roster will do this season (DOPP). The projection system runs each player through my Statistical Doppelganger Machine, which uses an array of statistical categories to find players with similar production at a similar age. In PPA, average is 100, higher is better, and replacement level is 45. PPA is pace neutral, accounts for defense, and includes an adjustment based on the level of competition faced when a player is on the floor. In PPA, players are credited for things they do that help a team win, and debited for things that don’t-each in proportion to what causes teams to win and lose. The below projections are based on a metric I developed called Player Production Average (PPA). That percentage will likely return to normal in the regular season. Their accuracy was terrible (second worst in the preseason), but the Wizards have established themselves the past few seasons as a good shooting team. The players responded with the league’s sixth highest preseason three-point attempt rate (they were 24th last year). Scott Brooks and the coaching staff came to training camp pushing players to trade two-point jumpers for threes. Neither player figures to play a significant role with the team this season. The team claimed big man Thomas Bryant from waivers, and drafted 18-year old Troy Brown in the first round. Howard spent training camp and the preseason on the sideline with a strained back. With a hole at center, they signed Dwight Howard, an athletic superhero who’s an even iffier locker room presence than Gortat was. These additions, along with the return of Tomas Satoransky, Kelly Oubre, and Ian Mahinmi might modestly improve the bench unit. To round out the bench, they signed journeyman forward Jeff Green as a major frontcourt reserve. They managed the trade part, sending Gortat to the Clippers for guard Austin Rivers. ![]() The Wizards hit the summer intent on trading center Marcin Gortat and upgrading the bench. While there’s reason for hope, most likely the Wizards will remain a notch below Boston, Toronto, Philadelphia and Milwaukee. Washington could be in the mix, depending on how those “issues” resolve themselves throughout a long season. With LeBron James in the Western Conference, the East’s path to the Finals is wider than it has been in nearly a decade. At issue for the team is whether key players can stay healthy, whether a locker room described as “fragile” can develop cohesiveness and mental toughness, whether some of the older players can defy their historical career arcs, and whether anyone can make The Leap. If things go badly, they could hover around. If everything goes right for the team, they could crack 50 wins and make a deep playoff run. The slogan for the 2018-19 Washington Wizards: Welcome to Uncertainty.
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