WASHINGTON — This is miserable basketball.
Every time the Washington Wizards step on the court, they face disadvantages.
In experience. In talent. In what’s at stake.
And it shows in the results.
The Wizards lost their 13th consecutive game Wednesday night. They got steamrolled yet again. The LA Clippers routed them 121-96 at Capital One Arena.
Even in a season in which the Wizards’ roster and playing-time decisions have been thoughtfully designed to maximize their hopes in the critical draft lottery, they already have reached an inflection point.
“All it takes is one thing to bring everything together,” guard Jordan Poole said. “But moments like this really show who loves the game, who wants to continue to work, who wants to continue to find ways to get better, who wants to get in the lab, who wants to watch film. So, it definitely tests your character, but we’ve got really good guys in that locker room.”
True, Washington has really good guys in its locker room. But even good people are imperfect. Losing is corrosive, especially this level of losing. Lots of teams in NBA history have done what the Wizards are doing — playing for lottery odds and calling it “player development” — and many of those teams have hindered their young players’ growth in the process.
Let’s make this clear: In rebuilding, in racing to the bottom of the league standings, the Wizards are doing what they must do in search of a brighter future. In the NBA, a team simply must have at least one star to contend (and preferably, two stars or more). The best way for Washington to bring aboard high-level talent is through the draft. If the Wizards finish with the league’s worst record, they would still be unlikely to win the top pick and have the right to draft Cooper Flagg or Ace Bailey. But having the worst record at least would ensure they would receive no worse than the fifth pick.
At 2-15, Washington is where it needs to be. It’s the league’s worst record.
Still, that race-to-the-bottom approach often creates collateral damage. Can Bub Carrington, Bilal Coulibaly, Kyshawn George and Alex Sarr emerge unscathed from all this losing and keep growing?
“To me, we don’t really have a choice,” George said as he sat at his locker after Wednesday’s loss. “It’s too easy to just give up, and you lean on the people that are around you. I think we have a great group of guys as persons that hold each other accountable. We’re all working toward the same goal — the players and the coaching staff and the whole organization. So, it’s too easy to just say, ‘OK, this is what it is, and we’re not going to get better.’”
The Wizards have guardrails in place. The basketball operations department tracks players’ individual progress in excruciating detail and, every 10- and 25-game period, meets with each player to see if he is fulfilling the goals that have been set for him. Hey, it’s not holding someone accountable in the same way that winning and losing games holds people accountable. But it is something.
There are also legit, well-respected veterans on the team, a group headed by 31-year-old Malcolm Brogdon and 32-year-old Jonas Valančiūnas. After Tuesday night’s 127-108 loss to the Chicago Bulls, Brogdon told a few of his Wizards teammates something Nate McMillan, his former coach in Indiana, used to say. When times got tough, McMillan would remind his players they needed to “believe” in themselves and believe they would win soon.
Continued growth from youngsters such as rookie Kyshawn George is a top priority for the Wizards this season. (Jordan Godfree / Imagn Images)
Brogdon tends to pick his spots to offer words of wisdom to younger players. Do it too often and you run the risk of being tuned out. Tuesday, however, Brogdon thought he needed to say something because too often he has seen the Wizards start games well but begin to hang their heads the moment an opponent goes on a run. Then everything snowballs.
Wednesday was one of those nights when everything escalated. Washington trailed by 17 at halftime and 33 midway through the fourth quarter. It didn’t help that Kyle Kuzma left the game late in the first quarter because of a sprained left rib and didn’t return. Even though Kuzma has not played to his standards this season, he’s one of the few guys on the team who can generate a bucket for himself and take some of the pressure to execute off the youngsters.
Much has been made recently about the Wizards’ effort, but that’s been overblown to some extent. Yes, there have been a few times when the effort was subpar, namely the Nov. 18 loss to the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden, when the Wizards lost 134-106.
The truth is coach Brian Keefe is playing so many youngsters so heavily — and so heavily simultaneously — that it’s not realistic to expect the team to play with any level of consistency. Carrington and Sarr are only 19. Coulibaly and George are just 20. They’re talented players, but they’re also supremely inexperienced. They’re going to make mistakes. Wednesday night, for instance, the trio of Coulibaly, Sarr and George played 14 minutes together, and during that stretch, the Clippers outscored the Wizards by 23 points.
The concern is not just that Washington is losing. It’s how badly it’s losing. Wednesday marked the 10th time in 15 defeats that the Wizards have lost by at least 15 points.
“It’s still really, really early, but to run into this much adversity early stinks — and stings,” swingman Corey Kispert said. “It’s testing the culture that we put in, the deposits that we’ve implemented. But there’s still a lot of positivity within the room, and there’s still a lot of encouragement and positive attitudes within the room, as well. So, while things are tough, they’re not toxic and not unbearable.”
Still, with games upcoming against the Milwaukee Bucks, Cleveland Cavaliers, Dallas Mavericks, Denver Nuggets and Memphis Grizzlies, it’s difficult to envision the Wizards winning anytime soon.
This is likely to get worse before it gets better.
Poole offered the best perspective of the night. From 1995 to 2012, the Warriors were pretty much an afterthought outside of the Bay Area. But once the team brought aboard Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green and kept Curry healthy, Golden State wound up winning four NBA titles.
The effort to draft the next Curry, Thompson or Green is why Washington is rebuilding and enduring so much pain.
“Every organization has to go through tough times in order to figure out what the good times are like, if that makes sense,” Poole said. “We’ve got to figure it out. We’re building a foundation. We’re laying pieces. It’s not supposed to be easy.”
In other words, the Wizards are taking their medicine, and that medicine is going to leave an awful taste in their mouths. Mired in a terrible stretch and with more adversity likely to follow, can they emerge with their spirit intact?
(Top photo of Malcolm Brogdon: Reggie Hildred / Imagn Images)
