It's too early to take away anything meaningful from the NBA season. Even a month worth of play isn't going to tell you anything you can take away as definitive. But you can at least get a sense of things like skillsets, mindset, playsets, teasets, really any kind of sets. Here's an early look at the woes of the Wizards' bench.
The Wizards are trying to be a contender this season. They want to build off the success of last year that resulted in a second-round playoff appearance after an upset of the Bulls, and a tough series against the Pacers that the team has repeatedly said they feel they should have won.
Part of getting to that level is being able to compete through all 13 active guys. Their bench had some good signs of being great this year, after Drew Gooden's surprisingly great season last year, the Andre Miller effect, and the expected development of young guys like Glen Rice Jr. and Otto Porter.
It's early, and there are complications, but as Bullets Forever notes, the results are... not good.
We could see the problem developing during the first game against Miami, when Chris Bosh decimated the Wizards bench for 13 points in the 8 minutes Marcin Gortat was sitting, and we saw a similar story during Thursday's game against the Orlando Magic. During that game, Nikola Vucevic put up 9 points in the first 5 minutes of the 4th quarter and reignited a Magic team that was previously on the verge of being blown out.
Prior to the game, though, Randy Wittman was quick to challenge my suggestion that the second unit's defense might be the problem:
"I disagree. I think we've had to do a better job of getting ourselves in the flow of the game offensively. Turning the ball over, that makes your defense defense look worse, when the other team is in the open court, and you are not getting good shots offensively. I think they have done fine defensively, rebounding the ball, that's not been a concern."
When it comes to that second unit's offense, a big part of the problem is veteran point guard Andre Miller. Miller, who played a key role revitalizing the team's bench in the last several months of last season, hasn't proved nearly as effective this year. Through 3 games, he has yet to make a shot and has 4 assists to go with 4 turnovers in 32 minutes of play to go with an abysmal plus/minus rate. Given Miller's limitations on the defensive end, if he doesn't take the lead in the offense, he becomes a liability on the court.
When asked about his back up point guard, Wittman suggested that the team's bench issues may be more mental than physical: "We've got to play with confidence. You got an open shot, you take the open shot. Don't play timid. We're playing to that a little . . . When you do that in this league, you are going to get eaten up."
And eaten up they have been so far this season. The Wizards were outscored by 32 points in the brief time Miller was on the floor and 21 points in the 10 minutes Kevin Seraphin has played.
Perhaps the team's shortcomings are understandable when you have a guy like Chris Bosh going against your backups, but Milwaukee and Orlando are hardly a murderers row of opposition. The Wizards will have a harder time compensating for bench deficiencies against even average NBA teams.
via Wittman searches for solution to second unit's woes - Bullets Forever.
Here's a look via NBA.com at the plus/minus differential of the Wizards' bench guys vs. their starters. (Click to enlarge, all figures are points per 100 possessions.)
Gooden hasn't been good, Miller's been worse, but that Kris Humphries -24.0 points per 100 possessions is awful. Humphries struggled with the Magic bigs, with Chris Bosh, with pretty much everything.
Washington's got time to figure this out, and Otto Porter's jump is nice. They're missing Bradley Beal, which means their whole starting rotation is jacked up. Martell Webster is out, and that's really bad for the wings, especially offensively. Those two injuries could account for most of the issues.
But it's going to be a while on Beal and Webster's out indefinitely. They're going to have to figure out something in the meantime. Miller's also concerning by virtue of the fact that he's older than most species in the carbon dating index. And the impact of those struggles goes beyond game-by-game and into the need for extensive minutes from injury prone guys like Nene and guys they need to rest like John Wall for the long haul.
The Wizards are 2-1 and have put away two feisty bad teams in impressive fashion in the fourth of each game. But there's room for improvement, beyond just "getting healthy."