2013-14 Finish: 30-52

 

Season Highlight:

This one's for the fans! Darko went all-in early in the season. Ownership gave him a clear mandate to go out and get a true superstar to put butts in the seat. And he did just that by pulling in Carmelo Anthony, one of the best scorers in the league and way up their on the star power/name recognition scale.

 

Season Lowlight:

The record... certainly the thought when trading your two young building blocks and a first round pick for a star getting towards the waning years of his prime is that you're making a push and really going for it. There were questions about whether the direction was a wise one at the time, considering the powers at the top of the East, but I don't think any of them could have predicted finishing 14 games out of the playoffs. Much of this is due to the real low point of the season, when Marc Gasol went down with an injury that cost him nearly half of the season and really upset any potential playoff push the Wizards were hoping for.

 

Best Trade:

 The Miami Heat send Marc Gasol to the Washington Wizards.

 The Washington Wizards send Willie Cauley-Stein to the Utah Jazz.

I almost shied away from choosing this one as the best, because when you aren't a playoff team, it's probably not the best idea to trade your high lottery pick center for a center that is 8 years older. However, especially at the time of the move (in the offseason before his injury), Gasol was easily considered a top 3 center, Cauley-Stein was unproven and not slated to get much time in the NBA. In the same draft that the #1 pick and another first fetched another top 3 center, flipping the 9th pick for one seemed great... even if there was a significant age difference.

 

Worst Trade:

The Houston Rockets send Carmelo Anthony and Donald Sloan to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Gordon Hayward and Isaiah Thomas to the Houston Rockets.

The Washington Wizards send a 1st-Rounder (Was) to the Houston Rockets.

 

The Houston Rockets receive 5 GM points. The Washington Wizards trade -5 GM points.

A bit hypocritical to pick a trade for one of their over 30 stars as the best move and the other as the worst, but I didn't really like this deal when it went down, even assuming that Washington would be in the hunt for the playoffs, but after failing to live up to expectations it looks like it could have doomed the future. Looking forward another 2 years to the time of the 2018 draft, the Wizards are potentially sitting on Gasol (33) and Carmelo (34) coming off of seasons in which they played 60 games each - pretty normal for players in their mid 30s, especially that have taken the beating these two have for so long. The missed games cause them to miss the playoffs again, and badly... they don't have their lottery pick to start bringing in a fresh core, and Isaiah Thomas and Gordon Hayward are just hitting their stride as borderline all-stars on the front end of their prime. It's possible Thomas and Hayward both contributed as much to the Rockets individually as Melo did to the Wizards, just imagine how that balance will shift after another two years!

 

Other Notable Trades:

The Detroit Pistons send Spencer Hawes to the Washington Wizards. The New York Knicks send Jameer Nelson to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Joe Ingles to the Detroit Pistons. The Washington Wizards send J.J. Hickson to the New York Knicks.

The New York Knicks send a 2nd-Rounder (NY) and 2nd-Rounder (NY) to the Detroit Pistons.

I think Darko got solid value here. Hawes and Nelson are both good veteran contributors. Hickson isn't even in the league any more and Ingles isn't anything special. It's too bad they weren't in a position to turn those two extra rotation pieces into a playoff appearance, but I really liked this from a value proposition.

 

The Philadelphia 76ers send Kevin Martin to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Charlie Villanueva to the Orlando Magic. The Washington Wizards send Evan Turner to the Philadelphia 76ers.

The Orlando Magic use their trade exception over $ 1,499,187.

The Orlando Magic trade -6 GM points.The Washington Wizards receive 6 GM points.

Martin seems like an older version of Turner, so making this trade in the late stages of the season after they'd been effectively eliminated from the playoff race felt very odd. Martin has since left the league and is trying to catch onto another team in hopes of chasing a title. Turner would have at least afforded them the possibility of convincing him to come back in free agency.

 

The New Orleans Pelicans send Trey Burke to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Jared Sullinger to the New Orleans Pelicans.

Burke seems a bit of a bust at this point and Sullinger is kind of up in the air. It's a bit of a lateral move, but the Wizards wanted a point guard as opposed to a power forward, so they got a good positional fit.

 

The Boston Celtics send Matthew Dellavedova to the Washington Wizards. The Washington Wizards send Randy Foye to the Boston Celtics.

The Washington Wizards send a 2nd-Rounder (Was) to the Boston Celtics.

The Boston Celtics receive 5 GM points. The Washington Wizards trade -5 GM points.

Dellavedova has a bit more value than Foye in my eyes and the 2nd round pick and points that were sent out reflect that. This seemed like a pretty even deal at the time and still does today. There's a bit of me that wants to ask "why?" as it seems inconsequential for both teams with not much to be gained. I guess maybe Darko trying to control the future with restricted free agency instead of Foye unrestriced, but he didn't overpay to do it.

 

Best FA Signing:

Marcus Morris - They were able to lure Marcus Morris back by swearing to match all offers on his very affordable contract. He went on to have a pretty strong season, playing in 71 games and starting 50 of them. Darko would have been reeling had Morris managed to secure a big enough offer sheet to wiggle his way out of Washington, but was relieved to have him back in the end.

 

Worst FA Signing:

James Anderson - This guy seems like could be a rotation player on some teams, and yet he keeps alternating years in the league and taking off to play in Europe. Anderson didn't do much to hurt the Wizards, but most of the rest of their signings (Morris in addition to Mirza Teletovic and Nick Collison) all played a decent role on the team.

 

Star:

Carmelo Anthony - There are two stars on this team - Melo and Gasol. Melo played in 69 games this year and Gasol played in 49. That really makes the decision easy. What makes it tougher, is that giving up a King's ransom of their future to reel him in, he averaged a CAREER LOW in points per game on a team that desperatly needed him to carry them. At this point it's hard to tell if it is age catching up to him or just bad coaching, but Melo better hope for a big bounch back year to avoid falling from "Star" to "Goat".

 

Surprise:

Marcus Morris - It's not that he was expected to do poorly and that he did wonderfully, but there was legitmate talk last offseason about whether the "other" Morris had just gotten here because of his brother. He proved that he is a solid player that can find time on nearly any team, and that given the right environment, could be a consistent starter. With Melo and Gasol healthy, he should be a great compliment in the stretch 4 role.

 

Goat:

Marc Gasol - this may be in feeling more than actuality, but when Gasol went down with his injury all of the wind seemed to come out of the sails for the Wizards. There was a lot of positive energy and talk of making the playoffs. It's hard to hold a player personally accountable for an unfortunate injury, but when it derails the season you kind of have to.

 

Draft Report Card:

Like every other year, the Wizards' approach on drafting can be summed up in 1 word: DON'T! They're always one of the handful of teams that finds any way possible to milk value out of their picks before they happen, often coming up with creative circumventions of the Stepien rule in order to do so. The average age of both the team and of the starters is in the 30s, and that is actually misleadingly dragged downward by the 23 year old Trey Burke. The Wizards could really use some draft picks, especially if their own will be landing in lottery territory... but for this draft, there's nothing to grade.

 

Looking to the Future:

There are two ways to look at this team... one with two players that are in the top handful at their position with a few decent role players around them. They've got the ability to pull together, pull the right levers, and make the playoffs - but do they have more of that than seven other Eastern Conference teams? Right now, I feel like the future has been mortgaged for a present that was never realized. Melo and Gasol coming together this season and making a dominant pairing is absolutely critical, or the team needs to be blown up to make up ground on where they were just a year ago. The current roster isn't nearly as bleak unaccomplished as many teams in the league, but the problem is most of those other teams are 1-2 years ahead in stockpiling youth and draft picks to make that not the case going forward.

 

Upcoming Free Agents:

Matthew Dellavedova (RFA) - Washington has been shopping for a Delly sign and trade hard. It's unclear whether the Wizards would bring him back if they don't find anything to their liking. In my opinion, he may be their best perimeter player, especially when factoring in that the ball will be in Melo or Gasol's hands in the halfcourt. Delly could be a good off-ball compliment to those guys, and at this stage in the game I don't think the Wizards can let good rotation players walk out the door... even if the pricetag seems pretty steep.