What is krak alac in, Fellow thermonuclear affors, I am Dan the Valley
coming at you with an emergency mini pod segment thing. Because the Wizards,
the most popular franchise in the NBA, that's gonna drive a ton of traffic
to this podcast and YouTube channel got rid of demoted. They really fired Westnzel
Junior. And I didn't want to put this. We have a very big
episode, it's like eighty minutes long. I talked about the Toronto Raptors direction
with Samson Folk going up on a Friday, and I didn't really feel like
attaching Wizards talk to that was a little bit too random, whether you put
at the beginning or the end. So the Wizards get rid of Westnzel Junior.
Everyone could kind of see this coming from the moment that the Wizards changed
their front office regime, having Michael Winger having Will Dawkins in charge. The
timing here though, is interesting, and they did, and I think it
was more a show of he has connections to the franchise, and you don't
really ever want to have a lame duck coach in the NBA, even though
it's essentially what he was. Because of the front office regime change. They
picked up his team option, and so it's just whatever. The coaches don't
count against a salary cap, and he was not one of the higher paid
coaches in the league anyway. Whether it was a solid because of his connections
of the organization, whether it's because they actually wanted to make sure that players
respected him, didn't view him as a lame duck coach, combination of the
two. He's now moving into a front office role, which is just that
could be a no show type of role. He does have, again,
connections to the organization, so maybe it won't be. The timing is interesting,
and I think it boils down to one reason why it's not necessarily the
overarching product. Although the Wizards are pretty bad. I think that he specifically
and the team in general, is failing the development of balla Coolabali and anyone
who's listened to this channel, this podcast before read any of my work over
at Bleach Report knows I think the world the block Wi Bali is a prospect
and he has you know, he's slumping over the past month or so,
but he's having a pretty good year. He is a lot more polished than
people expected coming out of the NBA Draft. The three point shooting again down
now and it can be a little slow, but he was hitting him.
He has a terror in transition. He has the ability to attack some of
the open spaces with the ball in his hands, to get rid of the
ball and make decisions when he's moving downhill with some live dribble stuff. That
ability is all there, in addition to shouldering this incredible defensive workload where he's
essentially just on the opposition's best player a ton of the time. And to
do that as a rookie for basically twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven
minutes a game, that's a big deal. And in that aspect, wes
Unseld being willing to throw him I mean, not that you have all these
other great options, but wes Unsel Junior being able to throw him on the
opposition's best player or experimenting with that, deserves some credit there. Even some
of the ways that the Wizards used him in transition. However, you start
to look at it and just on the season, his usage rate is so
incredibly low. He's basically just near the bottom of the barrel in I think
he's eighth in touches per game for this team, and that's actually been down.
His touches have been down since the start of January. We've seen him
get very little agency to explore his own creation on the offensive end. I
mean, this is someone who's usage rate on the year is incredibly low.
And since January, the only rotation player on the Wizards since the start of
January to have a lower usage rate than Blaa Kolabali is Daniel Gafford. And
so you have a lower usage rate than Delon Wright who just doesn't even want
to finish plays other than with a pass, which isn't factored into to usage
rate. There are some total usage stats out there, usage rates just taking
into account possessions that end in free throws, turnovers or shot attempts. And
Delon Wright doesn't want to shoot, like we just Delon Wright doesn't want to
score. So to be behind him is just why. But to be behind
guys like a Corey kiss Bert, yeah one thing, Jordan Poole, Kyle
Kuzma. But to be behind Marvin Bagley since he's come over, and to
see him get more feature, to have more touches per game in the front
court, no less than bla cool BALI that is a failure, and I
recognize that cool Bally could be hitting a rookie wall. We're more than halfway
through the season. He wasn't necessarily playing a ton for the Metropolitan ninety nine
I think what are they called? But he was with Victor Mnyama last year,
so he wasn't playing a ton dealing with more games, more minutes.
Again, your defensive workload has just verged on in insanity for a rookie,
I would say, so, I get that element, and that could account
for some of the efficiency drop off and the way that the Wizards have played.
It's really benefited Denny Abdia this year. Tyas Jones has had some really
good stretches. Jordan Poole's largely played like dogshit. Kyle Kuzma. I still
tend to be higher on Kyle Kuzma's played both on offensive defense than the consensus.
I don't know when that happened, because I was probably lower than the
consensus while he was on the Lakers. But for the past year years,
while he's been in Washington and even kind of the end of his Lakers tenure,
I've just been a little bit higher on him. And so yes,
there are bright spots individually on this team, and you could point to other
flaws for the Wizards as to why you would make this decision, and that's
they don't have guiding principles they've been I think that, Look, the defense
looks really bad at certain points, and the effort can be terrible on certain
plays. They've done a little bit of a better job of like kind of
getting at the low hanging fruit. They're not fouling a ton. They don't
give up a ton of wide open jumpers relative to the rest of the league.
Now, part of that is going to be because they can just get
attacked and there's very little resistance outside of deniavia Blah Kulabali Kyle Kuzma. At
a certain stants you have Delane Wright, and I do think individually they have
some guys, whether it's Daniel Gafford, even Tias Jones, at some points
everyone relaxed. I understand what Tyas Jones is on defense where they can provide
some resistance straight up one on one, and the Wizards have actually been one
of the better isolation defenses in the league this year on those possessions, and
I do think that matches with the eye test, by the way, but
when you start to throw wrinkles into the equations and you've got guys moving off
the ball or even more basically, they just don't know how to defend when
screening action is involved, or they could die on screens, or they're getting
lost. There's miscommunications on whether they are they trying to trap or they trying
to hedge, or they stunting, what are they doing and you can just
tell in those moments. There's only one team in the league that is worse
at defending off screens right now than Washington, and I think it's it's either
Portland or at San Antonio or just one of the bottom feeding teams. And
so to be in that position to not have more discipline on the defensive end,
to go through moments where their transition defense could be worse, but there's
also just stretches where it feels like guys aren't getting back or don't care to
get back, and then you just don't have this guiding principle in general,
where it's what do the Wizards do? They play fast and chaotic because they're
at a talent deficit, and that's what you do when you're at a talent
deficit is you play fast, you play chaotic, and yeah, there's there
can be some entertainment value in that, and it can work like for certain
stances, but it's not gonna be conducive to the most efficient offense. And
so you look at the Wizards right now offensively, I don't think you could
even say aside from speed, which they're guiding principle, and they're not even
I mean, they're top four in average offensive possession time, so they're playing
really fast, and they're fifth in average possession time after a made shot.
So the fact that speed is your guiding principle, okay, cool, and
that you're gonna run after every defensive rebound, where the only team playing faster
after defensive rebounds is the Spurs, another team at a conventional half court talent
deficit, no one plays faster after forcing turnovers than the Wizards, and they're
actually averaging one point four points per possession after a turnover that is second in
the league. That's a big fricking deal. But when you're gonna look at
this team, well, they're not really forcing turnovers and droves. They're about
league average there or worse in that department. And so that is not even
part of their identity. Like I said, they don't foul a lot,
they don't give up with a wide open looks. I do think a lot
of that has to do with just the overall resistance when you're gonna have guys
moving off the ball, being able to get downhill, so getting away from
jumpers, and being able to get to the rim, which by the way,
teams have done against the Wizards. It feels like since the Dawn of
Time is really just it predates It's an issue that predates west Anzel Junior,
of course, but this year specifically, like, yes, you've been able
to in the previous three seasons, I think the Wizards were very good at
not limiting opponent shots at the rim, and this year they're just twenty fifth
in opponent rim or tenph frequency. That's what I know. And then the
resistance I was referring to, the Wizards have been basically like bottom five in
raw opponent percentage at the rim. For it feels like the Dawn of Time
they've been pretty bad there, and so the lack of gtting principles factors into
it. But even amid some of the bright spots, you are failing the
most important player in the organization in Black Kulabali by not testing the depths of
his offense more. It can be ugly. And I have been a big
proponent of well, you want to streamline the roles of this, so him
being in more of a you know, toned down roll, it can't benefit
him if you have other guys you're evaluating for the long term, and it's
we know Kyle Kusman is not gonna be part of the bigger picture here,
we know Jordan Poole. They probably don't want to be a part of the
bigger picture, even though they might be stuck with him for a couple of
seasons. Tyas Jones will probably be traded, Delon Wright will probably be traded.
There's Denny Avdya, and even he might be traded just because there are
so many teams that are gonna be interested in him, and it's easier to
move guys while they're on the poison pill provision now than ever if you're dealing
with a non tax team. Even for tax teams like there's workarounds for it,
especially when you're dealing with the salary that's as modest as his. Both
now and win is extension kicks in and that's when you factor and base your
compensation. So I understand the idea of what we want to play in a
way where we don't want ballall to be baptized by fire at both ends.
He's being baptized by fire on defense. I get that. But like when
you have a lack of long term coherence in general, we'll find out more
about this player, especially because he's ahead of the curve. There's no reason.
Just as an example, one pick and roll possession as the ball handler
per game for Black Cool Bali, and that's been down since the start of
January. One possession that should be at least doubled or tripled to where just
three possessions just to see what happens. So he gets a feel for larve,
dribble playmaking, for what to do and kind of the in between zones
against how defenses are gonna cover him. Can he work on the pull up
jumper at all? There hasn't been enough of that, and so I believe
that's the primary reason Western Soelt Junior was fired and then there's a reassigned I'm
sorry. The other thing to note here, though, is the timing is
still interesting because well, most people probably expect that allow cool Bali's role will
increase in prominence after the trade deadline, when I would bet you know,
between Tyus Jones, Denny Avda, Delon Wright, Kyle Kuzma, and Jordan
Poole, he's not gonna get traded. That'd be shocked if he did.
But like between that group, probably two of those guys are getting traded,
so there should be more touches to go around. Maybe you start to see
shenanigans where Jordan Poole and Kuzma aren't playing as much down the stretch of the
year, not because they're hurting your tank, we know Jordan Poole is not,
but because you want to get some of these other guys touches. I
think the bigger thing here is, well, Brian Keif he has ties to
Will Dawkins and Michael Winger from their days in Oklahoma City together, and the
relationship between the three of them has been described as I think Josh Robbins of
the Athletics said strong, and that matters. The other thing is you make
the move because you want Brian Keith to be a candidate. You might be
interested to him to be the permanent head coach. I'm not saying they shouldn't
hold an extensive search after the season. All the reporting states that they will,
in fact hold a comprehensive search, as they should. We'll see who's
available. I think Kenny Atkins is a name to keep an eye on.
They might be in the mix for like a David Vanderpool. They probably will,
I think gravitate towards someone who doesn't have a ton of head coaching experience,
or any head coaching experience at all. But Brian keif if you're looking
at this guy, you're saying, well, we want to see what he
can do because we believe he might actually be a viable head coaching prospect.
And I won't say this is an excuse for not holding an extensive search once
the season's over. And there could just be other guys that lose their job
around the league that all of a sudden become very interesting for this team.
I can't think of necessarily one off the top of my head. You're not
this is not oh Adrian Griffin, or if Chauncey Billups gets fired in Portland,
and then you know, if you know, if Steve Kerr his contract
is up in Golden State. He's not gonna go to Washington. Or Greg
Popovitch leaves the Spurs, He's he's going to retire, and so like you're
looking at some of these other options, I don't know, you know,
Billy Donovan gets bounced. I mean, he's signed the secret extension. That's
not someone that you're gonna want in Washington. But I'm just saying there could
be other candidates that become available that really interests them. I think it's more
so that they believe in Brian Keith, and so the team wasn't good,
They've probably underachieved, excuse me, relative to the talent on the roster,
just by not having guiding principles on the court and then the blah cool bali
stuff. That's that's the bigger one for me. And that's not to say
I don't think the person that was good enough for west Son Segnior you do
a much better job. But if you're not connecting with the players, and
if your biggest kind of developmental victory this season is look at what Denny Avviy
is doing. And it's because Denny Aubrey just has this more dominant role and
it's well, why didn't this happen sooner? You were in a position even
before the Bradley Beal trade to do it because of all the injuries that you
were slopping through a lot to see what this leads to. I wouldn't predict
necessarily that Brian Keethy's still the head is still the head coach at the start
of next season. But you make this move for two underlying reasons. Two
that's my firm belief here. It has nothing to do with well, it's
very little to do with expectations. It's the blow cooler Bolly developmental arc should
be on a more accelerated and aggressive trajectory than it is right now because he's
better than expected. And then you're actually very much interested in Brian Keith being
the guy moving forward. Those are my thoughts. Please remember to rate,
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