The Washington Wizards may be the most disappointing team in the NBA through 20 games at 7-13. They have been unable to build any chemistry or momentum with either unit and despite being relatively healthy and talented, they look lethargic and are nowhere near a playoff team.
If you want an example of how bad things are in the nation’s capital (and how bad they will be very soon, but that’s another story) all you need to do is look at the Wizards last game at home against the Orlando Magic. They allowed one of the five worst scoring teams in the NBA score 124 points and beat them by eight points on their own home floor, in spite of John Wall’s career-high, 52 point effort.
As you can imagine, the Wizards star point guard is none too happy with the state of affairs in the nation’s capital and is calling out his team for their lack of effort.
Here is what he told CSN Mid-Atlantic Wednesday afternoon after practice:
“Our job is to wake up and just play hard. Before you made it to the NBA or got a college scholarship, you played hard every day to get to where you wanted to,” said Wall, who had surgeries to both knees May 5. “To still be talking about playing hard, that’s something that you should be able to do after just waking up. Everybody has a job and they have to go work hard. Our job is to come here and play hard and compete. That’s the easiest thing that you should do without any contracts or any money, just come in and play basketball … if I had the answer we wouldn’t be in this situation.”
John Wall has a point. Despite his play, Otto Porter’s emergence and the healthy return of Bradley Beal, the Wizards can’t get out of the NBA cellar.
It is clear there needs to be a big roster or personnel shake-up in some way as this current iteration of the Wizards is growing stale and not gelling. There needs to be some winds of change in order to improve the situation and get the Wizards out of their funk.
What is ironic about all of this is if the effort continues to be bad and the Wizards continue to free fall the most prudent and likely shake-up for the Wizards may involve Wall himself being dealt. Beal just signed a massive extension and won’t find many takers and the Wizards are unlikely to part with emerging and potential future all-star forward Otto Porter as he is the sort of secondary piece they would want to have as a focal point of a rebuild.
If the Wizards continue to struggle, expect their roster to look different by the time the trade deadline passes.
