Washington Wizards, 2015-16 Player Previews

Jared Dudley, 2014-15 regular season stats: 7.2 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 1.8 APG, 47% FG%, 39% 3P%, 23.8 minutes, 72 games

The Washington Wizards’ flashiest offseason acquisitions – with apologies to Kelly Oubre’s shoes – were met with little fanfare around the rest of the league. While San Antonio nabbed LaMarcus Aldridge and Dallas swiped Wesley Matthews, Washington was quietly trying to replace the larger-than-life presence of Paul Pierce, and do so with three players rather than just one.

The headliner of that group is Jared Dudley, as he represents the best chance to provide Pierce’s invaluable locker room leadership along with the ability to stretch the floor from the power forward spot and continue the emergence of small ball as a vital asset both during the regular season as well as the playoffs.

Entering his 9th season in the league, Dudley has carved out a niche in the NBA as an outstanding role player and a vocal teammate. In his most recent stint with the Milwaukee Bucks, Dudley helped shepherd a group of NBA neophytes to a playoff appearance just one season removed from a league-low 15 wins.

During that season, Coach Jason Kidd realized the potential of using Dudley as a part-time 4-man, rotating with Irsan Ilyasova and John Henson to provide some more grit in the front court along with famed string bean Giannis Antentokounmpo.

This was partly due to circumstance after rookie Jabari Parker tore his ACL before the New Year but as the saying goes, necessity is the mother of invention.

As we now look to this upcoming season and Dudley is now going from an experimental role to a full-time resource at power forward. Coach Randy Wittman finally gave in to his foolishly stubborn ways and employed a much more modern offense in the playoffs.

Granted, Dudley will start the season inactive after undergoing back surgery literally weeks after the signing became official to correct a herniated disc.

He is reported to be ahead of schedule, but let’s assume he misses the first month and takes another 3-4 weeks to work his way back into playing shape.

Entering next January, Dudley should be all systems go as Washington enters a critical fight for home court advantage in the playoffs.

I expect to see him share the court often with Otto Porter, while comfortably sliding down to small forward when Washington wants to go big and pair either Nene or Kris Humphries with Marcin Gortat.

Dudley is a career 40% 3-point shooter and assuming the natural uptick with playing beside Wall, his efficiency and hopefully frequency from deep will increase in correlated fashion.

Aside from the positives of his outside shooting, there are parts of his game that do worry me.

He is not going to do much off the dribble, and unless Playoff Bradley Beal emerges for 82 games, the Washingtno Wizards may be missing an off-the-bounce creator. Dudley also does not draw many shooting fouls. He averaged just 1.6 FTAs per 36 minutes last season.

Defensively, Dudley did not do much to harm the no.1 ranked defense in the NBA, and he even sported a career high 2.1 Defense Win Shares. Although he may not be known as the same type of ball stopper in this stage of his career, he is more light footed and quick to defend than Pierce.

Given how many teams sport either a non-traditional frontcourt or big men that can extend the floor, I’d rather have Dudley than Nene follow those players out to the perimeter while letting Gortat clean the glass (it helps to have great rebounding guards).

Overall, considering the bare minimum the Washington Wizards gave up to acquire Dudley, I couldn’t be happier with this move. The news of his injury slightly tempered my expectations but as long as he’s healthy by the all-star break, Washington should have plenty of time to work him in to the rotation and get him comfortable with the team’s stars.

Dudley may not be the type to call ‘game’ or call out Drake, but for a backup option to all that comes with The Truth, this team could’ve done much worse.