The Washington Wizards Need To Focus On Developing Otto Porter, Not Kevin Durant by Ben Mehic

Is the Washington Wizards reported “eye toward 2016 free agency” (in other words #KD2DC) actually hurting the team in the interim? While the rumblings had been there for a while, #KD2DC didn’t really take off until the Washington Wizards and Trevor Ariza parted company last offseason.

The Wizards responded by signing Paul Pierce, and executing sign and trades for Kris Humphries and DeJuan Blair. The common denominator – All of their contracts are set to expire in the summer of 2016; not coincidentally the summer that Kevin Durant hits the free agent market.

Moves or non-moves that have been made in the interim, from an outsider’s perspective seem to indicate a front office mandate not to take on any significant salary cap space in 2016. Is this strategy wise though? A few questions have stood out to me regarding this strategy.

1) With the age of the roster, the Washington Wizards (5th oldest in the NBA per Basketball-Reference.com) will struggle putting together a nucleus that would attract a player of Kevin Durant’s stature.

There is only one All-Star amongst the group here currently, so it’s fair to ask whether a nucleus of John Wall, Bradley Beal, Marcin Gortat, and Otto Porter is an upgrade over what Kevin Durant is currently surrounded with.

Marcin Gortat will be 32 by the summer of 2016, Otto Porter is a big question mark, and I’m sorry, but until Bradley Beal starts playing to his potential, this is a very average core. The other key contributors to the Wizards at this time (i.e. Nene) will likely be at the tail ends of their careers.

2) The argument that the Washington Wizards can retain their expiring FAs for less (i.e. Nene) to surround KD fails because:

The Wizards will have to renounce their rights because of their cap holds if they are to sign Kevin Durant or a high priced free agent.

Players on the wrong side of 30 cannot be relied upon as core rotational players for a title run

3) For the Wizards to stay at the front of the chase (if they’re even there), they have to be on the cusp for Durant to leave his situation in OKC.

The Wizards seem to just want to keep pace, which is difficult based on the age of the roster and the limited number of young players in the pipeline to develop (Jordan Clarkson would be nice right now).

4) #KD2DC has created an atmosphere of “not yet” around the franchise. Here’s the timeline since John Wall was drafted: 1. be bad, 2. make the playoffs (even if it’s just the 8th seed), & 3. Hold steady.

There were moderate increases to the goals this past year with 50-wins and 30 homes wins being stated goals, but the organization failed to reach either.

By 2016, that will be 6 years of tempered expectations since the Washington Wizards had the number one overall selection in the 2010 draft.

At some point the bar has to be raised if they’re going to be viewed as a Tier 1 franchise/destination. The risk – when they finally decide to do that in ’16, their reputation may preclude them.

Let me clarify my stance before I go any further. I am 100% in favor of a pursuit of Durant in 2016. I hope the Wizards throw a homecoming parade for Kevin Durant as part of their recruiting pitch if he comes to Verizon Center for a visit.

What I’m not in favor of is having that pursuit, two years away; paralyze a franchise in the interim in what is a weak conference.

I reached out to Kevin Broom, of recent acclaim in this piece on the Washington Wizards with the DC Sports Bog to get his thoughts on the subject and what the Wizards could have done differently while building a core without precluding them from pursuing Kevin Durant.

Kevin, let’s start here first. Based on current projections, do the Wizards have enough cap space to make a max contract offer to Kevin Durant in 2016?

Yes, the Wizards should have enough cap room in 2016 to sign a max-salary free agent. The only way they’d get the cap space is to rid themselves of free agent cap holds. That probably won’t be a big issue because the key ones are for Nene and Pierce.

The Wizards received a TPE when they traded Andre Miller for Ramon Sessions. What other tools do the Wizards have to improve the roster this offseason or are their hands tied?

IF they’ve firmly decided they’re not going to take on salary for 2016, they’re limited to only one-year contracts. They’ll have the MLE and BAE available, and they should have roughly $10.9 million available under the luxury tax threshold. So, they could add/re-sign guys for next year.

Is it possible for the Wizards to take on any long-term salary in player acquisitions prior to ’16?

In terms of adding long-term salary, a lot depends on how much the cap will grow. I’ve seen estimates for 2016-17 anywhere from $87.2 million to $96 million.

And, there’s talk of “smoothing,” which might mean a smaller increase that could fall around $75-78 million.

IF the cap is set at $87.2 million, the max salary for Durant would be $22.7 million. Unless they trade their first round picks this year and next, they really won’t be able to add any salary for 2016 and still have room for Durant.

Depending, of course, on what they do with Beal and his $14.3 million cap hold.

They MIGHT be able to add a small contract. And, they could also trade guys to make room.

How far away do you think the current core is from being a true contender in the Eastern Conference?

I don’t think the current core is anywhere close to competing for an Eastern Conference title. Wall is good, not great. Beal and Porter have potential and might be good down the road.

The rest of the “core” is old and way more likely to get worse, not better. Recall, at the beginning of the season, I projected 45 wins because it’s a mediocre group, overall. They had a chance to do a major reconstruction, but opted to patch together older players so they could make the playoffs.

Should the Wizards be more focused on winning now versus the pursuit of Kevin Durant in 2016?

There’s definitely a strong argument for “win now” — especially in the East. What’s disheartening about the way the front office put together the team is that they could have achieved the same 42-46 win level while acquiring players with a future instead of a past.

Instead, they spent their player acquisition resources on old guys so there isn’t room to build. They’ll constantly need to replace people.

If you were in charge of the organization, what would you do different to better position this team for a pursuit of Kevin Durant?

In my view, they do a lot of bad thinking in that front office based on misidentifying problems and believing stuff that hasn’t been established. For example, they thought their problem was young players, so they shifted to pursuing veterans.

The problem, though, was two-fold: maturity and talent. They had immature players who weren’t very good. The solution was to a) get better players, and b) get mature players. There are talented, mature youngsters — some of whom were available with second round picks they traded or sold.

It’s astounding to think that the Wiz average just 1.1 years younger than the Spurs and Mavericks.

If I was in charge of the organization, the team would frankly look a lot different than it does now. The time to really change things was a couple years ago when they had cap space to ADD free agents.

They instead traded that space for Okafor and Ariza.

Given how they’d boxed themselves in, their 2014 offseason wasn’t bad.

Humphries and Blair were good pickups (especially at those salaries). They still sold their second round pick, which was not intelligent, and they didn’t add a third PG to hedge against Miller aging.

Nor did they add a good SG/SF type to compensate for Webster’s injury and Beal’s youth and overall meh production. They did get lucky during Rasual Butler‘s hot stretch earlier this season.

If I was given the team this offseason, I’d replace the coaching staff and try to get younger without sacrificing production.

I think that’s doable with the right trade partners. If not, I’d try to draft well, and maybe buy some 2nd round picks to take some shots on younger guys. (Yes, I HATE that they sell/trade these picks so cheaply. But, that’s a topic for another day.)

Are there any players outside of Kevin Durant that you would either change course for or consider a viable Plan B?

There is a move the Wizards could make this offseason that would improve the team significantly, make it younger, and leave them with the potential flexibility to do a sign-and-trade deal for Durant.

My mentioning it will make my friend Ben Becker happy, because it’s his idea — Kevin Love. Most of the other players I’d find attractive in 2016 are young guys who will probably be restricted free agents — if they become free agents at all.

If they wait and strike out with Durant, there are some stretch four types who might be nice replacements. Love could be a free agent in 2016. Ersan Ilyasova could be a sorta reclamation project bargain. Ryan Anderson is scheduled to be a free agent. Terrence Jones is interesting, if he can ever stay healthy.



There are significant questions about Durant’s long-term health now too, of course. We’ll have to see how he recovers from his bone graft surgery. Which sort of highlights the central question youâre posing: building a plan around maybe acquiring someone after two full future NBA seasons.

So much can happen that it smacks of that bad thinking I mentioned earlier. It may be that their plan is Durant or Someone Else in 2016. Or, it could be that this 2016 strategy is really just something they stumbled into when Ariza turned down the Wizards to accept a contract similar to what Washington was offering from Houston.

For more from Kevin Broom (@broom_kevin); check out his work here http://kevinbroom.com/