Washington Wizards’ Gary Neal Has Become A Legitimate Sixth Man

For whatever reason, the Washington Wizards have traditionally gotten lit up by streaky shooters. Gary Neal, a Baltimore native, had always seemed to perform well against the Wizards when he came to town.

After the Wizards signed Neal to a one-year contract this past summer, I questioned the fit.

Randy Wittman had numerous chances to coach streaky shooters and their careers never panned out. Jordan Crawford and Glen Rice Jr. both showed promise, but ultimately found themselves inside Wittman’s doghouse.

While neither of those two players are stellar and their careers probably wouldn’t have worked out regardless of Wittman’s influence, the Washington Wizards stayed away from players who were deemed streaky.

This season, though, it became clear that Washington wanted to introduce a system that’s focused on increased pace and space, so they had to add players that could play multiple positions and hit shots from deep.

Neal, who’s typically a shooting guard, is capable of playing along side John Wall and Bradley Beal. Still, even though he fit well on paper, I was worried that Wittman would ultimately turn to Garrett Temple, who fit his archaic system better than Neal.

Surprisingly, Wittman has allowed Neal to play through his early mistakes. Neal played three years under Gregg Popovich prior to joining numerous other clubs, so he was familiar with the system Washington wanted to run. Don Newman, who also coached under Pop and is currently Washington’s lead assistant, helped Neal’s transition become even more seamless.

Over the past three games, Neal has averaged 17 points off the bench on 63 percent shooting.

There’s really no in-between with Gary Neal: he’s either really good or really bad.

Right now, Neal is playing at an extremely high level. He’s hitting roughly half of his shots from the field and nearly 46 percent of his shots from beyond the 3-point arc — both career highs. Every time Neal throws up a shot, it seems like it’s going to go in. He’s hitting runners, floaters, layups in traffic, pull-up threes, spot up threes and virtually every other shot you can think of.

I’m terribly afraid that Ernie Grunfeld is going to give Gary Neal a max contract next summer. That’s a joke…but seriously.

Neal has suddenly become one of Washington’s most reliable players. This is the same guy who often struggled to shoot 40 percent from the field, by the way.

With that said, this type of efficient shooting isn’t sustainable. Last season Rasual Butler was atop the league in 3-point percent, often sitting next to Stephen Curry and Kyle Korver on the rankings. Unfortunately, Butler regressed and was taken out of the team’s rotation.

I wouldn’t expect that sort of decline for Neal, but I also wouldn’t anticipate him hitting over 60 percent of his shots off the bench.

Neal has done a fantastic job of limiting his bad shots and he’s played within the flow of the offense. He’s not forcing it and he’s become the ultimate bail out player. With Wall and Beal on the court, Neal hasn’t needed to do much of the ball-handling, but he’s more than capable of producing his own shot when called upon.

It’s been a very long time since the Washington Wizards had a player like Gary Neal on their roster. His ridiculously hot shooting will cool off, but for now, Neal is one of the best bench players in the NBA. When that decline happens, let’s just hope it’s not as drastic as it has potential to be.