#SoWizards

The Washington Wizards made one deal at the trade deadline, sending starting center Daniel Gafford to the Dallas Mavericks in exchange for a first round pick and center Richaun Holmes.

Holmes is on the wrong side of 30 and hasn't been much good in a few years now. Gafford is pretty good and just 25 years old, so what gives?

Ben Becker and I break down what the Wizards front office is likely thinking and discuss what the lack of trades involving Kyle Kuzma, Tyus Jones, Delon Wright, Landry Shamet, and Corey Kispert says about the state of the Wizards.

The Washington Wizards replaced Wes Unseld Jr. as head coach, moving Unseld into a front office advisory role, and promoting lead assistant Brian Keefe to be interim head coach. When the team makes a big move, there's no one better to discuss it with than old friend and podcast partner Ben Becker.

Ben and I have been talking and analyzing the Wizards for 20+ years now. This conversation is the latest edition of what a listener once described as what it might sound like if NPR had a show about the Washington Wizards.

In this episode, we talk about Unseld, the challenge of rebuilding a franchise as decayed as the Wizards had become, and the long-term strategy the team's new leadership — Michael Winger, Will Dawkins, and Travis Schlenk — are pursuing as they attempt to resuscitate a long moribund franchise.

With the Washington Wizards set to face the Indiana Pacers Wednesday night, it seemed like a great time to catch up with current Pacers journalist and Bullets Forever alum Tony East. In this episode, we talked about what makes Tyrese Haliburton special, Haliburton's hamstring injury, and what the Pacers do well and not so well before diving into the Wizards.

Tony's attention is primarily on the Pacers, but he watches a lot of Wizards basketball, which leads to some great insights into how Washington's rebuild is going. We hit on a number of Wizards topics, including:

• the struggles of Jordan Poole
• who the Wizards are likely to trade
• whether "showcasing" players makes a difference
• the improvement of Deni Avdija
• the puzzling approach to developing Bilal Coulibaly into a future NBA star.

This was a fun conversation about two teams going in different directions.

Brian McCormick has coached at an array of levels in leagues around the world and has written books about basketball fundamentals, skills development, how to become a great shooter, running practices, and building an effective offensive system.

I invited him on to discuss the unique challenges faced by Wes Unseld Jr. and his staff as they attempt to lead a team at step one of a total rebuild.

We delved into the problems Jordan Poole is having as he tries to make the Washington Wizards "his" team, how Unseld and the assistant coaches can help him, and the delicate line they have to tread between correcting mistakes and expanding possibilities.

We also talked about how coaches approach a rebuilding situation like the Wizards where the players know they're going to lose and that most of them won't be around in a few years when the team is ready to compete.

Last, we touched on some ways outsiders can assess how good a job a coach is doing.

This conversation expanded how I think about coaching and player development. Coaches have to balance an array of competing forces as they try to help their players improve and guide their team to wins. McCormick helped unpack what some of those competing forces are and what coaches to do to manage them.

The Wizards are off to a 1-5 start, which is to be expected from a team that lacked talent in recent years and traded away its two best players.

In this episode, I'm joined by Osman Baig from Bullets Forever to discuss the team's start, what we're seeing on the floor and from the coaching staff, and what the team needs to build a future winner.

Along the way, we hit topics like:

• how non-competitive the team has been through their first six games
• the profound lack of talent on the roster
• what the coaching staff is doing well and could do better.

We also analyze the development of Bilal Coulibaly and Deni Avdija, and dig into the play of the team's veterans.

This one gets nerdy at times (the whole time?), especially when we get into pick-and-roll coverages, X closeouts, and offensive system design.

For this episode, Kevin cracked open the mailbag and answered some questions, including:

• Thoughts on the NBA's Player Impact Estimate metric and how it compares to Kevin's Player Production Average (PPA)
• How Jordan Poole compares to James Harden and Gilbert Arenas, each of whom changed teams early in their careers, and
• Additional thoughts on teen rookies and Bilal Coulibaly.

Next episode: forecasting the upcoming season with Osman Baig.

After a discussion of the relative merits of Dallas and Houston, we got down to talking hoops. We kicked around our impressions of the Wizards' summer league performance, whether Corey Kispert can be more than a specialist, and our divergent thoughts on how the team will perform relative to the Vegas over/under of 24.5 wins.

Along the way, here's a partial list of basketball names mentioned: Kobe Bryant, Wilt Chamberlain, Magic Johnson, Gilbert Arenas, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and Bill Russell.

We got into some history in this one.

In this episode, Ron and Kevin analyze the Wizards draft, including trading up a pick to select 18-year old French wing Bilal Coulibaly, and moving back in round two to land Serbian big man Tristan Vukcevic.

They also talk summer league, the state of the roster, how good/bad the team will be next season, and the vision of new executives Michael Winger, Travis Schlenk and Will Dawkins.

In a move that was only a minimum of three years overdue, the Washington Wizards traded guard Bradley Beal. Because of the preposterous no-trade clause team president Tommy Sheppard gave to the team's "franchise player," Beal had the power to dictate his destination AND the compensation package the Wizards would receive.

The result? Beal goes to the Phoenix Suns where he'll team up with Kevin Durant, Devin Booker and DeAndre Ayton, and Washington gets back the salaries of Chris Paul and Landry Shamet, as well as first round pick swaps in 2024 and 2026, as well as up to six second round picks.

In this episode are two conversations: the first between Kevin and former podcast partner Ben Becker. Ben is a big picture thinker, and the discussion focuses on strategic considerations, the potential for future moves, and what the trade signals about the new executive team.

The second conversation is a look at what the trade means for the teams on the court next season, and looks ahead to the types of players the Wizards should prioritize as they seek to build a championship contender.

With the numbers crunching in Ye Olde Draft Analyzer (YODA for short) nearly complete, Kevin and fellow draft nerd Matt Modderno got together to discuss the prospects giving them the most heartburn during the evaluation and ranking process. The two come at the draft from different perspectives — Kevin through the lens of stats and combine measurements with adjustments for age and level of competition, and Matt through watching loads of college games every season.

We will be joining forces for additional predraft podcasts, as well as a live-streamed show during the draft (along with Osman Baig). This episode focused on players we have questions about or where we differ most from the consensus view, including:

• Zach Edey, C, Purdue
• Olivier-Maxence Prosper, F, Marquette
• G.G. Jackson II, F, South Carolina
• Jett Howard, W, Michigan
• Bilal Coulibaly, W, French LNB Pro A
• Kris Murray, F, Iowa
• Brandin Podziemski, G, Santa Clara
• Rayan Rupert, W, AUS NBL

We'll probably record a similar episode in the days ahead — we both had other guys on our lists to discuss.

When Ron and Kevin last talked, the Washington Wizards had just parted ways with previous team president Tommy Sheppard. Now the Wizards have found Sheppard's replacement — Michael Winger, a 43-year old NBA executive who gained experience with three successful franchises over the past couple decades.

The resume version of his background would highlight the fact that he's been part of executive leadership groups that reached seven conference finals and two NBA finals over the past 13 years. Winger's signature transaction as general manager of the Los Angeles Clippers was the mammoth trade that netted the team Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.

The non-resume version would include the realities that he was part of the executive leadership group that made the Cleveland Cavaliers roster so bloated and expensive that LeBron James decided he couldn't win in his home state and bolted for the Miami Heat. And, Winger was part of choosing Kendrick Perkins and Serge Ibaka over James Harden in Oklahoma City. And, with the Clippers, he oversaw the unwieldy and widely lampooned load management system, and benefited immensely from the unlimited resources provided by Steve Ballmer.

That said, there are a high number of crimes Wizards fans would commit to see the team reach seven conference finals and two NBA finals over the next 13 years. After all, this is a franchise with four series wins (no more than one in any season) over the past 40 years.

We discuss all this and much-much more in this episode.

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Ted Leonsis and the Washington Wizards surprised outsiders by firing team president Tommy Sheppard after missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons and failing to produce even a .500 record in his four years at the helm. In this episode, Kevin and Ron break down the Sheppard era, including best and worst moves, and the biggest reasons the team failed under Sheppard's leadership.

In this reason, Kevin and Ron delve into some of the reasons the 2022-23 Washington Wizards failed to achieve their goal of reaching postseason play. They also end up in a discussion of efficiency in basketball and whether Bradley Beal and Delon Wright need to change their diets as they move past 30.

The Washington Wizards are 12th in the Eastern Conference and will likely miss any form of postseason play. Nearing the end of a "win now" season, Washington is on track to have the sixth best odds of landing the top pick in the NBA's draft lottery. They're a game-and-a-half from passing the Orlando Magic for fifth best odds.

What's been going wrong? What will some of the key franchise figures — and fans — regret from the 2022-23 season?

In this episode we discuss:

• Monte Morris
• Deni Avdija
• Kyle Kuzma
• Bradley Beal
• Specialists vs. two-way players
• Chris Miller, Drew Gooden and NBA broadcasts, and much much more.

Key question: Is Kevin a traitor to the Wizards tribe for watching the opposing team's broadcast?

Washington Wizards president Tommy Sheppard gave interviews that were filled with nonsense, non sequiturs and incoherence. Kudos to Craig Hoffman for asking serious questions, by the way. In this episode, Kevin and Ron delve into five of the most absurd comments, and go on an array of tangents that come when people talk hoops, including the value of floaters, whether Kyle Kuzma has actually improved, what Deni Avdija is doing well the past eight games and what he needs to do to keep it going.

The Sheppard absurdities:

• There hasn't been enough time to evaluate Bradley Beal, Kristaps Porzingis and Kyle Kuzma.
• The team just needs to stay healthy.
• "Not a fan of Kyle?"
• Defending his draft record by noting that Avdija, Rui Hachimura and Corey Kispert are "rotation guys"
• The team needs a backup forward.
• They traded Hachimura to open opportunities for Avdija. 

The Washington Wizards made the kind of trade that’s become familiar, sending former first round pick Rui Hachimura to the Los Angeles Lakers for Kendrick Nunn and three second-round picks — two of which convey in 2028 and 2029. In this episode, Kevin and Ron analyze the trade for all involved, discuss what it means for the Wizards, and take a look at the schedule ahead.

And they get into a conversation about which player jerseys they'd be willing to buy/wear.

In this episode, OKC Dream Team podcaster and long-time Oklahoma City Thunder expert Jon Hamm joins Kevin and Ron to talk team building, how teams communicate with their fans, the importance of ownership and the relative progress of OKC and the Washington Wizards in their respective rebuilds/reloads.

As is usually the case on the #SoWizards podcast, the conversation goes in an array of directions, including a moment when Ron gets his mind blown when he learns the Bullets once drafted a player who was blind in one eye.

If there's such thing as a classic episode of the #SoWizards podcast, this is one of them.

Kevin Folli is the man behind Wizards Film Room on Twitter (follow him @KevinFolliNBA) where he provides insights, analysis and data with illustrative video.

In this episode, we discuss offensive and defensive scheme, Wes Unseld Jr. strengths and weaknesses, whether the Wizards have the talent to achieve even their modest goals, and what Tommy Sheppard has done since taking over as team president. This leads back franchise goals set by Ted Leonsis.

There are a few digressions along the way, including a brief conversation of the best possible All-NBA style all defense/no offense lineup.

Please forgive the false ending. We just had more to say.

Ken Budd writes for an array of outlets, including Washington Post Magazine and The Atlantic. Writing for The Atlantic, Budd delved into why such thing as Wizards fans exist — complete with interviews of psychologists explaining why otherwise intelligent, accomplished people can't stop rooting for perennial losers. We took some trips to fond memories of the past and pondered whether we're all just a bunch of masochists.

We also discussed the 3-2 Wizards, fresh off an embarrassing nationally broadcasted loss to the Indiana Pacers, and whether we've seen anything over the first five games to change our expectations for the team this year.

This episode might have had a different flavor, at least at the start, if we'd known all of the preposterous details of the "let's just give him everything we possibly" can contract the Washington Wizards awarded Bradley Beal.

In this episode, Kevin and Ron discuss the Beal contract, and the team's other roster moves so far this offseason. We also delved into the iffy strategy of not taking a swing on high-producing players like Dejounte Murray, an All-NBA level performer, who the Atlanta Hawks acquired for the corpse of Danilo Gallinari and some first-round picks.

We also hit on some of the big deals made by other teams, and closed with a discussion of the contract given to one of Ron's favorite players: Lou Dort.

Matt Modderno teamed up with Kevin for a two-part crossover deep-dive into the 2022 NBA Draft. Part One — covering guards and forwards is Matt's Bleav in Wizards podcast. In Part Two, Kevin and Matt break down wings and centers that have a realistic shot to hear their name called on draft night and the range most reasonable for them to be selected. The two episodes cover more than 70 players...for a 58-player draft. Wings discussed include: Bennedict Mathurin, Kendall Brown, AJ Griffin, Jalen Williams, David Roddy, Dalen Terry, Ochai Agbaji, MarJon Beauchamp, Jake LaRavia, Christian Braun, Keon Ellis, Malaki Branham, Gabriele Procida, Jabari Walker, Tevin Brown, Ousmane Dieng, Shaedon Sharpe, Tevin Brown and Vince Williams. Centers: Chet Holmgren, Mark Williams, Christian Koloko, Jalen Duren, Walker Kessler, Michael Foster Jr., Josh Minott, Trevion Williams, Ismael Kamagate, and Yannick Nzosa.

In this episode, co-hosts Kevin Broom and Ron Oakes-Cunningham were joined by Wizards writer and youth basketball coach Marcus Atkinson. They discussed Ron's theory that fans need time off once their favorite gets eliminated to recalibrate their basketball eye and reset expectations. They also got into a conversation about effective team building, with a focus on the Memphis success assembling a deep and talented roster around Ja Morant. That evolved into some Memory Lane discourse that delved into the monumental organization-wide lack of foresight, poor strategic planning, and inability to provide meaningful support to young players who needed help to grow into the kinds of roles the team wanted them to fill. The episode wrapped with Kevin and Marcus continuing a conversation started on Twitter about Nikola Jokic, whether he's a deserving MVP, and whether a team can make a deep run in the playoffs built around a player like Jokic. 

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With the Washington Wizards not making the playoffs, Kevin and Ron took some time to reflect on weighty #SoWizards topics like whether Bradley Beal should take less than the maximum salary, which of the Wizards' players seem like they could compete effectively at playoffs intensity, and the relative goodness of Desmond Bane. 

They touched on Beal's now-four-season-long drop in three-point shooting, and the likelihood that he's going to be in the expensive decline portion of his career well before his contract extension concludes.

The also discussed who should win NBA MVP this season.

Got any burning questions you'd like to hear Ron and/or Kevin address? Let us know on Twitter @So_Wizards or via email at kevinbroomwrites at gmail dot com.

Osman Baig (@OBtoojiveforyou) and Matt Modderno (@MattModderno) are back for another Bullets Forever 3Pt Play! We all know the expression that hindsight is 20-20 so we thought it would be fun to fire up the time machine and rehash each of the Wizards' drafts over the last decade. We discuss what they got right, where they missed, and the flaws in their logic along the way. We identify who would have been better to select, who we liked at the time, and whether the players that fans wanted actually panned out. Plus, Matt tries really hard to defend the Isaiah Todd trade/pick. Let us know what you think and if you want us to go further back and analyze the previous decade.

#SoWizards hosts Kevin Broom and Ron Oakes-Cunningham have been nibbling at the edges of whether Wes Unseld Jr. is doing a good job as Wizards head coach, and in this episode they were joined by the great Troy Haliburton to take a big ol' bite of the question.

The conversation was an unflinching diagnosis of how Unseld's leadership is coming up short, how he compares to his predecessors and competitors, how the Wizards organization is failing him as a rookie head coach, and what needs to happen for him to succeed.

With no one from the franchise participating in an official capacity, All-Star weekend was quiet for the Washington Wizards. Kevin and Ron took the time to take stock of the team and what they hope and expect to see from the Wizards over the final 24 games of the season.

This episode includes a discussion of All-Star Saturday Night events, which evolved into a conversation about the league could do with the schedule to make games into more of an event, and create space for some fun and entertaining formats.

In the latest installment of the BulletsForever 3PT Play, Matt Modderno and Osman Baig joined Kevin to talk about tanking -- whether the Wizards should do it, and how to do it right if they do.

We also discussed the team's trade deadline moves and what they could mean for the Wizards over the next few seasons.

In this episode, Osman Baig joined Kevin Broom and Ron Oakes-Cunningham to talk over the most important figure in the Washington Wizards organization: Bradley Beal.

We discussed how the team's handling of Beal is symptomatic of the front office's long-running dysfunction. We assess where Beal truly stands in the league and the challenges of trying to build around a player at his level. We got prescriptive too, which included a conversation about how the team could build around him, if they persist with their Beal strategy.

And, we got into the team's failure to find quality players -- from the free agency debacle of 2016 to missing on draft picks and veteran pickups.

The tone is on the pessimistic side, which makes sense for a team sitting 10th in the East that's coming off a 29-point loss to the Boston Celtics, a blown 35-point lead against the Los Angeles Clippers, and facing a tough schedule over the next couple weeks. This is a team falling apart, and in this episode we get into some of the big reasons why. 

Recorded before the debaculous 29-point loss to Jayson Tatum and the Boston Celtics, Kevin Broom and Ron Oakes-Cunningham batted around the issue of whether Wes Unseld Jr. and his staff are doing a good job. It’s been taken as a given by many Wizards fans and analysts that Unseld is good and a significant upgrade from Scott Brooks.

But what if he’s not?

What if the team isn’t being well coached? How could outsiders tell the difference? 

Would we look to the team’s 13-21 record since the 10-3 start? The negative scoring differential? The middle of the pack offense and a bottom tier defense? How about the lack of energy and urgency from a team in the midst of playing every other day during a lengthy home stand?

Give a listen to the podcast, and let us know what you think.

Recorded after the Wizards 124-121 win against the Charlotte Hornets, co-hosts Kevin and Ron discuss how the team has adapted with so many players sidelined by the NBA's Covid health and safety protocols. The current list includes:

• Aaron Holiday
• Montrezl Harrell
• Rui Hachimura
• Spencer Dinwiddie
• Brad Wanamaker
• Anthony Gill
• Tremont Waters

Raul Neto was cleared Monday but didn't play against the Hornets. He's likely to be on the floor when the team returns to action Wednesday.

Among the topics hit:

• Can Bradley Beal play point guard?
• Does Daniel Gafford need more minutes?
• Is Kyle Kuzma making a leap or merely on a hot streak?
• Can the Wizards reach the halfway point of the season above .500?