Weekly Wizards Check-Up: The Over .500 Edition

Wanted to get this up before tonight’s match-up with the San Antonio Spurs — a team the Wizards haven’t beaten since 2005. For those keeping score at home, that’s 15 consecutive losses to the Spurs. But, I’m digressing (in the lede, no less). The point is to celebrate that the Wizards are a game over .500 for the first time in four years.

When I told my 17-year old the other night, he said (and this is an exact quote): “Wow. Is the East really that bad this year?”

When I tried to tell my 14-year old, I’d gotten to “…for the first time in…” He finished the sentence with, “…my lifetime?”

Wiseass.

Although, now that I reflect on it, I’m not sure he was joking. The team has been bad enough for long enough that it’s probably a reasonable question for a less-than-casual follower of the team. Put another way, it’s been nearly 29% of my 14-year old’s life since the Wizards had a record over .500.

Anyway, not much time for this week’s update. The table below presents results from my Player Production Average (PPA) metric. PPA credits players for things that contribute to winning and debits them for things that don’t — each in proper proportion. PPA is pace adjusted, accounts for defense and includes a degree of difficulty factor. In PPA, 100 = average, higher is better and 45 = replacement level.

A few quick observations:

• Biggest improvers this week were Kevin Seraphin and Garrett Temple. John Wall had a good week, and Marcin Gortat wasn’t bad either. Trevor Ariza maintained at a high level of production.
• In consecutive games against Oklahoma City and Portland, Seraphin had single-game PPA scores of 179 and 178. If he could somehow manage that kind of play over a full season, it would put him among the league’s 10-12 most productive centers — in a general grouping with Joakim Noah, Nikola Pekovic and DeAndre Jordan. I do not expect this kind of performance to continue for long.
• Martell Webster’s PPA slipped for a fifth consecutive update. His production for the season is now slightly below average. His shooting continues to be excellent, but he’s very low usage (about 14% of the team’s possessions when he’s in the game), and he doesn’t rebound or assist much. His defense rates as a little below average in my analysis.
• Nenê’s production continues to hover around league average. The trajectory of his production is looking scarily like a fairly typical NBA aging curve. The team continues to be better when he’s on the floor, but the dip in his overall production has to be a concern — especially since he’s due $13 million for two more seasons after this one.
• Eric Maynor didn’t exactly give a good example of staying ready. After getting DNP-CD for a month, Maynor finally got a shot. In just 6:37 of playing time, Maynor was bad enough to lower his PPA for the season by five points. When it comes to Maynor, keep in mind this quote from Ernie Grunfeld on the eve of training camp:

We wanted to upgrade our backup point guard position and Eric [Maynor] has been with us now, three weeks in a row. He’s very solid, very steady. He brings a little poise to the game. He knows how to play. So we feel we’ve upgraded that position.