As the Washington Wizards stammer through a lackluster season, determined to stick with a premeditated strategy to wait for Kevin Durant to come home, the NBA's best team visits Wednesday night flashing one of the most entertaining styles since Naismith erected those peach baskets and winning at a record pace with a team largely built and refined through the draft.
Coming up on the free agency summer of Durant, the league’s current standard-bearer reaps the benefits of a more natural building process. And here’s the craziest part of it all: While the Wizards and a handful of other would-be contenders are hoarding cap space in a bid to catch up to Golden State, the Warriors have the flexibility to win a second straight title and then make their own play for Durant without even ruining their core, which would be the most diabolically brilliant thing a champion has ever done.
There’s a poignant lesson in this situation for Washington. The Wizards’ season has become a frustrating holding pattern, and on the surface it seems as if that’s merely an unavoidable sacrifice to preserve room under the salary cap for Durant. But if you compare how they’ve drafted and developed players to what the Warriors have done over the same period, the results are a reminder that while the Wizards have done a decent job of raising their own core, they could be much closer to Utopia if they had been as effective as Golden State.
The situations are comparable. In fact, Washington has had a better draft hand in some cases. But look at what Golden State did from 2009 to 2012 to create a championship core. The Warriors started by selecting point guard Stephen Curry, who will soon be a two-time MVP, No. 7 overall in 2009. In 2011, with the No. 11 pick, they took an all-star shooting guard in Klay Thompson. In 2012, the first draft of the outstanding work that General Manager Bob Myers has done so far, the Warriors selected small forward Harrison Barnes at No. 7 overall, big man Festus Ezeli at No. 30 and delved into the second round to take forward Draymond Green, another all-star, at No. 35.
In a span of four critical drafts, the Warriors nailed three of them. Their only mistake came in 2010, when they picked Ekpe Udoh at No. 6 with Greg Monroe, Paul George and Gordon Hayward still available. Still, they drafted four of the five starters on a championship team, three of whom are now among the top 20 players in the NBA. And even though Udoh was a bust, the Warriors were able to throw him into the 2012 Monta Ellis-for-Andrew Bogut trade with Milwaukee that brought the starting center on their title team to Oakland.
It's some of the best drafting in NBA history, the creation of a team so loaded without the lottery luck of a single top-five selection. Now, with one title and a 44-4 record this season, the Warriors have a chance to be remembered as an all-time great team.
On the other hand, the Wizards have used the draft to build something solid, but they're far enough from spectacular to need Durant as a savior. The core of Washington was built from 2010 to 2013, a similar four-draft timeline. It started with getting the No. 1 pick and taking John Wall in 2010. Then, in 2012 and 2013, the Wizards picked No. 3 overall in consecutive seasons and selected Bradley Beal and Otto Porter Jr. Like the Warriors did in 2010, the Wizards messed up in 2011 on the No. 6 pick with the choice of Jan Vesely. They also had the No. 18 selection that year and took Chris Singleton. Both Vesely and Singleton are out of the league.
Unlike what the Warriors did with Udoh, Vesely didn’t even show enough potential to be packaged in a trade to help mitigate the mistake. And the Wizards haven’t come close to finding a player in the second round like Golden State did with Green.
In their period, the Wizards have drafted one all-star despite possessing three top-three picks. Wall has become a top-20 player. Beal has been good and productive when healthy, but he has missed 75 games in four seasons. Porter, who like Beal is only 22 years old, is averaging 12.3 points as a first-time starter this season.
If you go back to 2009, when General Manager Ernie Grunfeld traded the No. 5 pick to Minnesota in a large deal that brought Mike Miller and Randy Foye to D.C., there’s another key draft asset squandered for players who didn’t work out.
Now, there is some luck involved here. Golden State was the beneficiary of some deeper drafts, which helped them find stars outside of the top five. One of the Wizards’ drafts — 2013, in which Porter was taken — has yet to produce an all-star. Still, the Wizards’ 2011 failure with Vesely and Singleton lingers as a draft that has restricted the franchise as it awaits the summer of Durant.
In 2011, Thompson was available at No. 6. Kawhi Leonard, taken No. 15, has turned into the best two-way player in the NBA. At No. 18, Washington could have taken Tobias Harris (the No. 19 pick) or Kenneth Faried (No. 22). Would those players be the same in Washington as they’ve been elsewhere? Maybe not. But even if they weren’t developed as well, it’s clear they would’ve made a greater impact than two players who aren’t even in the league.
The point isn’t to revisit and pick on the Wizards for draft failures. Every team has them, including Golden State. But this week’s schedule shows the slight differences between solid drafting (Washington), good drafting (Oklahoma City, Monday’s opponent) and extraordinary drafting (Golden State).
After advancing to the second round of the playoffs in back-to-back seasons, the Wizards are in a tricky position. They have a 21-25 record, which puts them three games behind Indiana for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They haven’t had a healthy roster all season, but you’ve seen enough to know they have an inadequate mix. If they want to be a pace-and-space team, they need more consistent shooting. If they want to play better defense, they need more toughness. If they want to rebound more consistently, they need better size.
It’s impossible to put all that together when you’re pausing for a savior. The Wizards don’t have enough depth to get by. And even though they’ll have a young core to present to Durant or Plan B free agents this summer, are they dependable enough to sell with absolute certainty that the franchise is one star player away?
This is a time of great angst. Meanwhile, the Warriors prance into town, all-in, all-natural and already dominant.
They make it look easy. If only it were.
