The buzzword, even with the recent injury to Markieff Morris, surrounding the Washington Wizards during an otherwise chaotic NBA offseason is "continuity." The D.C. team decided to retain their core of John Wall, Bradley Beal, and Otto Porter Jr. for at least the next four-years when they decided to give the small forward a four-year, $106.5 million max contract.
An interesting and potentially unknown benefit of rewarding Porter with a long-term deal is that he will now be more relaxed with is play on the floor. This was first revealed by the House of Guards backcourt when they explained they experienced a similar result once signing their deals in 2013 and 2016. They predict that Porter will go through a similar process and is game will improve as a result.
"Once you sign that deal, it’s like a lot of stress off of you," Beal said. "All you can focus on is straight basketball now. And that’s something I even noticed with Otto this offseason when he came back into D.C. He’s been in the gym working on his game ever since that deal happened. So, it’s not any added pressure, but we probably put more pressure on ourselves than the rest of the world does, we’re our biggest critics at the end of the day."
"Once you sign the deal, all that pressure is gone," Wall admitted. "Because before you sign it, you are worried about ‘am I going to get paid’, ‘I got to do this, I got to do that, I got to perform this certain way.’ Once you sign that deal, you just have to go out there and play and let everyone know you earned your money for a reason. It takes a lot of pressure off us. Just watching Otto being here, at minicamp, and before this training camp and media day started, he’s been showing improvements in different aspects of his game that I haven’t seen. It probably contributes back to him signing his deal and not having to worry about nothing but going and playing basketball and have fun."
Porter had his best season in his four-year NBA career under Scott Brooks when he averaged 13.4 points, 6.4 rebounds, and most impressively shot 43.4 percent from beyond the arc. Even if Washington only got that same player over the course of the next four years, they would probably be satisfied. Developing into a third star for the Wizards would be a bonus and Porter plans to deliver.
“Definitely, I definitely feel what he is talking about,” Porter said when asked if he similarly felt less pressure once signing his contract as Wall and Beal had prior to him. “That part is over with now and now you can just go out there and have fun.”