The Washington Wizards sit at 23-17 and the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference before they get to the exact halfway point of the regular season after Wednesday night's game against the Utah Jazz. At this point last season, they had rebounded from a 7-13 start to be 21-19 after 40 games. Presently, it has been an up and down first three months of the season to say the least. They have shown glimpses of greatness including a Christmas Day win in Boston, but have too many times dropped the ball against lottery bound teams. Let's take a look at some stats to try and make sense of the roller coaster ride.
Last season, the Wizards were mostly injury free, which allowed their starting lineup of John Wall, Bradley Beal, Otto Porter Jr., Markieff Morris, and Marcin Gortat to play 69 games together for a total of 1,347 minutes. That unit had a 8.1 net rating (111.9-103.8) per 100 possessions, one of the best in the NBA, but the team has not had as much injury luck to begin the 2017-18 season.Through 40 games, the usual starting lineup has only played 18 games together for 317 minutes. They do have a 6.0 (rounded) net rating (108.3-102.2), but Wall, Morris, and Porter have missed 11, 8, and 4 games, respectively. Not having his usual starting unit together has certainly cost Scott Brooks a handful of games this season.
Last season, Markieff Morris was tied with John Wall for the Wizards second best net rating player (3.9) behind Bradley Beal's 5.6. This season, likely as a result of an ankle and sports hernia surgery injury, Morris is the penultimate worst among players in the rotation at -0.6. Washington is 11-1 when Morris records a double-double since his arrival nearly two years ago and his self-diagnosis that he is back to 100 percent, might give the Wizards a boost as they enter the second half of the seasons.
The Wizards bench was terrible last season. Early in the season, Brooks was giving significant playing time to Trey Burke, Marcus Thornton, and Andrew Nicholson who were -9.2, -12.7, and -13 in net rating, respectively, which were the three worst on the team. This season, the Wizards' three worst net ratings are from Jason Smith (-5.1), Tim Frazier (-6.7), and Chris McCullough (-7.2), but they have all been out of, or never were in, the rotation for some time now. Jodie Meeks is still a weak spot at the backup shooting guard position, but the improvement in the bench from just a year ago is night and day.
Compared to last season, shooting is down across the board. So far this season, they are shooting 46.1% from the field, 36.9% from deep, and 75.6% from the free throw line. Last season, they shot 47.5% from the field, 37.2% from deep, and 78.4% from the free throw line. The shooting percentages for four out of five Wizards starters are all down. For Beal, his three-point shooting is also noticeably down from 40.4% last season to just 36.6% so far this season even though he is shooting 0.6 fewer attempts per game currently.
Wall: 45.1% last season, 41.4% this season (-3.7%).
Beal: 48.2% last season, 45.3% this season (-2.9%).
Porter: 51.6% last season, 49.5% this season (-2.1%).
Gortat 57.9% last season, 53.9% this season (-4.0%).
The up and down play may or may not be here to stay, that has yet to be seen despite Morris's assurance otherwise, but it is certainly clear why the Wizards have seemingly not hit the stride that they were on by the midway point of the regular season this time last year.