With John Wall sidelined six-to-eight weeks following clean out surgery on his left knee on January 31, the Washington Wizards are trying to get creative in filling the minutes available by the five-time All-Star's absence. Tomas Satoransky has flashed and proven his worth on this team, but at times, head coach Scott Brooks still opts to use his All-Star shooting guard as the primary ball handler with no other point guard on the floor. Often, this leads to inefficient offense that does not have a lot ball movement, but instead stagnant isolation basketball.
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The sample size is not large, but here are the three most played lineups with Beal essentially serving as the point guard via stats.nba.com:
1. Beal, Oubre, Porter, Scott, Mahinmi 5.9 (138.2-132.2) in 19 minutes.
2. Beal, Oubre, Porter, Morris, Gortat -47.7 (73.8-121.5) in 14 minutes.
3. Beal, Oubre, Porter, Scott, Morris -18.3 (87.3-105.6) in 9 minutes.
To begin overtime against the Boston Celtics on Thursday, Brooks opted to play Kelly Oubre Jr. over Satoransky. The 14 minutes of play over nine games is certainly a small sample size, but the -47.7 net rating and 36.9 percent true shooting percentage is eye popping. Despite these facts, Brooks will continue to be playing the lineup despite how inefficient it has been.
"I've been trying to figure that out," Brooks on why the Oubre over Satoransky lineup has not been working. "The minutes that we've had that lineup hasn't been successful. Trying to figure that out. I'm not going to go away from it completely. Use it occasionally. ... We're always better with Tomas in there or a point guard in there with that unit. Something that we are still going to continue to try work on and improve. I think it can be effective, but we have to figure out better ways for it to work."
Beal's handles are much improved through hard work during the offseason, but having a true point guard on the floor simply helps facilitate the offense. In the last seven games that Wall has missed, Beal is averaging 6.4 assists per game including twice tying his career-high in dimes with nine.
“I have to trust my teammates," Beal said about trusting with the team to pass the ball. "The biggest thing for me is I get double teamed a lot with John out. So, it just makes it tough on me to just go out and jack up shots and I am never the type of player that just jacks up shots anyways even when John’s here. I don’t change my game with him being out. We have other guys that can play the point. We have other guys who can step up and contribute as well so I don’t put all that pressure on myself. I have faith and trust in my teammates, my bigs, my wings to make plays just as well as I.”
If I was Scott Brooks, I would all but eliminate the Beal as the point guard lineups, but instead stagger his minutes to be the bridge for the second unit that can frequently become stagnant offensively without a true playmaker. Satoransky has proven himself on both ends of the floor and although Oubre offers more upside, I do not consistently see the need of the latter to receive minutes over the former.