Washington Wizards are improved, but still have problems to address

The Washington Wizards started the NBA season horribly, but over the past month and a half, the team has completely turned things around, thanks to a handful of factors. The team still has issues it needs to address, however.

The Washington Wizards started off this season playing horribly. Through roughly their first month of play, the Wizards were off to a 3-9 start. Flash forward a few more games, and the team was looking at a miserable 9-14 and looking like they were going to waste another season of prime John Wall/Bradley Beal talent.

But since that miserable start, the Washington Wizards have gone 18-6 and now sit above .500 and at the fifth spot in the Eastern Conference. It’s been a tale of two halves for the Wizards, and their meteoric rise has been thanks to a handful of factors.

First, John Wall has been playing like an absolute beast this entire season. He’s having a career year in just about every single category, has reached his fourth consecutive All-Star Game (though we think he should have started), and is showing why he should be seriously considered as one of the best point guards in the league.

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Bradley Beal’s performance contributed greatly as well. He started off the season cold, but as he heated up, so did the team. We discussed how much of an effect Beal has on the Wizards, and it’s noticeable.

Through the month of December, Beal averaged 22 points per game and shot 46%, and through that month, the Wizards went 10-5. Beal has continued his excellent play, and that’s contributed in a big way to the team’s success.

Another major contributor has been Markieff Morris. While the Wizards were losing constantly, Morris was taking a lot of shots and missing most of them. However, as the season has gone on, Morris’ field goal percentage has jumped up. It’s hard to see the correlation and not think that they’re related.

Coach Scott Brooks has also changed things up with the rotation, completely taking Marcus Thornton out of the rotation and tossing in Sheldon McClellan and Tomas Satoransky, as well as Trey Burke in the guard spots, all three of whom have been playing fairly well.

We’ve also see fantastic development from Otto Porter, one of the most accurate mid-range shooters around, whose been averaging 14.4 points per game and is shooting an excellent 53.5%. We’ve seen similar development from Kelly Oubre Jr. whose been shooting 41.9% from the field.

The Wizards have gone 11-2 in their last 13 games, but a lot of those games have been against mediocre teams. Aside from the Hawks, Celtics, and Grizzlies, the Wizards haven’t played against much in the way of powerful teams.

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The team will also need to look to improve its defense if they really want to contend, but the continued improvement for this team over what we saw earlier in the year is certainly an encouraging sign.