Washington Wizards' Biggest Weakness? A Lack of Depth

The Washington Wizards have an excellent team, but the one glaring weakness the team has is a lack of depth on the bench. But there are still some players out there who could help.

The Washington Wizards have an excellent team, as evidenced by their playoff run last season and the career-best performances from John Wall, Bradley Beal, and Otto Porter. But if there is one major weakness the team has, it’s a lack of depth on the bench.

The Washington Wizards’ bench stats are pretty rough, to be honest. Last season, the Wizards were 29th in the NBA in bench points per game (26.6) and in bench assists per game (5.3) and 28th in bench rebounds per game (12.4).

Which explains why the team had the second-fewest bench minutes per game in the league with 15.2. For a team that was fifth in the league in points per game and sixth in the league in assists per game, these disparities are not good.

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So what can the Wizards do? Well, there are still options out there, and they need to dive into the free agent pool to find some more depth. Relying so much on their starters worked enough to get them far into the playoffs last year, but you need to be able to take your starters out and let them rest without worrying about blowing the game.

The Washington Wizards don’t have much money available, to be honest, and that’s likely the main thing keeping them from having a lot of depth – they just don’t have much money to offer.

The Wizards made some moves in the offseason, trading their only pick from the 2017 NBA Draft to the New Orleans Pelicans to get guard Tim Frazier. They also signed guard Jodie Meeks and power forward Mike Scott to free agent deals.

Frazier, Meeks, and Scott should improve the Wizards’ bench squad, but that’s not enough for the team to be in the same league as some of the more elite teams in the East. Luckily, there are options still available, and guys they can get for cheap.

Deron Williams, for example, is still available, and while he’s not the player he once was, he still managed 11 points per game with 5.6 assists per game playing for the Dallas Mavericks and the Cleveland Cavaliers last season and could be an excellent sixth-man and backup for Wall.

Speaking of guards, Monta Ellis is still looking for a team, and again, while he isn’t the star player he used to be, the guy has played solid defense lately, improving his defensive rating from 100.7 in 2015-16 to 107.1 last season. Not only that, he averaged 8.5 points per game and 3.2 assists per game while shooting 44.3% from the field with the Indiana Pacers last season.

And in the frontcourt, David Lee, Roy Hibbert, and Donatas Motiejunas are all looking for homes. None of them are stars anymore (not that Motiejunas ever was, though he’s still just 27), but all of them are solid bench players who could provide the Washington Wizards with some much-needed depth, and they’d likely sign for relatively cheap.

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If the Wizards are serious about making a championship run this year, and I think they not only are but are very capable of doing it, then they need depth. If they hope to compete with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the Boston Celtics, the Oklahoma City Thunder, and the Golden State Warriors, they need to be able to take their starters out of the game without having to worry too much. Dipping into the remaining free agent pool would help that.

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Washington Wizards’ Biggest Weakness? A Lack of Depth

By Ben Palmer | Oct 7, 2017

The Washington Wizards have an excellent team, but the one glaring weakness the team has is a lack of depth on the bench. But there are still some players out there who could help.