Evolution of Bradley Beal, Otto Porter parallels OKC Thunder's growth
When people point to the
Oklahoma City Thunder's "model" for rebuilding, they are usually referring to the Thunder's decision to be bad, get high draft picks and give their eventual selections ample playing time to develop into stars.
It's a philosophy that has been replicated often around the league, as front offices seek to tank for top-five selections and adopt a very Ricky Bobby approach to team building: "If yer not first, yer last!"
And yet, while so many have tried to carry out this plan, few have actually been successful at it. Many factors affect why that success isn't achieved -- subpar coaching, injuries, poor chemistry fit, lack of veteran leadership. But the biggest reason is the simplest one, the one that happens before all those other factors can kick in: The strategy neglects the fact that you have to actually nail those picks! What made Oklahoma City special wasn't that they got top-five picks three years in a row; it's that they batted 1.000 on those picks:
Kevin Durant in 2007,
Russell Westbrook in 2008,
James Harden in 2009. In essence, that's harder to do than to simply win the No. 1 overall pick in any given year.
One of the few teams that can say it has experienced Thunder-like success (call it "Diet Thunder") using OKC's model is the
Washington Wizards. After netting the No. 1 overall pick in 2010 and selecting
John Wall, they followed up with the selections of Bradley Beal in 2012 and Otto Porter in 2013 (they also took Jan Vesely in 2011; that's why it's diet!). Like Durant, Wall was a no-brainer pick and a true franchise player, and Beal and Porter are like the Westbrook and Harden additions for Washington: not as sure-shot picks but ones that have developed nicely. The 2015 playoffs have served as the stage for Beal and Porter to show they can push the Wizards' evolution forward.
Bradley Beal
A shooter with a beautiful fluid stroke,
Bradley Beal has long struggled with shot selection, namely by settling for the midrange jumper off the dribble, a shot that he's not particularly proficient at. (Almost half of his attempts came on 2-pointers outside of the paint, and he shot an atrocious 34 percent). His struggle to identify what constitutes a good shot manifests trouble in two ways:
First, he's attempting shots that have both a low expectation of success and low reward; second, his willingness to settle robs him of the opportunity to get to the free throw line and capitalize on easy points, especially for a shooter of his caliber (career 79 percent free throw shooter). Beal attempts just four free throws per 100 possessions, with a free throw rate of less than 20 percent. In other words, he takes tougher shots with the lowest expected success rate at scoring a point on any given possession.
In the playoffs, he's shooting roughly the same percentage from midrange (35 percent), but he's making more of a concerted effort to take better shots; 60 percent of his attempts have come either in the restricted area or from downtown. He's almost doubled his FTA per 100 possessions to 7.4, and his free throw rate has jumped to 31.3 percent. That newfound aggression still isn't enough for him to become a more efficient player, but it's a step in the right direction for Beal. The absence of Wall makes life a little more difficult for him, Game 4 performance notwithstanding. While Beal is a capable ball handler, he's not an especially creative one and doesn't fare well out of pick-and-roll situations to create for himself or others (often settling for the aforementioned inefficient pull-up midrange jumper that he's not particularly good at making).
In many ways, Beal should try to mimic a lot of what the Warriors do for
Klay Thompson: working off screens and pindowns, with an emphasis on curling towards the rim as he comes off the pick. Once he's catching on the move, with his defender trailing, he can rip a page from the James Harden textbook and create the contact to get to the free throw line more readily. Beyond creating for himself, passing decisions become a lot easier as well, since defenders must react to a scorer like Beal moving off-ball. (Watch how many defenders have their eyes on and are ready to react to
Kyle Korver's off-ball motion on any given possession). Once the help defense comes, Beal will be able to more easily identify open teammates than when he's attacking a set defense off a live dribble, and getting guys shots is the next step in his evolution.
Otto Porter
For fun, I dug up my old scouting report on
Otto Porter from his freshman season at Georgetown. The first line of the report read:
Every time I watch Porter, the same four words keep echoing in my head: "plays the right way."
That might be the most prescient line I wrote that whole season of scouting!
Unlike Beal, Porter was not afforded the luxury of plentiful playing time from the get go; he played fewer than 10 minutes per game in his rookie season and averaged under 20 minutes per game this season. But he's seen his playing time explode to almost 33 minutes a game during the playoffs, and it's paid dividends for the Wizards.
Porter's 3-point percentage improved from his rookie season (19 percent) to this season (34 percent), but similar to Beal, his shot selection leaves a lot to be desired, with barely 52 percent of his FGAs coming from the restricted area or beyond the arc.
Even though he's shot a more respectable 41 percent on those midrange jumpers, that's still too many shots from an inefficient area, especially for a player whose offense will mostly come from cuts and spot-ups. But, in his additional time in the playoffs, Porter has managed to not only vastly improve his shooting (up to 40 percent from downtown), he's also improved his shot selection tremendously: Almost three-quarters of his attempts have been at the rim or from 3-point land. For a role player like Porter, efficiency is everything, and he's given himself the best chance at being efficient by taking smarter shots. When you factor in his help on the glass (corralling over 19 percent of all opponent misses) and his solid defense, Porter is in the process of winning over a starting job next season.
The future
I always say that after money, the next biggest determinant for free agents is joining an organization with an opportunity to win and room for growth. It's why
Paul Pierce decided to bring his talents to the Beltway: the youth and bright future of the Wizards. For Washington to continue to be an attractive destination, that youth needs to continue to grow, and so their players must keep taking steps to getting more efficient and harder to guard. The playoffs are not only a time for players to take leaps forward in their game, it's also a time to advertise that growth to prospective free agents.
If the Wizards want to look like an attractive destination to a player like Kevin Durant in 2016, a good start would be to show him the team is already pretty good without him. If Durant is to leave OKC, how fitting would it be for him to switch to a team that was built under similar circumstances?
Millsap would be the perfect PF here.
I feel ya on not wanting to add salary and seeing what KD will do.
