Wizards Participation Awards
Way to go, fellas.
From time to time, usually in the depths of the offseason, some story from the dregs of the culture wars crosses over into the sports world. This is not the serious, political news story that actually affects fans and players—like ongoing state violence against unarmed Black people. Instead, it’s the sort of thing outlets report on because someone needs to file a story. A classic example is when, a few years ago, the issue of participation awards made the news. Louisville’s women’s basketball couch complained about it, the Steelers linebacker James Harrison took his kids participation trophies, and a quick Google search suggests Fox News has run a story pretty much every year about it over the past decade. In the overlap of NBA fans and Fox News viewers you pretty much have Enes Freedom, Boston Celtics fans, and people with elaborate tv remote set-ups who can’t figure out how to change the channel.
But participation awards might be the only awards some people get (I’m some people). It’s also worthwhile to recognize that, you, your team, your coaches, fans, whomever, came together and did a thing. Only one team can win a championship. It’s an incredibly difficult challenge that depends on more than just talent. You know what’s also tough? Making it through 82 games. Or, heck, just getting up every day and making it to work generally on time. So, let’s celebrate each of the Wiz kids.
The Awards
These are based on last season’s stats—and only last season—but highlight the, uh, unique achievements of each player. A lot of this will come as no surprise to anyone who has unmuted the in-game commentators, but it’s nice to see all in one place. All stats are from basketball-reference.com unless otherwise noted. In no particular order: the Wizards participation awards!
Daniel Gafford: ranked 10th overall, yes, in the whole dang NBA, in both blocks (99) and blocks per game (1.4).
Rui Hachimura: Rui’s three point shot came together last season—he landed 44.7% from distance on 2.9 attempts per game on average—but notably he landed 46.6% on shots when he had less than two seconds to shoot. Two seconds! It probably took longer to read this sentence.
Kristaps Porziņģis: according to Ranker.com, a website I had never heard of until I searched, “best hair in the NBA,” KP is the #4 on the list of “Best White NBA Players Right Now,” a weird ranking since there is no NBA basketball right now.
Deni Avidija: So many to choose from here, but in the spirit of this post, I really want to highlight that Deni played all 82 games last season. Only four other players put in minutes in every game for the regular season.
Monte Morris: Morris was in the 98th percentile for effective field goal percentage (57.2%) while in the point guard position according to cleaningtheglass. This differs slightly from his overall percentage because Morris shot a bit worse while in the shooting guard spot, but what are positions anyway?
Kyle Kuzma: I thought I was going to write about his memorable clutch shooting, but then saw Kuzma ranked 15th in overall defensive rebounding last season. I hope this upcoming season will see a turnaround on defense, so let’s embrace Kuz as a defender.
Bradley Beal: the only player on the team to have a contract worth more than the annual GDP of Wyoming.
Will Barton: I liked what I saw from Barton in the Tokyo pre-season games. The 31 year old guard/forward was ranked third in fewest personal fouls (1.6 per game) among players listed as shooting guards who averaged 32 minutes a game. This might not seem notable, but the fact that Barton played 71 games and started in 71 games is important context for understanding how his fouls compare to peers like Caris LeVert and Reggie Jackson.
Corey Kispert: Confession time, earlier when I mentioned googling best hair in the NBA, I was hoping to find some source to highlight Kispert’s great mane. Anyway, the guy has his ups and downs, but something that makes me confident for this upcoming season is that teammates generally shot well from three when Kispert passed the ball. This is an underrated part of his game: the ability to move off ball and swing to teammates when he doesn’t have a great look. Deni shot nearly 38% from three off of Kipsert passes and Rui Hachimura shot 70% from beyond the arc per NBA.com.
Johnny Davis: it wouldn’t be fair to dig for a stat since he was in college last year, but I think he may have set a record for amount of turmoil a first round pick has caused fans during and after summer league. Congrats, Johnny!
Vernon Carey Jr.: I mostly think of Vernon Carey Jr. as the guy who looks like Ish Smith’s kid on bring your child to work day in this promotional video from last year:
Carey Jr. only played seven NBA games last season (three for the Wizards) after mostly playing for Charlotte’s G-League affiliate. In his three Wizards games, which were admittedly what you might kindly refer to as “good to have on in the background” or “so this is what I’m doing with my free time, huh?” games, he averaged 1.7 offensive rebounds.
Anthony Gill: as an Anthony Gill truther, it’s hard to find the best stat for one of the best end of the bench players in the NBA. Here’s one though: last year, Gill didn’t miss a single free throw in January or April. Yes, he only played in four and five games, respectively, but, if anything, I’d expect him to miss his limited attempts at the line after not getting much court time.
Delon Wright: Mr. Wright has mostly been mentioned because he has generally good defensive stats (and the Wizards desperately need help on defense) BUT he had a top tier assist-to-usage ratio last season in Atlanta, at 1.45 per cleaningtheglass, meaning he should also be considered a pass-first guard, which the team also needs.
Taj Gibson: I like when the Wizards sign veterans
who are going to do one more heist and then get out of the gameto provide some experience and locker room gravitas. There were only 12 players last season who were as old or older than Gibson (now 37). Of those 12, five played at the center position.1 Opponents shot the worst at the rim (63.4% per cleaningtheglass) against Gibson compared to the other five centers 36 years old or older.Isaiah Todd: Two things—first, Isaiah Todd took nearly 62 percent of his attempts from the field at the three point line. Even though he didn’t hit much from three (only four of his 16 attempts went in per NBA.com) that didn’t stop him from trying.
Also, he tweeted this from Japan, which same.
Those are the awards for this pre-season. We’ll see who goes home with an award next year (spoiler: everyone!). Sure, most of these stats are on low sample sizes with no context. But as teams unravel right and left, it’s worth celebrating what we can while we can.
They are LaMarcus Aldridge (opponents shot 64.8% at the rim), Udonis Haslem (69.2%), Paul Millsap (80% in Philly, 58% in Brooklyn for an average of 69% ), and Dwight Howard (68.1).