Washington Wizards: Figuring Out The Frontcourt Past Emeka Okafor And Nene

Washington big man Kevin Seraphin. (photo credit: Keith Allison, Wiki Commons)

Entering the season there are only two huge areas of concern for the Washington Wizards. While they look like a top Eastern Conference power 1 through 5, their depth and the ability for that first five to remain healthy will make most hesitant about writing the Wizards’ ticket this early. Their bench issues are most prevalent at the center and power forward positions — while their backcourt and wing players are not great off the bench, they should be perfectly adequate relieving John Wall, Bradley Beal and Martell Webster. They have a couple different options for their frontcourt rotation, but it is unclear what is the best plan of action is and whether any of these options can actually lead to success off the bench for Washington. Let’s check out the options.

Seraphin and Booker

Kevin Seraphin and Trevor Booker can see court time in a few different ways: Both Booker and Seraphin can play alongside either Emeka Okafor or Nene and the Booker-Seraphin combo can see time holding down the paint on their own. Last year when the Booker-Seraphin combo was on the court (the lineup saw more than 300 minutes in 37 games) the Wizards put up minus-6.9 in rating differential — they posted a good 100.7 defensive rating but a horrid 93.8 offensive rating. Offensively, you could figure lineups with that combo struggled spacing the floor. The combination only took 142 mid-range shots over the course of the season and while both showed a decent touch from a couple of spots in small sample sizes — Seraphin was above average from the left baseline and right elbow and was decent from the top of the key, while Booker was above average from the left baseline and the right elbow — the two spent most of their time on offense cramming the paint. Neither was excellent around the rim either, though Seraphin showed some ability to knock down tricky shots around the paint. Overall neither player can offer much on offense except for easy finishes around the rim and, in Seraphin’s case, the potential of decent mid-range stroke. However, if Seraphin can make that next step as a mid-range shooter and the combo can continue to develop defensively, they should be good enough on that end to survive for stretches with the right perimeter players surrounding them. They could also work well when they are individually playing next to Okafor or Nene.

Seraphin projects to be the guy getting more minutes alongside Nene and Okafor, though. Seraphin played more last year and the Seraphin-Okafor and Seraphin-Nene combos had more success last year than those combos with Booker in Seraphin’s place. When Booker played with Nene, the Wizards were horrible on defense (112 rating) while only being solid on offense (101 rating). With Okafor they were slightly better on D (105.9 rating), but were really bad on offense (98 rating). The Wizards were much better defensively with Okafor and Seraphin (99.4 rating) and the Nene-Seraphin combo (101.3 rating), and but were not great on offense (92.1 and 98.3 offensive rating, respectively). But again, if Seraphin is able to improve his mid-range game, lineups with him alongside Nene or Okafor could be good enough on offense to make those groups successful, since they play stellar defense.

Jan Vesely (why the strikethrough? See here)

Al Harrington and the potential for small ball

I talked about what the addition of Al Harrington could potentially mean for the Wizards rotation in depth right after he was signed. Harrington can create space for Washington in a way that Seraphin and Booker will never be able to. Adding that extra space to let John Wall work out of the pick-and-roll can be a huge difference for the Wizard offense this year and overall having a player of Harrington’s caliber can improve Washington’s offense. Defensively also, Harrington projects to be capable of playing alongside Okafor and Nene (and possibly Seraphin) without hampering Washington defensively. These lineups have so much potential to be successful that Washington could even consider starting Harrington at the 4 alongside Okafor, leaving Nene to play a big man-Ginobili type role off the bench. As it was mentioned previously, the Wizard bench may struggle offensively as it stands. Adding Okafor to that group may help fix the problem. Washington may also be able to use some of their traditional small forwards as power forwards for stretches of play. Specifically, lineups that feature Trevor Ariza as a small ball 4 had a lot of success last year. If the Wizards can survive defensively playing Ariza or Webster at the power forward slot, the boost those lineups can have offensively can help Washington’s dismal offense.

Both these “stretchy” lineups and lineups featuring Booker and Seraphin should see playing time this year. It is still unclear whether Washington will lean any particular or just how much success either setup will have.

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