Washington Wizards: It’s time for Ian Mahinmi to step up

Now that the Washington Wizards have added depth to their backcourt, it’s time for their frontcourt to do its job.

Despite having little cap space to work with this offseason, the Washington Wizards have managed to be quite active in beefing up their bench unit. They’ve added the likes of Jodie Meeks, Tim Frazier and Mike Scott to the team — two guards who know how to play in the league and a forward who has played consistent minutes for years with the Atlanta Hawks.

The Wizards even managed to hold on to one of the most promising young players in the league in Otto Porter Jr., though it will cost them a very hefty amount of money for a very long period of time. The only player lost with significant minutes in their rotation was Bojan Bogdanovic, who will hurt their amount of scorers on the team, but will most likely help their defensive rating.

So what’s the goal for the Washington Wizards this season? Clearly the first one was to commit to a promising young player in Otto Porter Jr., but the second goal might be tougher to achieve, which is to keep opposing teams at bay when John Wall and Bradley Beal are on the bench.

• Wizards’ offensive rating without John Wall:  101.3
• Wizards’ offensive rating without Bradley Beal:  100.7
• Wizard’ offensive rating with John Wall:  111.2
• Wizards’ offensive rating with Bradley Beal:  112.1

That is a significant difference when the Wizards’ star backcourt is on the bench, and something that posed a problem for the team when it came to the playoffs. It was clear in the second round against the Boston Celtics that John Wall was struggling to find energy toward the end of games. This may have been because he was averaging way more minutes that series than he had for the entire regular season.

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But John Wall was only asked to play so many minutes because the team knew that with him out of the rotation, Washington would struggle to keep up. It was clear to the organization that the bench unit wasn’t strong enough to maintain a lead whenever the stars rested.

This is why the Wizards needed to invest so heavily in solid guards to play minutes behind Wall and Beal. Meeks and Frazier will be crucial in righting the ship while the starters sit. It will be their job to score points and do damage control to keep the Wizards in long games.

That lack of guard depth wasn’t the only issue for them last year though. One of the bigger problems is the play of Ian Mahinmi. The Wizards paid Mahinmi a hefty amount of money for his defensive presence off the bench, and he was supposed to be the staple of the bench unit who would anchor down and protect the rim. At best, Ian Mahinmi has been inconsistent.

In the 2016-17 NBA season, Ian Mahinmi played in only 31 games due to injuries. In those 31 games, the Wizards finished with a record of 19-12. He may have played a big part in both their wins and their losses:

• Ian Mahinmi’s defensive rating in wins:  105.2
• Ian Mahinmi’s defensive rating in losses:  112.1

Again, that’s quite a large difference between defensive ratings. This means that when Ian Mahinmi and the bench unit played well defensively, the team won many more games than they lost.

In fact, in games where Mahinmi recorded a defensive rating of under 100, the Wizards had a record of 5-1. That’s a tiny sample size, but the team’s win percentage at 83 percent when Ian Mahinmi posted a defensive rating below 100 is still impressive.

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As the Wizards look to the 2017-18 season, they should be optimistic about their depth at the guard position. But their bench’s success may more rely on whether Ian Mahinmi can stay healthy, and if he can put up the consistent defensive numbers they paid him $64 million for.