It’s time for the Washington Wizards to break up

The Washington Wizards are spiraling out of control. It’s time for the organization to make a change.

The Washington Wizards are 1-6. Somehow, though, it feels much worse. Sure, we’re only seven games into the 2018-19 season and their starting center hasn’t played a minute yet, but the Wizards’ fanbase has quickly gone from cautious optimism to utter despair. The problems Washington has faced in the past few years have quickly resurfaced, and the Wiz Kids appear to be drowning.

The Wizards feel like your parents right before they get a divorce.

It started with a single John Wall. He was young, eager, and just wanted to go out and dance every night. It was fun for a while, but we all knew he needed something else, something more.

Then general manager Ernie Grunfeld introduced him to Bradley Beal. When they first got together, the chemistry was there. It felt like a great match. They were traveling all over together and going out almost every night, showing the world what the future could be like if they stayed together.

Then there was illness. Brad couldn’t seem to stay healthy and the bright future everyone envisioned clouded a bit. But they worked through it. They built up the home, bringing in Otto Porter Jr. and others. They kept pushing and finally gave everyone a glimpse of how good they really could be together, making a few playoff appearances and going as far as the Eastern Conference semifinals.

Everything was going great, so they decided to tie the knot. They signed Brad, Otto and John to max deals, declared D.C. their forever home, and began the honeymoon phase. There were no-look dimes, step-back 3s, crossovers, and alley-oops. They gave birth to a whole new fanbase in D.C. It seemed like things could only get better.

Then they didn’t. In fact, they got a whole lot worse. We watched the chemistry fade and stayed up late listening to them bicker in the other room. The spark was gone.

As it seems this era of basketball in the nation’s capital is coming to a close, we’re left wondering what went wrong. This marriage seemed nearly perfect on paper, so how did things come crashing down so heavily?

The biggest answer is chemistry. It’s as important as the players’ skills or the offense you run. It’s a concept that seems to escape Grunfeld. And don’t mistake on-court chemistry for off-court chemistry, although both need to be tight for any team to be great. You can love your teammate but not mesh well on the court.

When teammates don’t fully trust each other, it’s hard for a player, especially one of the best 400 or so basketball players in the world, to push that distrust out of his head in the middle of competition. In a game that boils down to split-second decisions, any hesitation means a shot is gone or a passing lane has closed. If you look over to your teammate and think, “He’s open, but I think he might miss or turn it over if I give it to him,” the other team has already taken the ball and dunked on the other end.

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The other problems stem from this lack of on-court chemistry. The ball stops moving, the communication lacks, the defense breaks down and the effort deteriorates. This year, per Basketball-Reference, the Wizards are last in opponent points per game, giving up 122.4 points per game.

They’re 27th in defensive rating and 24th in offensive rating. They’re 17th in defensive rebounding and 26th in offensive rebounding. Per NBA.com, they’re 24th in assists per game. It hasn’t been pretty, and the main underlying factor causing it all has been the chemistry.

The player catching most of the flak for the poor start seems to be Porter. So far this season, he’s been passed to 21.6 times a game, which is good for seventh overall on the team, per NBA.com. He’s behind Wall, Beal, Austin Rivers, Markieff Morris, Tomas Satoransky and Jeff Green. Sure, some of that comes from Scott Brooks‘ notion that he isn’t working hard enough to get open, but he’s supposed to be the third option on the team, so it seems clear his teammates don’t trust him.

So the Wizards are broken. What do we do now? Well, as with your bickering parents, the love seems to be lost. They’ve tried to keep it together for the D.C. family, but it’s time to part ways for the good of everyone. At a certain point, there just isn’t a way to fix it.

As such, it may be time to let John Wall go. He’s given a lot to the city, and while it would be hard to see him in another jersey, it feels like the right thing for both sides. Let him play out the rest of his prime with a new team. This Wizards ship is sinking, and letting him off would be a thank you of sorts.

This is not to say the team will just trade him away for nothing and be terrible. In fact, this will help Washington too. What the team needs right now more than anything is a culture reset. Besides ownership and management, which are both unfortunately here to stay, the coach and the star player are the two biggest factors in team culture.

The Wizards announced that Scott Brooks is not even on the hot seat at the moment, and with two years left on his contract after this season, I’d be surprised if Grunfeld fired him. So that leaves the Wall-Star.

If Washington can trade him and that massive contract for another star (ahem, Jimmy Butler, ahem), the Wizards will stay relevant while resetting the culture and re-energizing the team. Look how it worked out for the Toronto Raptors and for DeMar DeRozan in San Antonio. The Wizards won’t get Kawhi Leonard, but swapping stars can give new life to a team and its fanbase; and it can give new life to John Wall too.

Whatever the Wizards decide to do, it seems like they’ve hit the point where it’s time to do something. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be surprising if they did the opposite. Ernie Grunfeld has shown us he’s a fan of the sit-and-wait philosophy, and with Dwight Howard not in the lineup yet, he’ll at least wait for the big man to join before even considering a move.

All we can do now is copy Grunfeld: sit and wait and hope something changes. In the meantime though, it’s not like the Wizards were going to win the championship, so the D.C. family should just try to enjoy the show a much as possible before it’s time to change the channel.