This week…

• Offseason Recap: Front office shake up, trades and draft night

• Zaz’s take: What are they thinking?

• Pre-Season Schedule

Offseason Recap

New Front Office

After yet another disappointing season in 2023, Ted Leonsis finally decided to part ways with General Manager Tommy Sheppard and shake up his senior management team. Fast forward, two months later and the Wizards front office had a whole a new look. Here are the main hires:

• Michael Winger, President of Monumental Basketball: Winger comes to Washington after spending over 6 years with the LA Clippers as the Team’s General Manager. Prior to that he held the position of Assistant General Manager for the OKC Thunder.

• Will Dawkins, General Manager: Winger quickly hired Dawkins, an old colleague from OKC, who most recently held the role of Vice President of Basketball Operations for the Thunder. ,

• Travis Schlenk, Vice President of Player Personnel: Shlenk was immediately hired by Winger to oversee the player development for the team. Schlenk previously worked for the Atlanta Hawks and the Golden State Warriors.

Cleaning House

Winger and his crew wasted little time in getting the re-building process underway which meant tearing down a roster to create cap space and obtain draft assets. This included the Beal and Porzingis trades which you all know about but a few other moves that may have gone un-noticed.

There were some key additions to the roster that the Wizards made via the various trades that should make this season’s outlook “interesting” to say the least.

Finally, there were some important re-signings including Kyle Kuzma at $102M for 4 years.

Draft Night 2023

New general manager Will Dawkins said before the draft that he wanted to take big swings and he did just that. The Wizards gave up a pair of 2028 second round picks to move up into the 7th pick to secure Bilal Coulibaly, an athletic wing with high potential who most recently played in France alongside Victor Wembenyama.

In the second round, the Wizards drafted Tristan Vukcevic, a 20 year old 7-footer who currently plays for Partizan Mozzart Bet Belgrade where he will likely remain for the 2023-2024 season.

So where does that leave us you may ask. Here’s a video that looks at the glass half full…

Zaz’s Take: What are they thinking?

Well folks, that was quite an offseason. Several moves were made from changes in personnel to management, to even the coaching staff. All that being said, I can’t honestly say I know what’s going on?

My first impression when Beal and Porzingis were traded was that this was definitely going to be a rebuild. But then, we acquire Jordan Poole and resign Kuzma. I can understand the Kuzma signing, we were able to get him much cheaper than what I thought he’d command. But acquiring Poole confused me. 

Teams going through a rebuild generally unload assets to free up cap space and don’t add talent so they lose games (aka tank). Furthermore, rebuilding teams try to load up on future first rounders, which they acquire from unloading those assets. No first rounders were acquired in the Porzingis trade (unless you count the Celtics who were able to get a KP and a first rounder after sending away Marcus Smart. Let that sink in). In the Beal trade we got plenty of pick swaps and second rounders but no additional first rounders.

We then flipped Chris Paul from the Beal trade and finally got a first-round pick in 2030, that is top 20 protected. Furthermore, Jordan Poole’s contract isn’t cheap and could be considered overvalued judging by the way he played in last year’s playoffs. 

So what are what we trying to do? I stood right next to both Winger and Dawkins for about ten minutes during the Wizard’s fashion show last week and had the urge to ask. Fortunately for them, I was too preoccupied trying to get a pick and some conversation with my favorite player Mr. Landlord. 

My best guess is that their hope is Poole and Kuzma have great numbers in the first half of the season and are flipped for outright first rounders. But you never know the way the new management has been.

Pre-Season Schedule

The pre-season starts this week and we’ve got the full schedule for you below.

• Tuesday, Oct. 10th @ 7:00pm EST: Wizards vs Taipans

• Thursday, Oct. 12th @7:00pm EST: Wizards vs Hornets

• Wednesday, Oct. 18th @7:30pm EST: Wizards vs Knicks

• Friday, Oct. 20th @ 7:30pm EST: Wizards vs Raptors

Have a great week! Go Wizards!