The 2012-13 NBA regular season ended a month and six days ago. Over the 170 days prior, starting on October 30, 2012, it was 82 games up, 82 games down for the Washington Wizards; 29 wins and 53 losses. The beauty is that we don’t have to live through it again—teams that win 35 percent of their games rarely want to—but we also don’t have to forget. Because you’d never learn, or improve, if you forgot everything and ripped the rearview mirror off the Ferrari.

Nineteen different individuals suited up for the Wizards this past season. Martell Webster led the way in action with 2,200 minutes, and Jason Collins contributed the fewest with 54 minutes. For all 82 games, the staff of Truth About It.net, amongst other game observations, rated each of the five Wizards starters plus two players off the bench on a three-star scale (inspired by the District of Columbia flag) in a series of posts called the D.C. Council. (Well, we evaluated players for all games, except one: Game 60, when Deron Williams completely demoralized the Wizards from ever competing by going 7-for-7 from the 3-point line in the first quarter.)

Sometimes three players off the bench were evaluated instead of two; a few times it was less than two. In general, the average rating of players coming off the bench was skewed a little higher for the simple fact that those playing better were more likely to get evaluated. Starters, on the other hand, got evaluated no matter what.

[***Also: remember that silly little time in December 2012 when the most positive talk that could be mustered was how the 1-13 Wizards led the NBA in bench scoring? Swell.]

The D.C. Council ratings are a statistical anti-stat. They are the combined impression of several interested members of the crowd, but in numerical form. Sometimes the ratings were contingent on winning and losing, and they were always subjective. They are simply one window of evaluation, combined with written analysis, both standard and advanced statistics, and shot charts. Below is a hyperlinked index of reviews for all 19 Wizards (plus a bonus review of Tomas Satoransky, Wizards Euro-stash), their average D.C. Council three-star rating, and the number of games over which they were evaluated.

The 2012-13 Washington Wizards season: it was all a dream, and not that great of a dream.

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[Wizards 2012-13 Player Reviews from the TAI crew are going down; let's reflect---index so far:
Jannero Pargo, Jason Collins, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, Cartier Martin, Earl Barron,
Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza,
Martell Webster, A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Kevin Seraphin, Bradley Beal, Nene, John Wall.]

Bonus:
Lukas Kuba reviews the Spanish League season of Tomas Satoransky, ’12 Wizards 2nd rounder.

Tomas Satoransky

6-7 : Height
205 lbs. : Weight
21 : Age
6 : Years Pro Experience
2 : Teams (USK Prague, Cajasol Sevilla)

Drafted by the Wizards 32nd overall in 2012.

Stats as a Cajasol player in 2012-13

ACB League

33 : Games
33 : Starts
962 : Minutes
12.5 : PPG
51% : 2P FGs%
34% :  3P FGs%
79% : FT%
4.2 : APG
3.2 : RPG
1.2 : SPG

Eurocup

12 : Games
9 : Starts
336 : Minutes
10.2 : PPG
48% : 2P FG%
30% : 3P FG%
77% : FT%
4.8 : APG
3.8 : RPG
0.8 : SPG

Tomas Satoransky in 2012-13 with Cajasol:
Dunking on Teams, NBA Dreams

by Lukas Kuba (@Luke_Mellow)

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The Wizards, on Tuesday, landed the third overall pick in the 2012-13 NBA Draft … and they will do with it what they please, your miseducated speculation and dime-store mock drafts be damned.

So Truth About It.net turned to online scouting regurgitations, mostly intuition, and a wing and a prayer to come up with a list of the most potentially #SoWizards players who could soon be given a fanny-pack embroidered with a scarlet Wizards logo, a spot on the roster, and a pain in our hearts.

#1) Rudy Gobert

At some point in time, Ernie Grunfeld yelled, to no one in particular, “Well, why don’t you just calculate a player’s ability to calculate!!?”

He was being facetious, but some scientist got right on it. Well, at least the guy was wearing a lab coat. He was also wearing a G-Wiz mascot uniform under that.

Grunfeld then, himself, went on to measure Frenchman Rudy Gobert’s 7-foot-9 wingspan in Grunfeld head-lengths (hey, that’s just his system… the answer is 5.138, by the way—Ernie has a really long head). Grunfeld also calculated Gobert’s 238-pound weight in Grunfeld heads, and it just so happened to be the very same number.

So it was determined that Gobert would be the third overall pick, especially since he can exchange “je m’appelles” and “toute de suites” with Kevin Seraphin and Snakey all season long, much to the chagrin of Randy Wittman. Take that, analytics!

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Emperor Ernie Grunfeld, more formally known as Washington’s Team President of Basketball Operations, discusses the ever-evolving process, which is more NeverEnding Story (the movie) and less Law & Order (an episode). Grunfeld also reveals that the Cleveland Cavaliers actually won twice. After winning the first pick, Cleveland also won the third pick, so they had to re-draw and Washington’s combination came up.

Here is a secret of the NBA Draft Lottery, which, by revealing, will result in me being sequestered, along with the ping pong ball machine, for the next calendar year with only a representative from Ernst & Young for company. My general assumption was that the NBA took a commercial break before announcing the top three picks to build drama for the audience watching at home. This is true and effective to a large degree, but the real reason they take that commercial break is so that the assembled media hoard can descend three flights of stairs, run across the street under the escort of New York’s finest, and get cordoned off in the basement of the studio in which the show is taking place. It was there, surrounded by machinery lifts, cameras that have been put out to pasture, and around 100 sweating reporters, that I learned that the Wizards had won the third pick in the lottery. You are then escorted into a freight elevator and unleashed upon the stage where you push your way to your interviewee of choice. You see the weirdest sights on the draft floor, such as Flip Saunders having an extremely candid and friendly talk with Ernie Grunfeld, Damian Lillard looking for every possible escape route, and the spawn of Dan Gilbert lapping up the attention. (Other members of the Gilbert brood looked visibly annoyed that their youngest sibling has become the human horseshoe and the only thing worth talking about on draft night.)

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It’s commonplace for the fan to get entrenched in ‘what ifs’—it simply has to be ingrained into DNA by now.

What if the Wizards didn’t win the pre-lottery coin flip tie-breaker against the Los Angeles Clippers after the 2008-09 season? Both teams finished with identical 19-63 records, and even though the Wizards got a single extra combination in the ’09 lottery after winning that coin flip (so, a 17.8 percent chance of getting the top pick instead of LA’s 17.7 percent), the Clippers won the prize, i.e., Blake Griffin. Not only that, but two other teams, Memphis and Oklahoma City, jumped into the top three, bumping Washington to five.

But what if the Wizards, who sent Flip Saunders as their lottery representative in 2009, had been part of the winning combination? They likely would have elected to not trade the fifth overall pick (for Mike Miller, Randy Foye and a money-save) and would have instead drafted (and kept) Griffin.

[To note: Saunders was Minnesota’s rep at the 1995 lottery and also returned to his team with the fifth overall pick, but that turned out to be Kevin Garnett—the Timberwolves finished tied with the Wizards for the second-worst NBA record that season, 21-61. Washington, holding the tie-breaker in odds to win No. 1 (18.3 percent to 18.2), landed the fourth pick and took Rasheed Wallace. Both teams were jumped by Golden State (Joe Smith, No. 1), and Philadelphia (Jerry Stackhouse, No. 3).]

Surely, with Blake Griffin missing his entire first season with the Clippers due to a broken kneecap sustained during the preseason, the Wizards, being themselves, likely would have been bad enough to land a high pick again, i.e., John Wall in 2010.

The what ifs… Wall, Lob City-ing, or whatever, to Griffin in the Verizon Center—the return of “Fun Street.” Speaking of…

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The NBA Lottery drawing is perhaps the last informal event left in the NBA this season. The set-up consists of three floors of conference rooms in the Millenium Hotel in New York City—you have to continously run up and down the stairs in hopes of getting the person you want to interview to speak on the record. This is how I found myself pushing past Monty Williams, who was bemoaning the summer heat in New Orleans, and making my way over to Bradley Beal, who was passing up on eating dinner until us pesky reporters were done asking our questions.

Draft Lottery night is also an evening for dumb questions, such as the requisite “did you bring anything for good luck?” Beal did not bring anything for good luck, he says, but indicated he was wearing the same burnt umber tie that he wore the night 2012. He also didn’t voice an opinion on whether the Wizards should keep the pick, stating that “it was up to Ernie and the front office, but you can see that we were doing better at the end of the year.”

More interesting news is Beal’s injury status, which remains uncertain. Beal told me that he was going in for another x-ray next week, but wasn’t particularly worried about the timetable or how he was healing. After talking to the Washington Post‘s Michael Lee, the reality is that the original recovery schedule may have been a tad agressive; waiting another four weeks till Beal is back and engaged in basketball related activities would not be entirely surprising.

Beal, however, was incredibly candid when it came to the resigning of Martell Webster: “Gotta resign Martell. Love that guy. Hits down open shots, high energy, court and locker room leader … love him, you gotta resign him.” This should be music to the ears of Webster, who is positioned to eat up the Wizards’ MLE.

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[Wizards 2012-13 Player Reviews from the TAI crew are going down; let's reflect---index:
Jannero Pargo, Jason Collins, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, Cartier Martin, Earl Barron,
Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza,
Martell Webster, A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Kevin Seraphin, Bradley Beal, Nene, John Wall.]

John Wall

6-4 : Height
195 lbs. : Weight
22 : Age
3 : Years NBA Experience
1 : NBA Team

Drafted first overall by the Washington Wizards in the 2010 NBA Draft.

Time as a Wizard in 2012-13

49 : Games
42 : Starts
1,602 : Minutes

1.91 out of 3 stars

Average Truth About It.net DC Council Game Rating
{Wall evaluated over 48 games}

20.8 PER

NBA historical PER contribution equivalent:
maybe Steve Nash for the 2001-02 Dallas Mavericks (20.8)
maybe Fat Lever for the 1986-87 Denver Nuggets (20.7),
maybe Kevin Johnson for the 1993-94 Phoenix Suns (20.6)

.134 Win Shares/48 Minutes

NBA historical WS/48 contribution equivalent:
maybe Baron Davis for the 2003-04 New Orleans Hornets (.133),
maybe Tony Parker for the 2002-03 San Antonio Spurs (.134),

With John Wall on the Court…

The Wizards offense scored 7.3 points more per 100 possessions (OffRtg)
The Wizards defense allowed 0.2 points more per 100 possessions (DefRtg)
Plus/Minus per 48 minutes: plus-1.3

Numbers : Per 36 Minutes

20.4 : Points
4.4 : Rebounds
0.8 : Blocks
1.5 : Steals
8.4 : Assists
3.5 : Turnovers
2.6 : Fouls

0.88 PPP

Wall had 1,015 offensive possessions with the Wizards that ended with a FGA, TO or FTs, and he scored 0.88 Points Per Possession (PPP) on those, ranked 261st in the NBA (via Synergy Sports Technology). Defensively, he allowed 0.89 PPP over 594 possessions, ranked 256th.

Shooting

44.1% Field Goals (324-735)
26.7% 3-Pointers (12-45)
80.4% Free Throws (246-306)

#2

John Wall in 2012-13 with the Wizards: Are You There, John? It’s Me, Stardom

by Conor Dirks (@ConorDDirks)

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[Wizards 2012-13 Player Reviews from the TAI crew are going down; let's reflect---index so far:
Jannero Pargo, Jason Collins, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, Cartier Martin, Earl Barron,
Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza,
Martell Webster, A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Kevin Seraphin, Bradley Beal, Nene, John Wall.]

Nene Hilario

6-11 : Height
260 lbs. : Weight
30 : Age
11 : Years NBA Experience
2 : NBA Teams

Traded for by the Wizards on March 15, 2012.

Time as a Wizard in 2012-13

61 : Games
49 : Starts
1,659 : Minutes

1.63 out of 3 stars

Average Truth About It.net DC Council Game Rating
{Nene evaluated over 55 games} 

17.0 PER

NBA historical PER contribution equivalent:
maybe Anderson Varejao for the 2004-05 Cleveland Cavaliers (17.0)
maybe A.C. Green for the 1993-94 Phoenix Suns (17.0),
maybe Frank Brickowski for the 1992-93 Milwaukee Bucks (17.0)

.116 Win Shares/48 Minutes

NBA historical WS/48 contribution equivalent:
maybe Jermaine O’Neal for the 2000-01 Indiana Pacers (.116),
maybe Amar’e Stoudemire for the 2002-03 Phoenix Suns (.116),
maybe Gheorghe Muresan for the 1994-95 Washington Bullets (.116)

With Nene on the Court…

The Wizards offense scored 5.9 points more per 100 possessions (OffRtg)
The Wizards defense allowed 3.9 points less per 100 possessions (DefRtg)
Plus/Minus per 48 minutes: plus-2.7

Numbers : Per 36 Minutes

16.6 : Points
8.8 : Rebounds
0.8 : Blocks
1.2 : Steals
3.8 : Assists
3.0 : Turnovers
3.7 : Fouls

0.90 PPP

Nene had 850 offensive possessions with the Wizards that ended with a FGA, TO or FTs, and he scored 0.90 Points Per Possession (PPP) on those, ranked 231st in the NBA (via Synergy Sports Technology). Defensively, he allowed 0.84 PPP over 370 possessions, ranked 122nd.

Shooting

48% Field Goals (285-594)
72.9% Free Throws (196-269)

[stats via NBA.com/stats and Basketball-Reference.com]

#42

Nene Hilario in 2012-13 with the Wizards:
Trapped in a Glass Menagerie

by Sean Fagan (@McCarrick)

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[Wizards 2012-13 Player Reviews from the TAI crew are going down; let's reflect---index so far:
Jannero Pargo, Jason Collins, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, Cartier Martin, Earl Barron,
Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza,
Martell Webster, A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Kevin Seraphin, Bradley Beal, Nene, John Wall.]

Bradley Beal

6-5 (but not really) : Height
207 lbs. : Weight
19 : Age
R : Years NBA Experience
1 : NBA Team

Drafted third overall by the Washington Wizards in the 2012 NBA Draft.

Time as a Wizard in 2012-13

56 : Games
46 : Starts
1,745 : Minutes

1.63 out of 3 stars

Average Truth About It.net DC Council Game Rating
{Beal evaluated over 52 games}

13.6 PER

NBA historical PER contribution equivalent:
maybe Kevin Grevey for the 1979-80 Washington Bullets (13.7)
maybe Vince Carter for the 2011-12 Dallas Mavericks (13.6),
maybe Ron Harper for the 2004-05 Miami Heat (13.6)

.082 Win Shares/48 Minutes

NBA historical WS/48 contribution equivalent:
maybe Muggsy Bogues for the 1991-92 Charlotte Hornets (.082),
maybe Spud Webb for the 1987-88 Atlanta Hawks (.082),
maybe Dwyane Wade for the 2007-08 Miami Heat (.082)

With Bradley Beal on the Court…

The Wizards offense scored 0.3 points less per 100 possessions (OffRtg)
The Wizards defense allowed 0.4 points more per 100 possessions (DefRtg)
Plus/Minus per 48 minutes: minus-2.4

Numbers : Per 36 Minutes

16.1 : Points
4.4 : Rebounds
0.6 : Blocks
1.0 : Steals
2.8 : Assists
1.9 : Turnovers
2.3 : Fouls

0.91 PPP

Beal had 842 offensive possessions with the Wizards that ended with a FGA, TO or FTs, and he scored 0.91 Points Per Possession (PPP) on those, ranked 209th in the NBA (via Synergy Sports Technology). Defensively, he allowed 0.88 PPP over 560 possessions, ranked 224th.

Shooting

41% Field Goals (282-687)
38.6% 3-Pointers (91-236)
78.6% Free Throws (125-159)

#3

Bradley Beal in 2012-13 with the Wizards:

Growing Pains? Beal With Them

by John Converse Townsend (@JohnCTownsend)

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[Wizards 2012-13 Player Reviews from the TAI crew are going down; let's reflect---index so far:
Jannero Pargo, Jason Collins, Shaun Livingston, Shelvin Mack, Cartier Martin, Earl Barron,
Jan Vesely, Chris Singleton, Trevor Booker, Garrett Temple, Emeka Okafor, Trevor Ariza,
Martell Webster, A.J. Price, Jordan Crawford, Kevin Seraphin, Bradley Beal, Nene, John Wall.]

Kevin Seraphin

6-9 : Height
275 lbs. : Weight
23 : Age
3 : Years NBA Experience
1 : NBA Team

Drafted 17th overall by the Chicago Bulls in 2010 and traded to the Wizards along with Kirk Hinrich and cash for Vladimir Veremeenko on draft night.

Time as a Wizard in 2012-13

79 : Games
8 : Starts
1,721 : Minutes

1.56 out of 3 stars

Average Truth About It.net DC Council Game Rating
{Seraphin evaluated over 26 games} 

10.3 PER

NBA historical PER contribution equivalent:
maybe Joel Anthony for the 2011-12 Miami Heat (10.3)
maybe Francisco Elson for the 2008-09 Milwaukee Bucks (10.3),
maybe Johan Petro for the 2011-12 New Jersey Nets (10.3)

.004 Win Shares/48 Minutes

NBA historical WS/48 contribution equivalent:
maybe Isaac Austin for the 2001-02 Memphis Grizzlies (.003),
maybe Stacey King for the 1994-95 Minnesota Timberwolves (.003),
maybe Othella Harrington for the 2006-07 Charlotte Bobcats (.003)

With Kevin Seraphin on the Court…

The Wizards offense scored 5.0 points less per 100 possessions (OffRtg)
The Wizards defense allowed 1.0 point more per 100 possessions (DefRtg)
Plus/Minus per 48 minutes: minus-7.4

Numbers : Per 36 Minutes

15.1 : Points
7.2 : Rebounds
1.2 : Blocks
0.5 : Steals
1.2 : Assists
2.7 : Turnovers
4.4 : Fouls

0.80 PPP

Seraphin had 888 offensive possessions with the Wizards that ended with a FGA, TO or FTs, and he scored 0.80 Points Per Possession (PPP) on those, ranked 371st in the NBA (via Synergy Sports Technology). Defensively, he allowed 0.86 PPP over 385 possessions, ranked 171st.

Shooting

46.1% Field Goals (330-716)
69.3% Free Throws (61-88)

[stats via NBA.com/stats and Basketball-Reference.com]

#13

Kevin Seraphin in 2012-13 with the Wizards: #KevinSeraphinLife Heads Off Track

by Adam McGinnis (@AdamMcGinnis)

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