Washington Wizards fans will have to get familiar with a few new faces next season.
So far this offseason, the Wizards have traded for Isaac Bonga, Jemerrio Jones, Moritz Wagner. Via free agency they’ve signed point guards Ish Smith and Isaiah Thomas along with forward Jonathan Simmons. For Bonga, Jones, and Wagner the expectation would be spending some time in the NBA G-League and/or at the end of the bench.
The Wizards didn’t make long term commitments to either Smith or Thomas. Smith’s deal will be for two years, Thomas’ for one. Both will be sharing time at the point guard position as John Wall recovers from his Achilles injury.
The Wizards also sent backup combo guard, Tomas Satoransky for a 2020 second-round pick and the right to swap draft order on a 2022 second-round pick. The Bulls also eliminated protections on the 2023 second-round pick tied to the Otto Porter trade.
This, of course, is on top of drafting Gonzaga’s Rui Hachimura.
There will be some questions that will need to be answered.
How will Scott Brooks balance Dwight Howard and Thomas Bryant’s minutes assuming Howard is healthy?
Troy Brown Jr. played a lot of point guard when he was playing with the Capital City Go-Go. Does acquiring both Thomas and Smith end that experiment?
Do the Wizards have enough wing perimeter shooting to open the floor?
The Eastern Conference continues to get tougher with each passing day of free agency but unfortunately for the Wizards, with their cap situation, this is the best they can do.
There’s also the question of who will get the President/GM job. Tommy Shepherd is the interim at this moment but, at this point, it would make sense for Ted Leonsis to remove the interim tag.
So where does that leave the Wizards? Expectations should be that they’ll be better than last year with the high watermark being somewhere around competing for the eighth spot.
