The Wizards' preseason has come and gone, so it's time to turn to everyone's favorite thing: numbers!  

Okay, I'm being facetious.  I get the natural reaction to ignore these things, since it's preseason and all.  But they also can potentially tell us a lot about how the season is going to play out, and they give us an idea just how well the Wizards are doing with their projected strengths and weaknesses.  Jake covered some of the more traditional statistical quirks on SB Nation D.C., but below the jump, here are some more advanced statistics, thanks to the wonderful Advanced Statistics calculator on Pick and Scroll.

For more on some of these, check out Orlando Pinstriped Post's guide to them from earlier this summer.

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I'll be honest: I'm not that enthused about Yi Jianlian next year.  It's not his fault, and I understand the Wizards essentially got him for free, but I'm really not impressed by his game.  Thus far, he's demonstrated that he's an inefficient scorer (48% TS%, which is dreadful), a poor rebounder (7.9/36 minutes is bad for a power forward) and a confused defender.  His per-game numbers make it seem like he improved last year, but it's a mirage that had more to do with just getting more minutes -- his per-minute stats didn't get any better.  

So I'm not exactly holding my breath that he'll become a completely different player.  He hasn't even really shown flashes - he's just played consistently mediocre basketball.  

However, there is one way Yi can become a somewhat valuable player this year.  He just has to learn to take a few steps back on the court.

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I know, I know, this is kind of the understatement of the century, but I hadn't realized just how terribly our offense has been since the trades until friend of the site Kevin Broom (TheSecretWeapon) sent me this graph.  Broom's a former contributor to Real GM and a big figure in the NBA advanced stat community, and he sent me this chart he made graphing the Wizards' game-by-game offensive and defensive efficiency ratings.

The green line refers to our game-by-game offensive efficiency, and the orange dotted line is team's offensive rating trend line for the season.  As you can see, it's gotten really, really ugly recently.  The light blue line is the league average, and as you can see, we've been really, really far below that recently.

The silver lining is that our defense (red line) was doing well before this recent five-games-in-six-days stretch.  Hopefully that at least gets back to a decent level.  However, what these numbers clearly show is that, for all of Andray Blatche's success, you cannot build a good offense with him being your number one option.  He needs help, and lots of it, which if fine but ultimately a reality we need to face.

Editor's Note, by bwoodsxyz: This is the first installment in what I expect to be an occasional series on NBA team construction.  This column takes a look back at the Big 3 concept that was used in DC over the last half-decade before we turn to looking forward at the potential direction of the franchise.  The plan is for the next installment to look more generally at how top-heavy recent successful teams have been, and how those franchises brought in their top talent.

The earliest mention I've been able to find of the term "Big Three" used in reference to basketball was as a moniker for Bob Cousy-Ed Macauley-Bill Sharman on the 1954 Celtics.  Boston, LA, and St. Louis, among others, had Big Threes in the 50s and 60s.  Since those 80s Celtics teams, "Big Three" got tossed around for the Jordan-Pippen-Rodman and Jordan-Pippen-Kukoc Bulls, among others.  Some of the more prominent recent Big Three were the Kidd-Jefferson-Carter Nets and the Garnett-Pierce-Allen Celtics.

I don't recall ever hearing the term used on any Bullets-Wizards combinations over the years, and I've been unable to turn up any news references.  I'd be very interested to hear from anyone who remembers it having been used for this franchise.  (One wonders what could-have-been for the Chris Webber-Rasheed Wallace-Juwan Howard combo had it been kept together beyond 95-96.  I'd managed to forget just how young that group was.  They were all 22 or younger.  They had some very good supporting pieces.....)  Moving on to the Wizards, after the jump.

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As I'm writing this, we're all still checking the rumors, waiting for the other shoe to drop on the trade front.  Or not.  Or is it shoes, plural? 

In the meantime, let's take a look at the trade that has actually been completed, Brendan Haywood, Caron Butler, and Deshawn Stevenson for Drew Gooden, Josh Howard, James Singleton, and Quinton Ross.  But, instead of analyzing it as an "NBA Trade", with concerns of salary cap space, luxury tax, franchise financial health, ownership situations, cap-friendliness of contracts, etc., etc., etc., what if we suspend disbelief (and ignore the part of this where certain guys may never actually suit up for their new teams), and just look at the players involved, with particular attention to the incoming players who have the best chance of being here for the rest of this year, and maybe even going forward.

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There has developed a notion around this Wizards team that their season has perhaps been derailed as much by an inability to "win close games" as by suspension, injury, or just generally not being very good.  With last night's loss, the Wizards have now lost 9 games decided by three points or less.  Evaluating the team as one that just needs a few more points in a few more games is, however, off base.

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Last week, we featured some of Brendan Haywood's very impressive defensive numbers, and also mentioned some of those posted by Andray Blatche.  But what about the team's very young big-man prospect, Javale McGee?

Last season, his reputation was as someone maybe even more physically gifted than expected, but who wasn't yet advanced enough to do the sorts of things to enter the palace of good play.  This season, he hasn't seen the floor enough to change any judgments, and what he's done while he's been on the court hasn't helped his cause either.

This seems to be a situation where the numbers back up the reputation.  The stats, and some thoughts on his future, after the jump.

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Editor's Note: This is bwoodsxyz's latest. We had to delay it due to Arenas mania, and he had computer issues so he asked me to post it. -Mike

It has taken years, but Brendan Haywood has started getting more recognition for the good defense he plays on a bad defensive team.  One thing that came out of last season's debacle was a broader understanding of the on-court defensive quarterbacking Haywood has provided to this team.    Dwight Howard recently mentioned Haywood as someone he thinks should be an all-defense team candidate.  Howard noted Haywood's blocks per game average, which, at 2.1, is the highest of Brendan's career and puts him currently at 6th in the league.  He is also averaging career highs in defensive and total rebounds (and offensive rebounds) per game, with 10.6 per game total, good for 9th in the league.

But what can we learn about his defense this year, and for his career, from numbers other than his per games?

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