Daily Digits is a new daily feature we’re doing at Bullets Forever this year where we take a look at stats about the Wizards. We’ll dive into the numbers, add some context, and discuss how they affect the product on the court.

Today’s stat is the Wizards’ scoring differential when Austin Rivers and Tomas Satoransky are on the floor together without John Wall and Bradley Beal, which is...

-71

The idea of staggering John Wall and Bradley Beal’s minutes has been discussed for years, dating back to the Randy Wittman era, and it’s only gotten worse as the two have gotten better and the bench has gotten worse.

In recent years, part of the problem has been that Washington’s reserves have been so bad that they drag down any efforts to stagger Wall and Beal to the point that there isn’t any real value to splitting them up. This season, however, that hasn’t been the case. John Schumann of NBA.com ran the numbers and Washington has performed quite well in the limited minutes where Wall or Beal have been going solo.

If the Wizards can embrace this approach more in the coming games, that will make a difference on the margins, but it won’t fix the core issue. Washington isn’t going anywhere if the Wizards don’t play better when Wall and Beal are on the court together.

Thankfully, there are signs that’s starting the come around. Their net rating together is -1.4 over the last five games, which still isn’t going to cut it, but it’s trending in the right direction compared to what it was at the start of the season. If they can get back to posting positive numbers together, it will put them in a better position to make the most of staggering them and hopefully minimize the damage when they’re together on the bench.