Wizards at Nets GameThread

The Wizards play the Nets on Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m. ET. Watch the game on NBC Sports Washington. Listen to it on Federal News Radio or the Wizards Mobile App.

Washington is back on the road and will look to snap a four-game losing streak. Brooklyn, on the other hand, is on a two-game winning steak and will look to improve their playoff seeding.

It wasn’t that long ago when the Nets were in a position not unlike the Wizards. They were doomed for the NBA Draft Lottery for multiple seasons but their picks were going to the Celtics in the wake of a blockbuster trade they made for Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett as an “all-in” move. At the time I always thought that the trade wouldn’t work out because the Nets were playing quite well with a younger roster at the time, but their ownership just wanted bigger names at all costs.

Though Brooklyn hasn’t won many games until this season, they have at least cleared all their salary cap space to make moves for unrestricted free agents and sign more stop gaps if the unrestricted free agents saw their offer sheets matched. Otto Porter was an example of that.

The Wizards don’t want to admit it, but they need to rebuild. Though they at least have their first round pick from this year’s draft and future ones coming here, second round draft picks have been traded away like a commodity to clean up past signing blunders. And of course, half of their salary cap will be tied to John Wall and Ian Mahinmi, neither of whom are expected to provide much impact due to injuries and ineffective play, respectively. So unless Washington does really well with nearly every draft pick they sign, they just won’t have flexibility to do much else.

Well, salary cap flexibility has nothing to do with individual games so let’s see how this game goes. Go Wizards.