2020 NBA Free Agency: Wizards sign Neto and Homesley. Who are they?

In day two of NBA free agency, the Wizards front office found time between dealing with the fallout of John Wall’s demand to be traded and coming to terms with signing the wrong Lopez brother, to reach agreements with veteran backup point guard Raul Neto and undrafted free agent Caleb Homesley.

With so little Wizards-related to think about today, I dusted off my trusty stat tools and took a look at who the front office brought to town. Let’s start with Homesley.

Caleb Homesley

Start by reading Diamond Holton’s article about him. By the time you’re done, you’ll agree: When you have the chance to add the number 10 all-time scorer in Liberty University history, you gotta do it.

Naturally, Ye Olde Draft Analyzer (YODA) disagrees. Homesley was a fifth year senior after redshirting because of an injury just 10 games into his sophomore season.

What stands out in the numbers? Not a lot really. He appears to have been the solid G/F type that’s extremely valuable in college and rarely makes a successful transition to the NBA. His three-point shooting was iffy throughout his college career until his senior season when it became adequate (36.9%). His free throw shooting was iffy until his senior season when it took a turn to the terrible (59.8%).

His rebounding, assists, steals and blocks are all kinda standard issue — not bad but not impressive either. That’s actually not a great sign considering he was 23 years old this season. On the bright side, he avoided turnovers and fouls.

The final verdict in YODA was a “don’t draft” grade. There’s a long list of undrafted players who rated ahead of Homesely in YODA. For comparison, last year, Garrison Mathews and Admiral Schofield both rated well ahead of where Homesley scored in this draft class.

He’s a longshot to make the team or even become a contributor, but if the team believes he has a shot, they might as well give it a try.

Raul Neto

Neto, a former second round pick by the Utah Jazz (okay, technically he was picked by the Atlanta Hawks and traded to the Jazz for a future second round pick that became Pat Connaughton), played four years in Utah and one with the Philadelphia 76ers. He’s...a guy.

Here’s his PPA for each season (in PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and 45 is replacement level):

• 2015-16: 60
• 2016-17: 44
• 2017-18: 54
• 2018-19: 70
• 2019-20: 72

He’s a decent shooter and playmaker, who typically has a two-to-one or better assist-to-turnover ratio. His first couple years, he generated a decent amount of steals, but he’s not much good defensively, so he’ll fit in well with teammates.

He should be fine as a third guard most nights and a backup when Wall sits for load management, assuming Wall is with the team in 2020-21.