February Mailbag Part 1: Should Anthony Davis come to D.C.?

Thank you for your questions for this month’s mailbag. Here are some of the selected questions in our first part. Thanks!

If Tommy wants to swing for the fences— Anthony “Street Clothes” Davis in LA seems to be wearing out his welcome. Would an AD for Beal (sign and trade) make any sense whatsoever (assuming the Lakers does not want Porzingis)?

Ted could say “Twin Towers!”, others might say “Twin Towers” in the hospital wing! (Alex Choi)

I would not be opposed to a Beal trade. But I also don’t think that a Beal for AD deal trade will work in a one-for-one swap, practically speaking. Washington may have to give up draft capital for such a deal to work.

After that, the Wizards will need to beef up their already depleted guard rotation. So unless they make a move for another guard that fits longer term, I don’t see it working.

The Wizards’ depth is a gift and a curse. Too many players overlap and steal each other’s minutes while Wes struggles to define clear rotations. Bradley Beal and Spencer Dinwiddie were two players playing the same position with the Wizards front office kidding itself about Dinwiddie being a point guard.

With that being said, did the Wizards resolve their Beal/Dinwiddie problem while at the same time creating a future Kristap Porzingis/Kyle Kuzma problem? The way I see it, they play the same position and similar games at times. Will they be able to coexist? (Michael Durso)

Players who have similar games can coexist at the forward positions a bit better than at guard. And teams can and do find ways to keep those players together to finish games when it’s close. So it’s not like they both have to start like David Robinson and Tim Duncan in the late 1990s for the San Antonio Spurs.

The Washington Mystics essentially had a more superstar-oriented version of the situation you described when Elena Delle Donne came to town from the Chicago Sky in 2017. She played the same position as ..... (I really didn’t want to say her name because you will all roast me ..... but ....) Emma Meesseman. They didn’t play well together that first year or even in the beginning of the 2019 season. But they eventually got it together in time to win a championship.

Porzingis can play at the 5 so Kuz can remain at that 4. Or Porzingis could move to the 5 so Kuz could stay at the 4. Or he could move to the 3 since Rui Hachimura can still start at 4. And we didn’t even get to what happens with Daniel Gafford and Thomas Bryant yet! The forward rotation is still quite deep, but I think the Wizards can figure out how to keep both KP and Kuz happy and productive. That said, I don’t expect the Wizards to win a championship as constructed.

How good will Rui Machida be for the Mystics? (multiple messages)

I am admittedly not familiar with Machida’s game beyond her 2020 Olympics performance. Using her Olympic performances, I think she has potential to be a strong floor general and passer for Washington’s reserve unit. To keep defenses honest, however, she will need to be a better three-point shooter than her Olympic stats indicated, especially when Japan played Team USA.