SB Nation NBA Reacts Week 23 Results, Part 1: Wizards fans still lose confidence in the team, believe Deni Avdija will benefit from Summer League and EuroBasket

Thank you for your input in this week’s SB Nation NBA Reacts survey. Our team results are below.

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Wizards fan confidence drops to 27 percent

SB Nation

Fan confidence remains low as we head toward the homestretch of the regular season. Here’s why some of you are confident:

• “I guess I’m a sucker. But there are glimmers of hope with the young guys, and roster flexibility with respect to contracts. Damn frustrating team a lot of the season, though.”
• “The Wiz are tanking. That’s good. Maybe we will catch a good selection in the Draft.”
• “I’m confident only because we have a solid rotation of players and only the PG spot needs a solid starter and backup. Also, Wes Unseld, Jr. needs to have a former head coach on his staff to help him to make better in game adjustments.”

And here is why some of you are not.

• “Everything but most of all team seems to have no plan. And if there is one it is a shitty plan.”
• “Deni Avdija is a bust. Rui Hachimura is not starter quality.”
• “Ted the Capitals owner and Ted the Wizards owner are two different people. Ted the Wizards owner doesn’t care about winning. I wish he would sell.”

Over 200 people responded. This number is lower than most of our past several weeks of surveys due to the fact the survey was only open from last Tuesday to Wednesday. The survey was cut short to keep the consistency of results, and also the SB Nation Reacts team also had to handle the NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournaments’ polls from last weekend. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Most of you believe that Deni Avdija should participate in Summer League though he is entering his third NBA season

SB Nation

Most NBA draft picks play in the Summer League at least once as a rite of passage. Rui Hachimura did it in 2019, Corey Kispert did it last year, and Bradley Beal did it in 2013, among others. Deni Avdija, the Wizards’ 2020 first round draft pick did not play in Summer League before his rookie season because of the coronavirus pandemic.

While Avdija is averaging 7.6 points and 5.1 rebounds per game this season, some fans are concerned that he isn’t becoming a somewhat higher usage player (only 15.3 percent this season), even with players like Beal out of commission. The Summer League would offer him an opportunity to shine as a more featured player and experiment with a role that the team may want to see him in for the longer term. Yes, it’s true that most players on Summer League rosters just aren’t NBA quality, but it’s worth seeing Avdija in a different capacity than as a low usage wing defender and facilitator.

A small majority believe that Avdija would benefit from playing for Israel in EuroBasket, and that he would benefit more than Tomas Satoransky doing the same for the Czech Republic

SB Nation

Many of today’s best NBA players on the right side of their primes are Europeans. Giannis Antetokounmpo (Greece), Nikola Jokic (Serbia) and Luka Doncic (Slovenia), Rudy Gobert (France) and Nikola Vucevic (Montenegro/Belgium dual citizen) are just some of the many European All-Stars in recent seasons. Some like Antetokounmpo and Jokic have won the NBA MVP award in recent seasons.

For the Wizards, while they have drafted many non-American players in recent seasons, they haven’t been All-Stars like the other players I mentioned. Still, I asked the question anyways on whether you thought it was worth it for Deni Avdija (Israel and also a Serbian citizen) and/or Tomas Satoransky (Czech Republic) would benefit form the experience. EuroBasket is from Sept. 1 to 18 this year.

Though it won’t interfere with the NBA season like Women’s EuroBasket does with the WNBA season … this year’s tournament is also cutting it close with the Wizards’ training camp. After all, the Wizards have two preseason games in Japan in late September.

If you are a commenter, many of you believe that Avdija in particular would be best off focusing on Summer League or dedicating his efforts to the Wizards first over the Israel men’s national basketball team. In other words, if you are sympathetic or agree with that, you feel sort of like how I wished that Emma Meesseman would dedicate her efforts to the Mystics over the Belgium women’s national basketball team in past WNBA seasons.

Given how passionate many European players are about playing for their national teams, I just don’t see Avdija not playing in EuroBasket if he is offered a spot for Israel. And at the end of the day, a small majority (51 percent) of you believe that he would benefit from the experience, more than Satoransky. In Sato’s case, the Czechs were fifth in EuroBasket 2017, made the quarterfinals in the 2018 FIBA World Cup and the 2020 Olympics where he was already their top player for several years. The next most common choice was that Avdija wouldn’t benefit at all from EuroLeague experience.

Avdija hasn’t played much for Israel’s senior national team in international play beyond some qualifiers. A full and deep run in EuroBasket could also be a springboard to a successful training camp as well.

At any rate, when EuroBasket happens, both Israel and the Czech Republic will be in the same group, namely Group D. Here are the teams in the group:

• No. 42 Israel (Avdija’s national team)
• No. 12 Czech Republic (Sato’s national team)
• No. 6 Serbia
• No. 13 Poland
• No. 35 Finland
• No. 47 Netherlands

If I had to take a wild guess, Serbia and the Czech Republic are near locks to advance. But I wouldn’t be surprised to see Israel advance as well since Avdija could be playing more to his strengths from his pre-NBA days.

Most of you think Corey Kispert will be a sixth man next year

SB Nation

Kispert is averaging 7.7 points per game as a rookie and scored in double digits in six of his last seven games. Despite the losing, I’m happy to see that he is growing into his own.

Next season, Bradley Beal is expected to return, and it will affect Kispert’s playing time. In our survey, 66 percent of you believe that he will be a sixth man instead of a starter where he is right now.

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The national results will be out tomorrow!

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