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Wizards close summer league with 87-77 win over the Golden State Warriors

2022 Las Vegas Summer League- Washington Wizards v Golden State Warriors
Wizards guard Pat Spencer
Photo by Bart Young/NBAE via Getty Images

Just as expected on draft night, the Wizards’ best player was Pat Spencer, and the former lacrosse star helped the team to a dominating fourth quarter, and a comfortable 87-77 win over the Golden State Warriors.

At several points tonight, it looked like the Warriors would beat the Wizards by double digits. Then they opened the final period with a “who’s that?” lineup so obscure, that I turned to my wife and said, “The Wizards are about to go on a run.” And they did, opening the fourth with a 20-0 binge.

The Good

  • Pat Spencer is a longshot to reach the NBA, but during summer league he displayed solid skills and enough athleticism to warrant a closer look. Tonight: 11 points, 5 rebounds, 7 assists and 2 steals in 24 minutes.
  • In the fourth quarter, Quenton Jackson scored 14 points on 6-8 shooting (including a three), and also produced 3 rebounds, an assist and 2 steals. He’s fast, competitive and big enough for a backup wing role. The Wizards may not invite him to training camp, but he flashed enough in summer league to warrant a look somewhere.
  • Jaime Echenique was a load inside, which was enough for summer league. Tonight: 17 points, 12 rebounds and enough of a defensive presence to make things challenging for the Warriors.
  • Devon Dotson is small but flashed the playmaking that drew the Wizards interest.
  • Mac McClung isn’t on the Wizards roster, but he’s quick and fairly strong, and he had great chemistry with James Wiseman. If the Warriors don’t bring him to training camp, some NBA team will.

The Not-So-Good

  • Isaiah Todd played poorly, again. Anyone can have a bad shooting night (he was 3-13 from the floor and 2-8 from three-point range), but he’s 6-10 and managed 1 rebound and zero assists in 23 minutes. He struggled against guys like Lester Quinones and Dustin Sleva.
  • Arturs Zagars joins The Billions Club. I don’t remember which player “invented” it, but the idea is that a guy plays however many minutes while producing nothing. Tonight, Zagars got 5 minutes and produced zero rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, personal fouls and points.

So ends a vaguely disappointing Wizards summer league. The team went to Las Vegas with hopes that guys like Todd, Johnny Davis, and maybe one or two other guys would show progress and at least flashes of future rotation players. Todd looked terrible most of the time. Davis seemed overwhelmed.

Vernon Carey Jr. was productive, but in ways that seem unlikely he’ll be able to replicate at the NBA level. That was much the same for Echenique.

The Four Factors

Below are the four factors that decide who wins and loses in basketball — shooting (efg), rebounding (offensive rebounds), ball handling (turnovers), fouling (free throws made).

I’ve simplified them a bit. While the factors are usually presented as percentages, that’s more useful over a full season. In a single game, the raw numbers in each category are easier to understand.

Four Factors: Wizards 87 vs. Warriors 77

FOUR FACTORS WIZARDS WARRIORS
FOUR FACTORS WIZARDS WARRIORS
EFG 0.454 0.479
OREB 7 12
TOV 11 21
FTM 18 8
PACE 103
ORTG 101 89

Key Stats

Below are a few performance metrics, including the Player Production Average (PPA) Game Score (very similar to the one I used to call Scoreboard Impact Rating). PPA is my overall production metric, which credits players for things they do that help a team win (scoring, rebounding, playmaking, defending) and dings them for things that hurt (missed shots, turnovers, bad defense, fouls).

Game Score (GmSC) converts individual production into points on the scoreboard. The scale is the same as points and reflects each player’s total contributions for the game. The lowest possible GmSC is zero.

PPA is a per possession metric designed for larger data sets. In small sample sizes, the numbers can get weird. But some readers prefer it, so I’m including PPA scores as well. Reminder: in PPA, 100 is average, higher is better and replacement level is 45. For a single game, replacement level isn’t much use, and I reiterate the caution about small samples producing weird results.

POSS is the number of possessions each player was on the floor in this game.

PTS = points scored

ORTG = offensive rating, which is points produced per individual possessions x 100. Points produced is not the same as points scored. It includes the value of assists and offensive rebounds, as well as sharing credit when receiving an assist.

USG = offensive usage rate. Average is 20%.

ORTG and USG are versions of stats created by Wizards assistant coach Dean Oliver and modified by me. ORTG is an efficiency measure that accounts for the value of shooting, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers. USG includes shooting from the floor and free throw line, offensive rebounds, assists and turnovers.

Key Stats: Wizards

WIZARDS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
WIZARDS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
Pat Spencer 24 51 11 130 21.0% 263 26.4 16
Quenton Jackson 22 48 18 108 27.9% 247 23.2 15
Jaime Echenique 30 64 17 122 21.7% 142 17.9 25
Devon Dotson 16 35 11 144 25.5% 242 16.9 -6
Tyler Hall 21 45 7 92 16.3% 73 6.5 16
Craig Sword 14 31 5 74 21.8% 44 2.7 13
Jordan Schakel 17 37 6 105 13.1% 32 2.4 -10
Tahjere McCall 8 16 2 97 9.3% 52 1.7 -8
Jordan Goodwin 20 42 2 59 18.1% 4 0.3 -1
Arturs Zagars 5 11 0 0.0% 0 0.0 -4
Isaiah Todd 23 50 8 54 21.8% -102 0.0 -6

Key Stats: Warriors

WARRIORS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
WARRIORS MIN POSS PTS ORTG USG PPA GmSC +/-
Mac McClung 23 49 14 138 23.6% 201 19.6 3
Jarrod Uthoff 9 19 7 179 15.5% 324 12.2 2
Payton Willis 22 46 7 129 10.4% 131 12.0 -3
Lester Quinones 20 43 13 105 21.9% 93 7.9 6
Alex Morales 21 45 10 84 26.5% 57 5.1 -1
Gabriel Chachashvili 17 37 3 83 7.5% 69 5.0 12
Dustin Sleva 11 25 2 123 9.1% 91 4.4 -3
James Wiseman 19 41 11 85 33.7% -4 0.0 -7
Selom Mawugbe 4 9 0 0 11.1% -164 0.0 -15
Kalob Ledoux 19 40 5 63 17.4% -73 0.0 -23
Yudai Baba 19 42 2 52 21.0% -72 0.0 0
Joel Ntambwe 7 14 0 19 22.2% -264 0.0 -11
JD Notae 10 21 3 52 31.7% -241 0.0 -10