How badly can injuries be blamed on the Wizards’ season results?

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WASHINGTON — Because there’s no perfect way to quantify injuries, it’s hard to contextualize exactly the impact of injury to the Wizards this season, which ended with a 35-47 record, a ” disappointment” according to those involved.

Man Games Lost charts NBA injuries based on the total number of games missed and the quality of those players as measured by VORP (Value to Replacement Player). They had the Wizards in above-average health compared to the rest of the league in mid-March, so just before they started shutting down key players.

Spotrac also lists NBA injuries, albeit differently. They take into account the total money earned by injured players, which is another way to assess the impact of each player’s absence. Spotrac also has the wizards pretty lucky when it comes to their wound spell.

That said, there’s no doubt that injuries have affected the Wizards’ season. Delon Wright’s hamstring strain, which kept him out of action for 29 consecutive games and nearly two months, took its toll. The Wizards went 26-24 in games Wright played this season versus 9-23 when he was away, while playing significantly better defense.

Their defensive rating was four points lower when he was on the ground, meaning they allowed four points less per 100 possessions. Wright had the highest net rating (3.2) among rotation regulars.

Injuries also prevented the Wizards from seeing a significant cross-section of their top three players; Bradley Beal, Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis. Those three only played 35 games together and the Wizards had a losing record (16-19) when they did.

What the Wizards will need to determine this offseason is whether those two elements of their team — the heavy reliance on Wright, a backup point guard, and the small sample size of their core line — are signs of more positives to come or lessons to learn. learned.

In their exit interviews with the media, several players played down injuries to explain how their season has gone.

Kyle Kuzma, who called the year itself “embarrassing”, acknowledged that other teams have weathered injuries better this season.

“Health hurt us. Not saying that’s an excuse because if you look at a team like the Pelicans they’ve been hurt as badly as we are and somehow they’ve got 42- 39 and look really positive before [the postseason],” he said.

Corey Kispert had a more direct assessment of how health has affected the Wizards’ season and how the team can better prepare moving forward.

“Injuries are part of the game. It happens to everyone. It happened to me this year, it happened to Brad, it happened to Kuz, it happened to KP Like, it happens to everyone world. You know there are going to be injuries and part of your contingency plan as a team is to budget for that,” he said.

“When guys get injured, there’s a change in what you have to do on the pitch. There needs to be better communication between players about it, from player to player, and communication from manager to player and player to manager; it’s at all levels. I just think a lot of times this year when guys gave up, guys just looked around and said, ‘It’s my time to go. I was guilty of that too. In reality, there has to be a collective effort to reevaluate in the moment. Okay, this guy is hurt, what needs to change? You change That, I’m going to change that, we’re all going to change You can absorb injuries, you see teams that win 50, 60 games a year, they’re really good at absorbing injuries, that’s part of it.

As Kuzma noted, Pelicans had more wounds than Wizards. So did other teams that made the playoffs like the Heat, Warriors, Grizzlies, Thunder, Cavs and Nuggets. As Kispert said, the best teams can overcome injuries.

Washington has tried to improve in this area. Over the past couple of years in particular, they’ve made a series of moves aimed at bolstering their rotational depth. This process will naturally continue this summer.

Kispert, however, adds some startling details about other ways wizards can overcome key player absences. Obviously, the depth of quality players helps, but the Wizards will inevitably encounter times when injuries pile on top of each other, when they have to go further off the bench than they would like.

“It’s easy to point fingers and blame injuries and circumstances, but other teams have figured that out,” Kispert said. “There has to be a standard that we play stylistically and aggressively and things like that no matter who’s on the pitch.”

Team president Tommy Sheppard said in his postseason press conference that the Wizards “can’t discuss” their record. They need to improve after a year of failure.

Sheppard also said he thought the team deserved an “incomplete” rating because injuries were limiting their ability to build chemistry. He thinks the team that went on the All-Star break after winning 10 of their last 14 games was an example of his potential.

“The consistency of availability, I think, affects a lot of things. People can’t always put that together, but for players to play together, to become a cohesive unit, I think that’s important,” said Shepard.

The Wizards will indeed benefit from better health next season. It’s also possible the opposite could happen as this year they ranked favorably league-wide in terms of injuries and it was with Porzingis who had their healthiest season since 2016-17.

The only things that are certain are injuries that will occur and wizards will have to find ways to endure them once they do.

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