OPINION:
Zach Leonsis, president of media and new enterprises for Monumental Sports (and son of the owner), celebrated on social media recently the accomplishments of three young Washington Wizards — Bilal Coulibaly, Bub Carrington and Alexander Sarr.
All three were named to the Rising Stars game at the NBA All-Star fiasco.
“(Their) selection to the Rising Stars roster is a testament to the young talent fueling the next era of Wizards basketball,” he wrote.
He’s not alone in his appreciation of the trio.
Last month, Kevin Durant praised the budding stars after a Phoenix win over Washington. “Tough to score on in the next few years,” he told reporters. “I think defense is going to be the first thing you see from this group …. I can’t wait to see it. I want to see them do well.”
After a November loss to the Golden State Warriors, Draymond Green also spoke highly of the next-gen Wizards.
“The energy that they bring, the demeanor that they bring, that’s the first time we’ve seen a Washington Wizards team play that hard in years,” Green said.
Here’s an accomplishment, though, that you won’t see Leonsis post anywhere, an accomplishment that defies the so-called “energy” that Green spoke of.
The Wizards are kings of the worst plus-minus numbers in the NBA — for the second straight season.
Seven of the 10 worst plus-minus numbers in the league belong to either Wizards currently on the roster or recently departed players.
At the league’s All-Star disaster break, Carrington had the worst plus-minus number in the NBA — minus 623 over 54 games. He was followed by Coulibaly, with a minus 581 mark over 50 games and Jordan Poole, who accumulated a minus 436 figure over 47 games.
Then you come to the gone but not forgotten Kyle Kuzma — who loved it here so much last year that he declined a chance to be traded to the contending Dallas Mavericks, only to declare this season that he was going to “be myself and not really just try to fit into everything that we’re doing here” — who posted a minus 414 in 32 games before being traded to the Milwaukee Bucks.
Next is Sarr, the 7-foot rookie, who had a minus 409 in 42 games, and then another departure, Jonas Valanciunas, who, after 49 games with Washington, left behind a minus 341 number.
That’s one through six on the list of the worst plus-minus players in the league. Another one of the Wizards prized rookies, Kyshawn George, holds down the number 10 spot with a minus 287 in 48 games.
Coulibaly, Poole and Kuzma are repeat offenders. Last year Washington had five of the NBA’s worst plus-minus players — Coulibaly at minus 418, Poole had minus 553 and Kuzma, who led the league for the worst plus-minus statistic at 562 over the 2023-2024 season. Others in the top 10 were former Wizard Tyus Jones with a minus 498 number and Corey Kispert with a minus 444 mark.
Plus-minus is a measure of player stats that attempts to calculate what happens on the scoreboard while that player is in the game.
It is simply one analytics tool, and it has flaws and critics.
But it also has defenders.
“I like the stat,” said Maryland basketball analyst and District Basketball Hall of Famer Chris Knoche. “I think it’s one way to measure intangibles, what a player does to help his team. I think it has real value, especially over a long stretch of games.”
Look, I get Washington has the worst record in the league — 9-45 going into the break. And they had the second-worst record in the NBA last season at 15-67. They are losing by a margin worse than any team in the league – 13.4 points per game. Where else would you expect their players to be except in the negative plus-minus category?
But the team with the worst record in the league last year, the Detroit Pistons, did not have one player among the 10 worst plus-minus performances.
This season, among the three remaining places in the worst 10 plus-minus measurements, are players from three different teams.
So what can we conclude from Washington players — including the celebrated youngsters — dominating these lists of losers two years in a row? Maybe they are learning to lose worse than anyone else in basketball? Developing bad habits? Heck, today’s NBA is a league full of bad habits.
Still, the handful of Wizards fans remaining (the team is 28th in the league in attendance, averaging 16,366 per game) seem excited about this core group and the future — the multiple first and second-round draft picks that general manager Will Dawkins accumulated at the trading deadline.
Dawkins did what was expected of him in what he has called the “deconstruction” phase of the franchise. But the reality is these are invisible players. No one has any idea if they, too, are all future leaders of the worst plus-minus in the league.
Historically, Washington has not done well with invisible players. Since the team last won 50 games in a season in 1979, Washington has drafted 49 players. Not one hall of famer in the bunch.
That’s a loss-loss statistic.
• You can hear Thom Loverro on “The Kevin Sheehan Show” podcast.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.