Is Putting the Wizards as a 6th Seed Fair?
By Trey Johnson
Today the over-unders for the new NBA season came out now that about 90% of the moves are done and the only players left are either aging veterans or players that will get minimum contracts with contenders. The ranking of where they put the Wizards was not where I thought they were going to put them but I can’t say I’m mad about it as they always play better when the national media is down on them. This is what the over-under win totals for each team looked like.
As you can see, they put the Wizards as a 6th seed getting 44–45 wins. While I don’t think that it is the most accurate assessment of how they are going to do this season, I also think it’s hard to critique this Wizards team. For starters, Dwight Howard is a 17 point, 13 rebound, 1 block per game guy on any given night but for some reason, everyone sees Dwight as a guy that ruins every team he’s on and fights with coaches on a consistent basis. Another reason why it’s hard to critique this team is because of John Wall. Not because of how good of a player he is but because the media don’t see him as an All-Star and they also don’t think that he’s a top 5 point guard in the league even though he has carried the Wizards to the playoffs more times than some other players that they mention are better than him. You could go on to say that supporting players such as Oubre and Sato aren’t rated as highly by the media but those are the two main factors that everyone talks about when the Wizards are mentioned.
While I think they are sleeping on this team and that putting the Wizards in 6th isn’t a thrilling idea to any of the fans out there, I would argue that putting this team as a 6th seed is a fair assessment to start the season. Partly because you don’t know how Dwight fits into this team and injuries as well as the schedule can’t be used as deciding factors. It’s also good that the media isn’t high on the Wizards because when they were high on them after they were 1 win away from the Eastern Conference Finals, they became a “targeted team,” and as a result, got the best effort from each and very team around the league so it’s safe to say this team does great when they don’t generate a lot of hype. If I were to judge the Wizards over-under currently, I would take the over by 5.5 games which would get them a 50 win season for the first time in franchise history which is something that every Wizards fan would love to see and it would also mean that they become a 4 seed instead of a 6 seed which would mean that they get home-court advantage for the first round and hopefully steer themselves into a series win. As John Wall said, “The job for us is to just fly under the radar and make it happen.” That is something the Wizards have embraced during the John Wall era and will be continuing to embrace next season.
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