OK fine, let’s talk about the Wizards.

The Nobleman With the Hand on His Chest, El Greco, 1580

They have won six straight games, which is worth sitting up and noticing in a pretty tough Eastern Conference. Washington has officially hit the magical 0.0 net rating, a sign of pure averageness. In the standings, they remain just below .500 at 24-26, but given that five weeks ago they were 13-21 and seemingly headed for a very embarrassing season, “just below .500” is commendable. The evidence is starting to suggest that this is no worse than perfectly average, and perhaps better. That in itself would be a huge upgrade on where this team has fallen since 2018.

The interesting piece about all of this is that Bradley Beal has slipped dramatically both in production and reputation in the past two years. He’s nowhere remotely close to the All-NBA conversation, and I haven’t seen him seriously considered as an All-Star reserve very much. And yet, the Wizards are 16-14 when he plays this season and 8-12 when he doesn’t. The star has dimmed, but on this team he’s still vitally important to making what works work.

I’d argue he’s the third most important player on the team, behind rock steady Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis. Kuzma is averaging career highs in points, assists and scoring efficiency; he’s taken on a far larger share of the offense than ever before, and it’s actually working out OK for the team. It’s not great — he’s not a natural playmaker and his three-point shooting isn’t conducive to high volume. But he’s picked up some workload that would otherwise fall to players completely ill-equipped to handle it. Kuzma’s decent efficiency at high usage is a big part of the difference between the Wizards being perfectly average and being straight-up bad...