https://youtu.be/Y8hHivh8Aco
I was initially surprised by the factoid which I about to present to you, but as I thought about it more deeply, I realized that there was no reason for it to be so surprising. And that factoid is this:
Rui Hachimura is the third-leading scorer on the Wizards right now.
If your first feeling in response to that factoid is one of shock, I don’t blame you. Hachimura is just a second-year player, and while he’s a fine scorer, nobody really thinks of him as a scoring machine at this point in his career. However, when you start considering him against the rest of the ‘Zards roster, this factoid starts to make more sense.
Thomas Bryant is injured and provides no scoring from his hospital bed where a team of doctors works around the clock for months straight to repair his knee-meat. Davis Bertans is inexplicably bad at shooting threes this season. The only other player on the roster with any kind of recent scoring pedigree, Troy Brown Jr., is underutilized and regularly receives DNP’s. The fifth-leading scorer is frickin’ Garrison Mathews. That tells you all you need to know.
So, Hachimura is the third banana in Washington right now. With Tradely Beal and Chucksell Statpadbrook being so ball-dominant, the “third banana” role conveys less scoring responsibility than it would on other teams, but it’s still valuable experience for Hachimura as he develops his game. Hopefully his soul doesn’t get crushed by the neverending losses.