This is the third article in a four-part series examining NBA scouts’ opinions about the potential and development of the Washington Wizards’ most prominent young players. Part 1 (including an explanation of the methodology): Deni Avdija. Part 2: Bilal Coulibaly.
WASHINGTON — Johnny Davis will face difficult obstacles in his second NBA season.
The first burden stems from unmet expectations. The Washington Wizards drafted him 10th overall in 2022, and he struggled to earn playing time as a rookie and did not make a positive impact in the rare instances early in the season when he did play. Meanwhile, several players selected after him — most notably, Oklahoma City Thunder wing Jalen Williams (drafted 12th) and Utah Jazz center Walker Kessler (drafted 22nd) — thrived, making Davis look like an underachiever by comparison.
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The second challenge originates from recent changes to the Wizards front office. Tommy Sheppard, the person most responsible for drafting Davis, was fired five months ago. Three executives are new to the franchise: Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger, Wizards general manager Will Dawkins and Wizards senior vice president of player personnel Travis Schlenk. Whether Winger, Dawkins and Schlenk will be as invested in and patient with Davis’ development as Sheppard would have been looms as an open question.
“He’s going to have a little bit more of an intense light on him this year just from an evaluation standpoint because the team’s shifted,” one NBA talent evaluator said of Davis. “It’s not any of his fault or anything, but he’s going to have to prove that he’s ready to play this year quicker than maybe incrementally getting better and showing progress just because everyone’s going to be a little bit under the gun there.”
That talent evaluator — referred to as “Scout A” in the remainder of this piece — is one of four player-personnel experts The Athletic spoke with about Davis, and it’s accurate to say that three of the four scouts now are less optimistic about Davis’ long-term potential than they were before the 2022 NBA Draft.
As a University of Wisconsin sophomore, Davis won the Big Ten Player of the Year award and won the Jerry West Award as the nation’s best shooting guard. As a Wizards rookie, Davis looked overmatched before the team assigned him to its G League affiliate; Davis wound up appearing in 28 of the Wizards’ regular-season games, including a late-season stretch when he played heavy minutes with Bradley Beal, Kyle Kuzma, Monté Morris, Delon Wright and Kristaps Porziņģis all out.
“He was different from what I viewed him (as) in college,” Scout B said of Davis. “In college, I think he was really competitive, really sure of himself, really assertive on the court. He got to his spots, got to situations where he could be impactful and effective. He competed on both ends. And certainly early on (in the NBA), it just seemed like for whatever reason, he didn’t have that same level of confidence, and that impacted him overall.”
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Immediately after the season ended, Sheppard indicated that some of Davis’ early difficulties arose from universal coming-of-age challenges. Only 20 years old when his rookie season started, Davis was away from his home state of Wisconsin and his fraternal twin brother, Jordan Davis, for the first extended period of his life. Last September, the same month the Wizards assembled for Johnny Davis’ first NBA training camp, Davis and his girlfriend welcomed their first child.
And for additional context, it’s important to note that Davis started slowly in college, too. As a freshman, he had appeared in all of the Badgers’ games, always as a reserve, and averaged 7.0 points, 4.1 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game. As a sophomore, he blossomed into a full-time starter and a team leader, averaging 19.7 points, 8.2 rebounds and 2.1 assists per game.
“Johnny is an interesting case because I’m not surprised by his early (NBA) struggles,” Scout C said. “He wasn’t this guy who came in as a freshman and kind of took over and established himself. So, it takes him a little bit to get adjusted to find his footing. The hope with him is (he becomes) a guy who can make shots, straight-line drive, play in transition and defend at a high enough level. Even in the G League at times he would struggle, but a lot of it is just him trying to find his way around because he’s just a slow starter.”
The Wizards have to hope Davis’ professional career will progress along a path at least somewhat similar to his upward trajectory in college. Apart from his resilience, his rookie season offered relatively few reasons for optimism.
“To stick in the league, you’ve got to do something well,” Scout D said. “I’m not sure what he does well.”
Davis’ strengths
In Washington’s final five games — again, with key contributors such as Beal, Kuzma and Porziņģis out — Davis averaged 36.0 minutes, 17.0 points, 6.0 rebounds, 3.8 assists and 1.4 steals per game.
He was inefficient. He made only 39.5 percent of his shots from the field and 26.3 percent of his 3-point tries.
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But at least he looked aggressive and more sure of himself on offense.
“That was promising to see at the end of the year just to have him take away having a certain level of success at some point,” Scout B said. “But prior to that, he really struggled.”
Before the 2022 draft, many analysts, including The Athletic’s Sam Vecenie, lauded Davis’ ability to finish at the rim. That was one of the skills that translated somewhat from college to the pros. According to Cleaning the Glass, an advanced analytics database that excludes garbage-time stats and end-of-quarter heaves from midcourt (or longer), Davis made 63 percent of his shots at the rim as a rookie. Although those attempts were admittedly at a low volume — just 30 attempts over 21 non-garbage-time games — Davis’ field-goal percentage on those shots ranked exactly in the middle among all players classified as wings. Being solidly league-average is not impressive, but at least it’s an area where Davis didn’t struggle.
Davis lived up to his reputation as an effective midrange shooter, making 42 percent of his 55 2-point attempts that were not at the rim, according to Cleaning the Glass, which, again, excludes stats compiled in blowouts. That success rate of 42 percent ranked Davis as slightly above average among NBA wings, per Cleaning the Glass.
Davis, listed by the Wizards at 6-foot-5 and 195 pounds, was an outstanding defensive rebounder in college, and he showed significant promise in that area with the Wizards. Davis collected 12.6 percent of opponents’ missed field-goal attempts, per Cleaning the Glass, placing him in the 75th percentile among NBA wings, ahead of, among others, the Memphis Grizzlies’ Desmond Bane and the Denver Nuggets’ Bruce Brown. (It should be noted that Bane’s and Brown’s defensive-rebounding figures were hindered by playing alongside some strong defensive rebounders).
The mid-March clip illustrates Davis’ willingness to crash the boards and finish at the rim.
The scouts said Davis has the potential to be a versatile and above-average defender, and coach Wes Unseld Jr. said repeatedly that he liked Davis’ effort on that end, as shown by this video clip from an early April game in Atlanta. Here, Davis navigates a Clint Capela screen and recovers in time to successfully contest a jumper by the Hawks’ Dejounte Murray.
Perhaps no area offers as much reason for optimism as an intangible one: Davis’ perseverance. His first summer league, first preseason and initial months during the regular season could not have gone much worse than they did. And yet, Davis embraced the Wizards’ decision to send him to the G League’s Capital City Go-Go and, after he returned to the NBA for good in early March, he displayed a newfound confidence.
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After a mid-March victory over the Detroit Pistons, Unseld said, “He didn’t look out of place. I think early in the year at times he was a little tentative. (But tonight) he fit right in. He got right in there and we were able to run stuff through him. He played downhill. He didn’t turn shots down, which is a great sign. I think just the level of ‘comfortability’ that he showed tonight is a big step.”
Davis’ weaknesses
One way to look at Davis’ rookie-year struggles is that at Wisconsin, he played within a highly structured offense in which he had the freedom to probe defenses, often with jab steps, even if it meant he inadvertently resembled a ball-stopper at times. No wonder, then, it took him almost his entire rookie year to look comfortable in the NBA, where long-range shooting and creativity are so critical for shooting guards.
Another assessment is that Davis lacks the athleticism, shooting skill and ballhandling to be an impact wing offensively.
“He’s probably below-average athletically for a two (guard),” said Scout D, who tended to be the most pessimistic evaluator of Davis among the scouts I spoke with. “He hasn’t shot it well. What does the guy do? You’ve got to do something. You’ve got to have some niche. I’m not sure what his niche is. I think the bottom line is he’s just not that talented.”
To be sure, when Davis entered the draft, few analysts in the media described him as someone who could break down defenders off the dribble with regularity. Davis’ rookie season only solidified that perception. He remained heavily reliant on 2-point shots outside the restricted area; only 21 percent of NBA wings attempted a higher percentage of their 2-point field-goal attempts outside the restricted area than Davis did, according to Cleaning the Glass.
It’s often said the best field-goal attempts in the NBA are layups and 3s. If that’s still true, then Davis hasn’t yet done enough of either, because he attempts a large number of 2-pointers outside the restricted area.
“I think that he’s different because he’s not the traditional guard that’s playing in today’s game, not really a long-range, 3-point threat,” Scout B said. “(He has) decent size, but (he’s) not the most athletic, not the most quick guard. So, I think that they’re really going to have to find ways to give him a level of comfort out on the floor, things that he’s comfortable doing.”
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Scout B added: “The way the game is played, for him to look good, I think the offense has to be catered a certain way, which is different from how most teams are playing these days. He works well in the midrange. He’s strong, able to take advantage of being defended by weaker guards using his body in the midrange area, in the mid-post. For him to do those things, the team has to put him in those spots. So, in that regard, you have to highlight his capabilities a little bit. And if that’s not being done, then I think it’s hard for him to find success.”
The shooting has not come around yet. After he made just 32.5 percent of his 3-point tries during his two-year tenure at Wisconsin, he converted only 24.3 percent of his 3s as a rookie. Opposing defenses will not hesitate to sag off him when he’s stationed on the perimeter.
Davis’ performance in this year’s NBA Summer League was at best a mixed bag. Although he continued to appear as confident as he appeared late last regular season and hit 42.9 percent of his 3s, he remained inefficient. He made just 40.9 percent of his overall field-goal attempts.
“I think it’s concerning, because for all the hoopla about the rookies and being able to see them, the summer league is really critical more for the players like Johnny Davis, who are the second-year players, because they should come there and be capable of producing and being responsible for wins and losses,” Scout A said.
“There were a couple of third-year players that played well this year, too. So, if you can’t go there and produce and kind of carry the team, then it’s a little bit (worrisome). I think he shot the ball really well there, but I don’t think he got to the basket or finished very well, and that’s a little bit concerning. I don’t know if that was ever going to be part of his strengths. It was encouraging that he shot the ball as well as he did and (you can be) hopeful that can be extended (into the NBA season). But to play with kind of an inefficiency that he played with at summer league two years in a row — there’s starting to be a little bit of warning signs there.”
Many Wizards fans no doubt would take issue with one aspect of Scout A’s evaluation: the implication Davis is only now beginning to display reasons for worry about his long-term outlook. So, some added context is needed here. Scout A indicated he didn’t expect Davis to enter the league as a finished product and, therefore, shouldn’t have been counted out after just one subpar season.
Davis’ future
Something that made the Wizards’ decision to draft Davis questionable in the first place was the rest of the team’s roster. The team’s wings already included Beal, Corey Kispert and combo forwards Deni Avdija and Kyle Kuzma. Later, the Wizards signed point guard Delon Wright, who is comfortable playing off the ball.
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Beal is gone now, but the Wizards’ cupboard of wings is no less crowded. Kispert, Wright, Avdija and Kuzma remain on the roster, and this summer, the team added presumptive starting shooting guard Jordan Poole, first-round draft pick Bilal Coulibaly and veteran Landry Shamet.
So, it’s difficult to envision Davis receiving much playing time if everyone else is healthy.
That scenario and the Wizards’ new front-office leadership cast doubt on Davis’ chances for a bounce-back 2023-24 season and raises questions about his long-term future with the franchise.
Still, the scouts did not dismiss Davis’ long-term potential entirely.
Scout C offered the most optimistic projection, saying Davis could, if everything goes right, eventually emulate a pair of 6-foot-4 wings, Josh Hart of the New York Knicks or Norman Powell of the LA Clippers.
“I don’t think he’s a superstar in the NBA at the end of the day,” Scout C said. “I think he can be a solid starter in a best-case scenario for him. I don’t think he’s dynamic enough athletically to hit the high-end threshold of elite players, and he’s not an elite skill player to be like, ‘I’m going to rely on my feel and touch to outplay everyone.’ So, there are boundaries in a lot of ways, a lot of directions. And he’s 6-4, not 6-8. So, you hope he’s a plus defender who can make open shots, drive when he has an advantage and play in transition.”
Scout A continues to think the Wizards need to be patient with Davis.
“I think he can still be a serviceable and good player who has defensive versatility and can stand at the line and make enough shots,” Scout A said. “That’s probably as a backup wing on a really good team. I think he was a slow starter in college, and he’s proven to be a slow starter in the pros. So, it’s all going to come with the patience that’s put into him. That’s why you get a little concerned, because the team has switched over a little bit, and they may not have as much patience with him as someone that had drafted him.
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“The hopeful outcome is that he can be a really good, versatile wing to play on a good team and be capable of playing off stars. And if he can do that, then he’s going to find himself a spot in the league for a long time. But he has to learn to play efficiently, and maybe that’s going to come.”
Davis will turn the relatively young age of 22 in late February, which Scout D acknowledged is a plus in Davis’ favor. In all, however, Scout D is skeptical.
“If he was the 43rd pick, you might go, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s a pretty good pick,’ ” Scout D said. “But he was the 10th pick. So, he’s burdened with the expectations of a lottery pick, and that can be fatal to a guy’s career. I guess the question is: Can he get on the court? Why should he get on the court? I think he’s got a pretty good feel (for the game). He’s not really a combo guard, though.”
Scout D added: “(Players who are) two guards, they’ve got to be able to score and they’ve got to be able to shoot, and it’s not clear that he can do either. What’s his advantage? What’s his edge? That’s just a disastrous pick.”
(Top photo of Johnny Davis: Geoff Burke / USA Today)
