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<\/a><\/p>\nEntering his fourth season, Tristan Vukcevic faces competition for even the limited minutes he\u2019s played the past three seasons. NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n
Note that his year two and year three PER scores were the same. On the other hand, PER says Vukcevic has been a bit above average each of those seasons, which I\u2019d suggest is a view not shared by many.<\/p>\n
Vukcevic is on his way back for a fourth season because\u2026well\u2026I was about to write \u201cstrengths,\u201d which would not be completely accurate. He seems to have one strength, which is shooting. At least I think he\u2019s good at shooting. His on-court behavior and the treatment he gets from teammates suggests they also think he\u2019s good at shooting.<\/p>\n
The problem, he has not actually made shots at a high level during NBA competition. Through three seasons, he\u2019s finished well on at-rim attempts, been down-down-and-WAY-up from floater range, and not so good on longer twos. His three-point shooting (34.8% on 282 career attempts) is basically league average.<\/p>\n
That three-point shooting is probably good enough for a center to make defenses at least pay attention, though it\u2019s not likely to change game plans.<\/p>\n
Vukcevic seems to enjoy setting up teammates, but the creativity comes at a cost. He\u2019s had more turnovers than assists each of the past two seasons, and has a negative assist-to-turnover ratio for his career.<\/p>\n
Vukcevic rebounds a little, though his career low in rebounding was last season.<\/p>\n
Defense has been an adventure. The on\/off metrics haven\u2019t been atrocious, and he does generate blocks (better than two per 100 team possessions) and steals. The defensive playmaking comes with fouls, though \u2014 5.9 per 100 team possessions for his career.<\/p>\n
The positive-seeming on\/off metrics are probably illusory. Throughout Vukcevic\u2019s career, Washington\u2019s defense has been historically bad when he\u2019s been off the court. In his minutes \u2014 many of which have come during garbage time and blowouts \u2014 the team defense has been slightly less historically bad. I don\u2019t think that \u201cimprovement\u201d has been caused by Vukcevic.<\/p>\n
As the team transitions to what they hope will be a competitive posture, Vukcevic faces increased competition for even the modest minutes he\u2019s received. Alex Sarr, Anthony Davis, and DeAndre Ayton likely will take most of the big forward and center minutes. Vukcevic may be the fourth big, though the team could also choose to play smaller lineups when one of those guys can\u2019t play. In other words, Vukcevic will also be battling Justin Champagnie, Keyshawn George, Will Riley, AJ Dybantsa, and others for playing time.<\/p>\n
Okay, that\u2019s a lot of preamble \u2014 we\u2019re here for Statistical Doppelgangers. For the uninitiated, this is the latest installment in this year\u2019s annual trip through the Statistical Doppelganger Machine, which is an algorithm I cooked up to tell me which player seasons (since 1977-78) were most like the reference player. In this case, Vukcevic. Keep up!<\/p>\n
The Machine uses 14 categories, including various stats (per possession), age and playing time. While it doesn\u2019t use position or size, comparison seasons tend to come from the same position grouping.<\/p>\n
By the way, the player most similar to Vukcevic in 2026-26 was Vukcevic in 2024-25. This happens less often than you might expect. At least more often than I expected. To the doppelgangers:<\/p>\n
Mortiz Wagner | 2021-22 | Orlando Magic | Age: 24 \u2014 This was the fourth season and fourth team for Wagner. He\u2019d spent the previous two seasons getting on opponents\u2019 nerves for the Wizards. In subsequent seasons, he worked himself into a chippy, physical, annoying, and decent backup big man before tearing an anterior cruciate ligament in his knee.Rodney White | 2003-04 | Denver Nuggets | Age: 23 \u2014 This season and the next were about as good as it would get for White, who I remembered as a PF type but Basketball-Reference lists as a SF and SG. I think my memory is right \u2014 he was 6-9 and 24o pounds. He had enough ball skills and shooting ability to play a stretch-four role in the aughts, but only just.Henry James | 1990-91 | Cleveland Cavaliers | Age: 25 \u2014 Nothing much to see here. This was James\u2019 rookie year, and he made appearances in seven different NBA seasons. That could be Vukcevic\u2019s fate \u2014 good enough to bounce around for a few years on minimum deals, but not good enough to secure a role. Kinda the next Thomas Bryant.Naz Reid | 2022-23 | Minnesota Timberwolves | Age: 23 \u2014 This would be the dream scenario for Washington, though I do think Reid has been more than a little overrated throughout his career. He\u2019s had value as an off-the-bench scorer, though his overall production has been only so-so. His next above average season will be his first in my PPA metric.Jonathan Bender | 2003-04 | Indiana Pacers | Age: 23 \u2014 Bender\u2019s mix of physical tools and ball skills were enough to make him the fifth overall pick in the 1999 NBA Draft \u2014 skipping college and making the leap straight to the NBA. He never lived up to the hype, and by 23 was already declining.<\/p>\n
The honorable mentions don\u2019t trend any better \u2014 seasons from Wang Zhizhi, Jordan Nwora, Cam Whitmore, and (weirdly) Lawrence Moten. Michael Beasley makes an appearance.<\/p>\n
Probably the best hope not too far down the list is Ryan Anderson, who had a few superb three-and-D seasons in 20-teens before his career got waylaid by a back injury and personal tragedy. The game has evolved away from the more specialized role Anderson played, but there\u2019s still room for a center who can shoot, pass, and block a few shots.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the Wizards selected Tristan Vukcevic with the 42nd overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, I thought…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":887885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,459,82,236477],"class_list":["post-887884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-washington-wizards-statistical-analysis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/887885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}