The Washington Wizards may have had a fire sale at the NBA trade deadline but they aren’t necessarily worse off for it. The Wizards have traded away Caron Butler, Antawn Jamison, Deshawn Stevenson and Brendan Haywood, four players who were a major part of their rotation at the beginning of the year, and now they are thin. They are also without point guard Gilbert Arenas, who is the franchise face (for now) and is currently suspended for the season. But are the Wizards actually worse? Or more importantly, can they be any worse?
Overall, the Wizards are 18-33 and they have amassed a small win total with all of those players around. Can they be much worse?
Now a lot of their youth will start to get some minutes, including Andray Blatche, JaVale McGee, Randy Foye and Nick Young will get big minutes.
Meanwhile, the Raptors are in a different mindset as they are working towards the playoffs. They are coming off a tough home loss to the Memphis Grizzlies and will look to bounce back on Saturday.
Toronto Raptors @ Washington Wizards
Bodog Odds (Bodog): Raptors -3
NBA betting fans know that the Raptors are 22-11 in their last 33 games and they have turned out to be a quality team after starting 7-13.
The Raptors may not be the best team in the East but they appear to be building good chemistry. They struggle on defense and they struggle to rebound, but they are a high-scoring outfit that is having fun playing together and is winning games. That’s a big key.
The Wizards know about this because they were at the opposite end of the spectrum prior to the trades. Now they are a young team once again searching for an identity.
This is a bit of a mismatch for Washington and they are going to struggle for a little bit while they find their feet. The good news for them is that they actually have five capable starters now who are going to grow into good players, but they aren’t there yet.
The Raptors are hungry for a win and they need one in a bad way to get back on track. After losing to Memphis, they’ll be focused and they’ll outrun Washington on the road with a healthy win.
NBA Betting Pick: Raptors
