Anthony Davis put up 44 points on 16-of-21 shooting with 13 rebounds against Detroit, and Washington still lost by double digits. The loss dropped the team to 4-7 and stretched its losing streak to four straight games.
Start with the obvious defense of the front office: Davis played about as well as a 33-year-old can play. He scored 19 of his 44 in the second quarter alone, a stretch of basketball that was about as good as it gets, and then, as the game slipped away in the second half, he barely touched the ball. It's a team that stops feeding its best player the moment the game gets hard. Nineteen turnovers will do that. So will a shot chart that has Tre Johnson going 1-for-8 from the field, missing all six of his three-point attempts, in 29 minutes, while Bub Carrington, who was more efficient, played ten fewer minutes and barely got a touch. It's Brian Keefe choosing the wrong guard to feature on a night his best player had 44 to give.
The strongest case against blowing this whole thing up goes like this: Davis was brilliant, and brilliant performances in losses usually mean the fix is schematic. Detroit had four players in double figures and John Collins had a season-high night, which says Washington's defense broke down badly. But that argument only holds if a 4-7 team on a four-game losing streak is one tweak away from contending. Washington out-rebounded Detroit on the night and still lost by 11, because its offense outside of Davis is 1-for-8 cold snaps and a bench that can't space the floor. A roster that needs its 33-year-old to score 44 just to make a game competitive against a .700 team has a timeline problem.
Rating
RatingThat timeline problem has a name: Will Dawkins built this thing with a 33-year-old superstar on an expiring contract next to AJ Dybantsa, Alex Sarr, Bub Carrington and Tre Johnson, players who are years away from being what Davis needs around him right now. Dawkins has said publicly he wants Davis to stay. Fine. Say it with an extension, then. Instead the front office is letting Davis log 44-point nights in blowout losses while rival executives float trade packages in public and his value quietly erodes with every one of these games. You don't get to rebuild around a rookie class and protect a 33-year-old's trade stock at the same time. Pick one.
Every game this goes unresolved, Washington gets worse at whatever it's actually trying to do. If the plan is to win now with Davis, the shot distribution and rotation decisions have to change immediately, because the coaching staff is working against its best player. If the plan is to build around Dybantsa and the kids, Davis should already be on a plane to a contender, where a 44-point, 13-rebound night means something. Washington is doing neither. It's the worst version of both plans at once, and it's going to cost them Davis for less than he's worth.
