For the Wizards, it’s not as early as we think.

Okay, now I’m worried. The Wizards went to Indiana and got thumped by a Tyrese Haliburton-less Pacers team. It’s Washington’s fifth straight loss — and four of the five have been by 10 points or more.

If you want to stick to the “it’s early” and “they’re finding their way and they’ll improve as the season goes on” talking points, you’ll probably want to skip a few paragraphs. Because I did some looking up and some numbers crunching, and…well…it’s not as early as you think. I mean, I was getting nervous when the streak reached three, and I was reciting those Talking Points myself, so let me be clear — it’s not as early as I was thinking.

Wizards guard Tre Johnson played one of his better games of the season in the team’s loss to the Indiana Pacers. | NBAE via Getty Images

The Wizards entered last night’s game against the Pacers with a strength of schedule adjusted scoring -11.3 through 11 games. They lost by 13 to a team scoring a -6.3 in the same metric. That’s not good. And the team’s performance a dozen games into the season is greater cause for worry than I’d imagined.

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While it feels early, analysis of NBA history says that by this point in the season, we already have about half the information needed to determine a team’s relative strength in the league. Even just 8-10 games is enough to be more than just random noise.

There’s still some noise — early-season blowouts have bigger impacts on this type of scoring differential metric than it will by the end of the season — but what we see in the first month of the season is a surprisingly good indicator of what we’re going to see over the final five.

In the case of the Wizards this season, they may not really be the quality of a team that wins just 14-15 games (which is what their adjusted scoring margin implies), but a) they could be, and b) it’s pretty unlikely they’re even the quality of a 35-win team. Best case at this point is probably mid-20s in wins — better than last season, though not the major step forward many hoped.

While it’s not as early as we think, it’s getting later fast. We already have half the information needed to draw…

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Publish date : 2026-11-12 12:00:00

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