Why Monte Morris And Will Barton Reuniting With Wes Unseld Jr. May Help The Washington Wizards Find More Stability

Japanese forward Rui Hachimura was the star of the show for the Washington Wizards when they tipped off their preseason against the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Japan Games 2022 at Saitama Super Arena last night.

The Japanese fans were of course excited to get their first live look at their native star playing his first NBA game in his home country. And despite the Wizards losing to the Warriors, Hachimura gave them plenty to cheer about as he scored 13 points and grabbed nine rebounds and a steal on his way to earning Rakuten Player of the Game.

But a more subtle, less highlight-worthy dynamic was also in play for Washington, as newly-acquired veteran point guard Monte Morris made his debut for the Dubs with nine points, five assists and a steal of his own.

The Wizards acquired both Morris and Will Barton III in an offseason trade that sent guards Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Ish Smith to the Denver Nuggets, with Denver seeking to bolster their defense and Washington hoping to find some long-elusive stability at the point guard position.

Stability isn’t technically Monte Morris’ middle name, but it might as well be. Morris has been top five in assist-to-turnover ratio for the last five seasons, and in second place in three of those. But beyond his efficient, low-mistake ball handling, he simply brings a calming, stabilizing presence to the court, one who can both restore order when things start to spin out of control, and who can also be trusted to make the right plays and avoid fatal errors in high leverage situations.

During the years – five for Morris, seven-and-a-half for Barton – that the pair spent on the Nuggets, stability in the form of continuity was one of the guiding principles of Denver’s front office, as through most of that time they by very intentional design had one of the lower season-to-season roster turnover rates.

Morris came to be emblematic of that stability as he gradually developed from a 51st pick on a two-way contract to becoming a trustworthy full-time starter last season following Jamal Murray’s ACL injury which sidelined him over a year.

One person who knows him well and helped cultivate the early years of that progression is Wizards head coach Wes Unseld Jr., who was an assistant coach in Denver for six years before getting hired by Washington last year.

At the Wizards’ practice at the Minato Ward Sports Center in Tokyo on Thursday, I had the chance to ask Unseld if reuniting with Morris and Barton might give them all a sense of continuity, despite the fact that the guard duo had just changed teams.

“Yeah, there is a sense of continuity, and also a level of comfort,” he replied. “I think those guys understand how to play, some of the things that we want to prioritize.”

“But also, they’re great locker room guys, chemistry guys, and they’re guys who’ve been through the fire,” Unseld added. “Both had to kind of earn their stripes, and make their way into a rotation, and find themselves as starters on playoff teams.”

In a sense this could be seen as a sort of institutional memory transplant, with the experience and knowledge Morris and Barton bring as veterans, and an understanding of “how to play” which they not only share with Unseld, but also learned and cultivated under his guidance earlier in their careers.

Morris agreed that he and Barton getting back together with Unseld at the helm gives them some semblance of stability even though they got traded.

“Yeah, it does,” Morris replied when I asked him after last night’s game. “I mean, it’s the first game, I’m still getting acclimated with everybody, new players, new team. But we’ve got the same kind of schemes from Denver, so the transition should be really smooth.”

Hachimura is clearly on board with the addition of Morris.

“It’s great. We had a mini-camp in L.A., and that’s the first time we met,” he said when I asked if he’d had the chance to play together yet with Morris (and Barton, actually, though his name got lost in the noise of the practice gym).

“I think we’re going to have a good chemistry here,” Hachimura said. “He’s a great player, and I think he can help this team a lot, so I’m so excited for it.”

One way Morris should be able to help the Wizards is just his basic floor-raising competency in running an offense and getting players the ball in their spots. Which sounds simple enough, but after Washington’s trial run with Spencer Dinwiddie didn’t exactly pan out (to put it charitably) and they ended up trading him to Dallas for Kristaps Porzingis, three-time All-Star Bradley Beal was left (again) as somewhat of a captain of a rudderless ship. And Monte Morris brings lots of rudder.

And speaking of Porzingis, when I asked Morris about how their pick-and-roll was coming along since it looked fairly smooth for their first preseason game, he came back with an answer that provides some good insight into his point guard mentality. Specifically, I asked whether he thought they could develop their chemistry to the same extent he had with Nikola Jokic on the Nuggets.

“Yeah, for sure,” he replied. “I tell him every time I draw two down the floor, I’ll throw it back, like rotate, shoot the ball. He didn’t get it going from three tonight, but we’ve seen it all training camp.”

“So you can expect a lot of pick-and-pops and deep seals and things like that,” Morris added. “He’s so tall, so I can just put the ball anywhere and he can catch it, so it should be fun.”

Morris himself should be the kind of true floor general one which Washington has lacked for… well, a long time. And along with Barton and Unseld, a solid framework with good fundamental principles, veteran leadership and a high-quality locker room ethos will be in place which should not only help optimize Beal and Porzingis, but also the Wizards’ younger, developing talent.

According to Morris, Barton, who missed last night’s game due to lower back tightness, should be good to go by the start of the regular season if not sooner.

“He’s doing great,” Morris said of Barton. “I mean it’s preseason, so we’re not really trying to rush anything, to be ready for the real thing. But he’s fine.”

And for his part, Unseld is clearly happy to have both Barton and Morris back on the roster he’s coaching.

“You can’t really ask for much more of a resume than to get two guys in the fold who’ve been through it,” Unseld said. “I think it’ll help us.”