Jared Dudley has been a bright light in the Wizards’ dark season

Amid the cesspool of a mismatched system, abhorrent defensive effort and baffling inconsistency, Jared Dudley’s unselfish play really stands out. The Wizards, one of the league’s most disappointing teams, have rarely looked like the breakout force they were expected to be all season. Those rare glimpses of cohesion all come when Dudley is at his best.

If the rest of the Wizards’ roster (and coaching staff, if we’re being honest) embraced their new pace-and-space system like Dudley, they wouldn’t be stumbling toward the lottery during a critical year for the franchise. As a stretch 4, Dudley makes winning plays. He hits big shots, delivers great passes, keeps the offensive flow going and is always in the right place defensively. It’s a breath of fresh air to watch him maximize his talent as the rest of the players float aimlessly.

That happens because Dudley never stops moving. Put him in a dead sprint, and he’d probably lose against 90 percent of the league. But while defenders need to occasionally relax and regroup, Dudley keeps going. He is a faster tortoise taking advantage of hares that don’t know any better.

Dudley is particularly good at slipping screens and jumping into open space before the defense notices. Every team knows he’s looking to pop to the perimeter, yet he slithers away anyway. He doesn’t so much set screens as he slows down a tad, pivots the other direction and speeds up like he’s running a stop sign.

Having already left the recharging defenders in the dust, Dudley has plenty of options. He can take the shot, which is usually a good decision. Dudley is shooting a career-high 46.6 percent on threes, and is proficient on long two-pointers, too.

But he is also well-equipped to attack and make a play for a teammate. Marcin Gortat should donate 10 percent of his salary to Dudley, because he has Dudley to thank for so many of his easiest shots. Few players are better at dropping off interior passes at exactly the right moment. The combination of Dudley’s smarts and Gortat’s soft hands make it very difficult for teams to trap John Wall pick-and-rolls.

The Wizards even leverage Dudley’s playmaking in a nifty double pick-and-roll set. Once Dudley fades to the top of the key, Gortat fakes as if he’s coming to screen for Wall. As that happens, Wall whips a pass to Dudley and Gortat quickly turns and screens the other way. The result is a rapid 4/5 pick-and-roll before the defense knows what hits them.

Tempo is the key to making Dudley’s offense and playmaking work. If he stops for a tenth of a second, these openings don’t exist. It’s only through his kinetic energy that they present themselves.

That decisiveness is evident whenever Dudley attacks a closeout and waddles to the hoop. A man with his build should not be driving by Serge Ibaka, yet he finds a way because he’s spotted and acted on the opening before Ibaka even blinks.

Decisiveness explains Dudley’s defense, too. The days of him being a one-on-one stopper are behind him, if they ever existed. The days of him being a competent rebounder never existed and certainly don’t now.

Yet Dudley has remade himself into an excellent team defender by beating opponents to the spot. Playing up a position puts him in more situations where he’s asked to help or stop a sequence before it happens, which plays to his advantage. He knows how to jump out on a pick-and-roll and divert the ball-handler out of his path so he can recover to his man.

Smart teams don’t even run pick-and-rolls his way as often anymore. They know he’ll stop them and they know they’ll make headway attacking a different Wizard. It sounds hard to believe, but Dudley really is the Wizards’ most consistent pick-and-roll defender despite his lack of floor speed.

It’s tempting for teams to pound Dudley in the post with bigger players so he can’t defend in space, but that, too is a losing strategy. Dudley gives up height, but not width. He can dig into players’ legs and make it difficult for them to catch the ball. His ability to front LaMarcus Aldridge allowed the Wizards to pick up a signature win over the Spurs in November.

Rebounding is a weakness, but on balance, Dudley is an excellent defensive power forward that makes the Wizards’ leaky defense better. Only the quickest forwards really beat him enough to outweigh his help defense, and those players are rare. There is much more to his defensive impact than what meets the eye.

That’s why it’s sad the rest of the Wizards don’t embrace the pace-and-space process like Dudley. They can’t seem to understand how the slowest player on the team is the most effective in a fast-paced system. If only they realized the keys to making this work are quick decisions and constant movement, not speed itself.

It’s not too late. Follow Dudley’s example, and there’s still time to salvage the season.