Wizards have a strong core we can only hope stays healthy

It's a real shame that the Washington Wizards got off to such a poor start this season. The Wizards began the season with 12 straight losses, and were 4-28 at one point. Since then, the team is 11-7. While that record -- with healthy players, what a luxury! -- may be a more accurate reflection of the team's quality, the hole is just too big to fill, as I wrote in a weekend playoff picture update.

It's unfortunate particularly because the Wizards just might have a good three-player core here. Washington extended its win streak to a season-long four on Monday, blasting the Bucks in Milwaukee. All four wins have come against playoff teams. Bradley Beal was the star of this show with 28 points on 10-17 shooting off the bench. But beyond that the Wizards continued a strong trend: good things happen when Nene, Emeka Okafor and John Wall play together. The crew has 200 minutes under its belt now, and is outscoring opponents by five points per 100 possessions in that time. Particularly important for Okafor has been Nene's presence: Emeka is a +3 overall but a +7 with Nene. The Brazilian has an off-the-charts plus-minus (+15), thanks largely to how stunningly awful (-10) the Wizards have been when Nene sits. Wall is a +14 after 400 minutes, including a +6 when playing.

Ricky Rubio is special in several ways, but what's most obvious as his career takes flight is that you always know that he's been on the court, good and/or bad. Use Monday as an example. He had 11 points and 10 assists ... plus five steals ... plus seven turnovers. He had a direct hand in ending 27 Minnesota possessions; based on lineup data, he was on the court for 68 offensive possessions. So he ended 40 percent of the Timberwolves' possessions while on the court with a shot, turnover or assist. And that doesn't include potential assists on missed shots by teammates or potential assists that led to free throws. Like I said, there's no disguising the fact that Ricky Rubio has been in the game, for better or worse.

* Last week Zach Lowe laid out some of the camera-based data from STATS LLC from this season. Most interesting to me were two items. The first is that there are still only 15 teams using the service. And something tells me the other 15 franchises don't have their own rig and staff doing the same thing. I'm not sure it's a huge advantage for the teams that subscribe, but it's certainly an advantage. Yet so many of the worst teams in the league (Charlotte, Sacramento, Detroit, the Lakers) don't utilize it. It's not cheap. But when you're dropping $50 million on a set of players at the low end, any other investment pales. The second interesting point: teams are on average more efficient on drives (defined as when a player dribbles a ball from at least 20 feet from the rim to within 10 feet) than on non-drives, even when not including transition possessions. Having watched the Kings so closely, I would have thought the exact opposite! (Tyreke Evans' middle name is either Jamir or Dribble-Drive Into Traffic. Hard to remember which sometimes.) Lowe notes that the Rockets score 1.5 points per possession on James Harden drives. That is just completely ridiculous. (The average NBA possession produces a little better than one point per possession.)

* The great Will Leitch wrote about Darren Rovell, and specifically my disagreements with the sports business reporter. I take particular umbrage at Rovell's constant coda that fans have an unyielding duty to turn out for their teams. That's what Rovell's infamous "empty arena pics" are supposed to say: they are meant to shame fans for not consuming a particular product. What gets my goat is that Rovell recently tweeted out a pic of a fairly empty upper level at a Kings home game against a similarly bad Suns squad, and asked "Why are we trying to save the Kings?" The extent of the intellectual dishonesty -- assuming he understands what the Maloofs have been pulling for six-plus years -- is stunning. (You'll notice that after ripping Kings fans for daring to believe in their own ability to make a statement on Saturday he didn't tweet any videos or photos from a nearly packed house. Because that might contradict the point he's trying to make, you see.)

* If there was any question as to whether Arnie Kander is the NBA's greatest trainer, look no further than Terry Foster's notebook in the Detroit News. Andre Drummond, the rookie wunderkind, is out for a bit with a back injury. Kander (whose greatest hits include banning the Nike Hyperize from team use after a couple of sprains, drawing the quiet ire of Eugene Beaverton, Oregon) needs Drummond to pay attention to his posture. The staff also doesn't want to remove Drummond from the locker room, where he's building important relationships on his path to greatness. So Kander has Drummond playing a drum in front of the team, coaxing him to sit up straight and tap faster. Can we get a reality show starring Kander and Nuggets trainer Steve Hess working out civilians? And can I please sign up?