With few players, Bradley Beal has practiced at PF for Wizards originally appeared on NBC Sports Washington
Robin Lopez, a Stanford-educated man, is apparently quite good with metaphors, as no one has summed up the Wizards' current situation better. With six postponed games due to the coronavirus, he has likened it to "an unscheduled All-Star break, an extra All-Star break, except everybody else is playing."
Lopez even impressed head coach Scott Brooks with another, saying the team's lack of available players at practice this week has been like being on a high school basketball team still waiting for football season to be over so the two-sport athletes can join.
"It was pretty clever," Brooks said.
It's hard to fault Lopez for adding some color to what is a fairly dire situation. The Wizards are missing six players due to Covid-19 protocol and another, Thomas Bryant, due to injury. Russell Westbrook hasn't been a full participant due to his sore quad and all of it has left the team with an unbalanced depth chart.
At Wednesday and Thursday's practices, Lopez was the only center. Isaac Bonga and Anthony Gill were the only forwards. The remaining six players were guards.
That helped convince the team to sign center Alex Len on Friday, but still it appears they will have some awkward lineups on Sunday against the Spurs, when they are expected to finally return to playing games.
"It feels like everything we do is definitely unprecedented. You couldn’t have imagined it a year ago," Lopez said.
The strangeness was epitomized by one particular matchup in practice. Star shooting guard Bradley Beal had to play some power forward and that meant guarding in the post. Lopez is 7-feet tall, while Beal is 6-foot-3. That's a difference of nine inches.
"It was pretty comical. I was laughing underneath my mask," Brooks said.
"I think he was very effective. He’s an intimidator on both ends and that’s not something I would want to have to witness again," Lopez added.
Such is life for the Wizards right now as they both hope to play games soon, but also feel somewhat worried about how it will go. They were very concerned about potentially playing Friday night against the Bucks before that game was postponed, fearing it could lead to more injuries.
Looking ahead to Sunday, the team feels like they are as ready as they are going to be. They know the show must go on.
"We’re gonna have to mix things up," Brooks said. "Other teams might get confused, too. We might have Robin and four wings. It’s like an old 70s band."
