One of the big questions Wizards entered the season with how a combination of big men Anthony Davis and Alex Sar would do together. On paper, it looked like a complementary skill set, with Davis’ scoring and rebounding abilities paired with Sara’s passing and shooting, and the impressive defensive instincts and tools both players possess, providing a strong interior infrastructure.
Through 10 games, though, the pairing hasn’t worked out the way optimists had hoped, writes Gregg Feinberg of Wizards Central (Link to substack). The Wizards are now 4-6, and with both players on the court, Washington has an offensive rating of 106.9 and is shooting 28.8% from three.
Those numbers improve dramatically when Davis is on the court without Sarr, and improve slightly but less so when Sarr plays without Davis. Sarr also had his best game of the season against the Thunder when Davis was out.
Also worrying is that the offense has fared better Deandre Ayton on the floor than was the case with Sarr, though the young big man missed part of the early season and may still be finding his footing in a very different Wizards ecosystem than the one he played in last year.
We have more from the Southeast Division:
- Desmond Bane was a late scratch in the magicWarriors overtime loss due to illness on Saturday, the first game he has missed since his death traded to Orlando in June 2025. He entered the game tied for minutes per game, Jason Beede writes for the Orlando Sentineland averaged 17.5 points and 3.9 rebounds on 36.8% of his threes this season.
- Despite averaging 10.3 minutes per game through the team’s first nine games, the rookie is a second-round pick Ryan Conwell quickly became the best desktop option for Heat, Anthony Chung writes for the Miami Herald. Conwell has played about 46 minutes in the past two games, scoring 13 points with three steals in nearly 30 minutes in Thursday’s loss to the Warriors. “To be in such a position is happiness” said Conwell.To be on this team and then just to be able to just be on the floor. I mean, I just never want to take it for granted. And that’s really just my mindset every time I go out there. Just taking every minute I can and just playing as hard as I can.” Head coach Eric Spoelstra, not one to sugar coat his messages to younger players, discussed the added responsibility he recently placed on Conwell. “He earned it“, Spoelstra said. “It wasn’t what it was for any other reason. What we want from our guys right now is to impact the game, impact the scoreboard, make us play you and put a bunch of positives in the rotation. This is what we need now.“
- The Hawks have won five of their last six games and are coming off an 11-game start to the season in which they have played six games on the road and seven games in 11 days at 7-4. Lauren J. Williams writes for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. In those 11 games, the frontcourt was tested and the team ranked 14th in offense and 18th in defense. “I love that we’ve won a couple in a row, but I also love that it’s the beginning of the year and we just want to keep getting better.”, coach Quinn Snyder said. “We do this and win at the same time; this is the best case scenario. So I feel like I have a chance to play a really tough schedule to learn from some of these games.”