Summer League Grades for Wizards' Rising Sophomores

With a defensive impact like his, all he'll need to stick around as a high-end NBA starter is a stable jumper and some firmer around-the-rim work, departments in which he looks just as inconsistent as he did as a rookie. Sarr remains a unique talent, but didn't seem to address any of the glaring holes in his game.

Grade: B-

Bub Carrington

Washington's other All-Rookie selection similarly slumped out to start Summer League, but bounced back with his own successful second and final performance.

Carrington's role on next year's Wizards squad has been blown wide open. Washington has cleared out several of the older point guards who would've taken away from his on-ball reps, with Jordan Poole having been traded away and Marcus Smart reaching a contract buyout.

He had a chance to dominate in Las Vegas as the most NBA-experience ball-handler on the team, but disappeared alongside Sarr in the summer opener. He looked much better in his second appearance with more of the hyper-picky scoring he demonstrated as a rookie, shooting 5/7 from the field with the same 3-point jumper that rose in efficiency and volume as fall turned to spring.

He resisted emptying the clip like some of his fellow sophomores, but looked a lot more like the clutch shooter and play-finisher he developed into when the Wizards started fully leaning on last season's rookies.

While Carrington still doesn't quite look like your standard high-usage point guard, he can still temper an offense in spurts and looked to have found considerably more comfort between Summer League games, evidenced in the cohesive downturn the team took once he bowed out.

Grade: B

Kyshawn George

No Wizards rookie impressed quite like Kyshawn George. He looked flat-out overqualified for summer hoops, exactly that impression every player with NBA experience wants to make on their respective front offices.

He opened eyes as a 3&D wing who, like Carrington, continued growing more and more comfortable with his jumper as last season droned on, eventually looking like the catch-and-shoot weapon that plenty of teams try finding with late-first round draft picks every year. George's defense, among the best of any rookie, bought him consensus as one of the better-value picks among his classmates.

He showed up to Las Vegas ready to hoop, notching 24 points in his first game back in Wizards threads. The shooting was there, but so was some of the playmaking that he showed glimpses of as a rookie.

Even in his second game, a matchup in which he settled for deep jumpers more than he typically has, his comfort within the flow of the offense remained. The rangy forward found ways to influence the game in the margins, still more creative with the ball in his hands than he's known for and maintaining that quietly smothering defense that's put him squarely within Washington's two-way young core alongside Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly and Jamir Watkins.

George was the only one of the Wizards' three hand-drafted rising second-year players to look like the best version of himself as soon as he hit the runway, prevailing over shooting variance to rise into a rotation-worthy big-league player.

Grade: A

AJ Johnson

Unlike his fellow rookies, Johnson wasn't pulled from the lineup after those first two games. His role isn't nearly as guaranteed as those of Sarr, Carrington or George, with Johnson changing teams midway through his rookie year and moving to Washington as part of the Kyle Kuzma trade.

The lanky, quick-twitch guard bought himself regular rotational minutes late in the season, a blur on the fast break and one of the more aggressive rim threats of any young Wizard. He was cast into a similar role to start Las Vegas, an on-ball bench scorer, but experienced a massive bump on the team's priority list when every single starter was benched entering the third game of Summer League.

Johnson spent the next two games as the primary option on offense, hampered by some of the efficiency struggles that plagued him in the spring. He finished on some speedy downhill drives and finished with some nice touch on a few occasions, but frequently stopped the ball with his score-first attitude and couldn't punish other defenses with his raw outside jumper and spotty touch.

He went into depth on his goals following his final 25-point outing, revealing his emphasis on blossoming as a scorer. The guard combined some electric scoring sequences with a few duds, likely earned himself a few deep-cut reserve minutes in the following season while reminding the front office that he's still far from a finished product.

Grade: B-