Backup point guard has long been a weak point of the Washington Wizards roster. After losing Ramon Sessions in 2016, Wizards brass filled that all-important slot with a succession of chuckers and journeymen. The team employed Trey Burke and Brandon Jennings in the same damn year!

Tim Frazier was supposed to be the answer last season, but the Penn State product looked overmatched from the jump. He fell out of the rotation, leaving utility man Tomas Satoransky as the lone second unit playmaker.

Perhaps Satoransky wasn’t unreliable enough for the Wizards. The team handed late-season addition Ty Freaking Lawson 92 minutes of postseason basketball last spring – 92 more than he got during the regular season.

With Frazier and Lawson off the books, many expected Washington to explore the backup point guard market in July. The franchise instead made a ballsy move by trading Marcin Gortat to the Clippers for Austin Rivers, who, much like Satoransky, has never served as a 9-to-5 floor general.

The Wizards, it seems, are betting on two halves making a whole. It’s a bet that may just pay off.

The most obvious advantage of playing both combo-guards together comes defensively. Rivers scrapped his way to an NBA rotation role by playing hard-nosed defense on dudes much larger than him. He became his father’s go-to stopper in Los Angeles, using his tenacity to make up for a lithe 6’4” frame.

That doesn’t mean he was any good. He graded out as a C- perimeter defender last year among guards with 1000 minutes played – C+ among wings. But his experience guarding starting-caliber players of all sizes gives the Wizards a bounty of defensive options alongside the 6’7” tandem of Satoransky and Kelly Oubre Jr.

Brooks can deploy the three in any permutation. Oubre, who’s shown promise badgering ballhandlers all 94 feet, may take point guards some nights. Rivers, more of an isolation get-in-your-jersey guy, can handle the opponent’s top bench scorer.

All three dudes are average individually, but sometimes, the absence of a weak link can be a team’s greatest strength. And if Oubre ever realizes his latent potential as a pesky ballhawk, Washington’s bench unit will make a long, scary bench mob.

The real questions come on offense, though. Second units need playmaking to stay afloat. And at first glance, Washington’s bench has some guys, but not the guy.

Satoransky ranked in the 89^th percentile in playmaking among guards who played 1000 minutes last season. He averaged just 1.8 turnovers per 36 minutes compared to a solid 6.3 assists. But those numbers tell the story of an intelligent ball-mover, not an imaginative playmaker.

The Czech Republic native logged significant minutes alongside Bradley Beal and the Wizards starters when John Wall was injured last season, acting mostly as a secondary option. He’s bouncy around the rim, but he isn’t particularly shifty or creative. He’ll often settle for conservative passes after failing to crack the paint:

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Rivers is anything but conservative. He’s a showy, ball-dominant player with a quick-trigger. That’s fine when he’s jacking threes. The Duke product sank 38 percent of his pull-up triples last season, an elite number considering he chucked up 3.2 of those puppies each night.

He shot just 46 percent on twos, though. Defenders can’t duck under screens, and Rivers can slice to the rim more easily. He just doesn’t finish well – 57 percent at the rim last season – and bricks everything from three to 23 feet. The other issue? He’s not an effective passer when he slashes, ranking in the 11^th percentile among guards with over 1000 minutes in playmaking. You don’t want Rivers as a featured bench scorer or your creator-in-chief.

But Brooks has options. Satoransky’s steady pick-and-roll play may not breach the paint, but it at least forces the defense to rotate and gets the ball moving. At 6’7”, he can see back over the defenders in his wake and swing the ball to the opposite wing. The Wizards had that idea here, in preseason:

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Satoransky initiates the offense before Washington reverses the ball to Rivers, freed from his defender by a bruising Oubre screen.

This time, Rivers returns the favor. Satoransky finds space after some screen-for-each other action on the weak side. He forces a hard closeout because of his 46.5 percent shooting from deep last year:

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Create enough mini-advantages by threatening penetration and swinging the ball quickly, and you can get an easy look before the clock runs down. Sideline pick-and-rolls with weak side movement are one obvious choice for the Wizards. Out of necessity, the reserves will likely have more complexity and movement in their offense than the starting five.

Pushing the ball in transition is another strategy.

Washington played at a rapid 105.6 pace in the preseason. And while that number will surely drop in the regular season, getting out on the break will help compensate for a lack of go-to playmaking on the second unit.

Pace unsettles defenses. It can get you brutal cross-matches, but more importantly, it widens the gaps between players, giving less skilled ballhandlers an easier path to the rim. Washington plays with excellent pace here, getting Rivers a running start and a simple blow-by:

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The Wizards won’t play the Guangzhou Long-Lions when it counts, of course, but the logic is the same. Satoransky and Oubre can fly, and even Jeff Green is an athletic lane-filler for a big man. Given the chance to grab and go, Rivers and Satoransky have enough verve to unlock the retreating defense and create open passing lanes back out to the perimeter.

All told, that duo should be able to run a competent bench offense. And competency is all Washington really needs. The franchise has floundered in the last few postseasons whenever Wall and Beal have sat, an issue magnified by those two often playing together. The two stars shared the court for a ridiculous 31.2 minutes per game when Wall was healthy last year, almost identical to the 31.5 minutes they played together in 2016-17.

Brooks needs some bench juice if he’s not going to stagger Wall and Beal. Turning to Rivers wasn’t an obvious move, but it leaves the Wizards with a versatile team. Both he and Satoransky can shoot, dribble, and pass. Their roles on any given night are virtually interchangeable.

Two combo-guards should equate to an adequate point guard in Washington if all works out as planned. But if Rivers keeps hitting his pull-up threes and Satoransky gets a bit saucier off-the-bounce, “adequate” may become “excellent.”

And a proven starting lineup combined with an excellent bench spells trouble for the Eastern Conference.