Bub Carrington's Anomalous Plus/Minus Finish is a Broader Wizards Problem

Plus/minus results are far from the most reliable figure on traditional NBA box scores. The amount of points that a team wins or loses by during a specific player's minutes says just as much about context as it does about an individual's performance, leaving tanking operations like the Washington Wizards and their hapless on-court contributors particularly vulnerable to unimpressive totals in this metric.

This is where someone like Bub Carrington gets in trouble. He's the Wizards' Iron Man, having yet to miss an NBA game since he was drafted two summers ago, meaning that he's been present for each and every outing in which his rebuild-oriented squad rolled over against a more driven opponent over their last pair of campaigns.

The Wizards allowed 746 more points than they scored during Carrington's time on the court, good for the worst mark of anyone who checked into this past regular season by over 150 points.

Worst Plus/Minus In The 2025-26 NBA Regular Season :

1. Bub Carrington — -746
2. DeMar DeRozan — -588
3. Nic Claxton — -515
4. Will Riley — -484
5. Maxime Raynaud — -461
6. Jarace Walker — -459
7. Russell Westbrook — -456
8. Ace Bailey — -448
9. Drake… https://t.co/n2tUSEGMZk pic.twitter.com/JFDfsxbPQx
— Stat Defender (@statdefender) April 18, 2026

This isn't to say he's the worst player in the league, as Washington's willingness to overlook nightly losses in favor of player development must be taken into account, but this is growing into a trend for the Wizards guard. He reigned supreme in this regard as a rookie, too, when his -798 finish led the 2024-25 league.

The question has to be asked: how much of this disparity can be directly attributed to the Carrington-shaped common denominator?

In Defense of Carrington

The Wizards have been openly willing to ease their litany of fresh-drafted prospects into the NBA as soon as they can, a strategy based off of their relative-lack of veterans and one that enables the franchise to see who's capable of swimming with the big fish.

No Wizard has quite embodied this element of the rebuilding formula quite like Carrington, who's averaged 28.8 minutes across back-to-back 82-game seasons. He never seems to get hurt, a nice advantage of his perimeter-oriented shot diet and aversion to contact, and his continual improvement as a 3-point marksman makes it difficult for head coach Brian Keefe to turn down the former first-round pick's floor-spacing potential.

Washington Wizards Guard Bub Carrington — Mar 29, 2026; Portland, Oregon, USA; Washington Wizards guard Bub Carrington (7) is introduced before the game against the Portland Trail Blazers at Moda Center. Mandatory Credit: Soobum Im-Imagn Images | Soobum Im-Imagn Images

And a quick scan over some of the peers beneath Carrington on the dishonorable roundup reveals the same tank-tastic usual subjects. Brooklyn Nets and Sacramento Kings similarly litter the wrong end of the plus/minus standing -- even Carrington isn't solely representing his team, with fellow young Wizard Will Riley listed just a few pegs below his locker room counterpart.

Anyone bashing the steadily-available guard must account for these two factors before going in on Carrington's game. The loss-centric agenda comes from well above the players' heads, and their most dependable nightly ambassador has had to accept a disproportionate amount of exterior lashings for the dark side of Washington's teardown period.

Doling Out Personal Blame

With that out of the way, it's fair to note how Carrington's specific style lends itself to such a mountainous discrepency.

His jump to a 40% 3-point shooter is certainly worthy of recognition, but his worsening reluctance to go to the hoop has sapped much of his early intrigue as an impactful point guard. A measly 10.2% of his field goal attempts as a rookie were within 0-3 feet, and he somehow cut that already-tiny clip in half over his further commitment to a perimeter-oriented shot chart as a sophomore.

And it's not as if he's finishing strong whenever he completes his occasional trips to the cup. Carrington ranks as the league's worst finishers by some estimations, suffering from the Wizards' institutional lack of strength against paint protectors in routinely flinging his rare layup attempts off of the backboard.

Worst (most detrimental) finishers. https://t.co/0urwEsN9E0 pic.twitter.com/IrdYc1AIUw
— Automatic (@automaticnba) April 14, 2026

The book is already out on Carrington whenever he makes his move to slash; he'd rather dish than take the driving shot himself, which saps much of his potential as a kickout passer. There's not much use loading up to stop a smaller scorer who'd rather pass out of a shot than go up strong himself, especially when he lacks the touch to convert on those theoretical looks.

It's fair to assume that he won't be on this same list next year, with the Wizards having made their intentions of taking the next step into contention fairly clear. They'll be better than this 17-win result with healthy debuts out of Trae Young, Anthony Davis and the rest of the battered young corps, a team with better chances of accumulating wins without requiring nearly 30 minutes per game out of Carrington.

Still, doubts about how his playstyle has contributed to his growing reputation have yet to wane, and fairly so. He'll have to take a step forward as an all-around playmaker to give himself another chance to play as many minutes as he has to this point, and the opportunities he's enjoyed as a rotational regular will be at more of a premium than anything he's previously seen entering the fall.

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