The Washington Wizards, a team that's long overdue for a rebuild, finally faced the music this offseason. They dealt away the likes of Kristaps Porzingis and Bradley Beal in quick succession, turning over the franchise to youngsters Jordan Poole and Kyle Kuzma. At first glance, the Wizards roster looks among the worst in the league, barring any major leaps from their current crop of prospects.

One of those prospects is Johnny Davis, the 10th overall pick of the 2022 NBA Draft. The Wizards took Davis ahead of Jalen Williams, Jalen Duren, Ochai Agbaji, and Mark Williams — four players who logged huge minutes for their respective teams last season — so clearly they had high hopes for the 6'6 wing out of Wisconsin.

Alas, Davis looked like the worst player who was drafted in the lottery. Especially to begin his career, Davis looked like a fish out of sea, playing the game as if NBA players were too fast for him. For around 80 percent of the season, Davis only logged garbage time minutes for the moribund Wizards, shuttling back and forth between the main roster and the G-League.

Simply put, Johnny Davis is starting from a lower position than most of his 2022 NBA Draft peers. Not all hope is lost, for sure, since Davis showed flashes of being a quality piece for the Wizards to end his rookie year. However, during Summer League, it seems like the Wizards wing is running into the same difficulties he's had that made his transition to the NBA a difficult endeavor.

Wizards' biggest concern about Johnny Davis: Lack of quick first step… the next Jerome Robinson?

There's a very real possibility that Johnny Davis is just a late bloomer. In Wisconsin, Davis didn't have the most fruitful of freshman years in a bench role, but in his sophomore campaign, he grabbed the opportunity to take on a featured role, upping his scoring average by nearly 13+ points thanks in large part to an improved ability to get to the foul line.

So perhaps with the Wizards, Davis could see himself explode with a bigger opportunity available for him to grasp with both hands. After all, he did average 17 points, 5.6 rebounds, 3.8 assists, and 1.4 steals in the last five games of the 2022-23 season.

But during Summer League, some of Johnny Davis' struggles reared their ugly heads once more, namely his lack of elite first step. Even when he drives with an advantage, he tends to get caught up to by quicker defenders, making his shots difficult. The good part is that Davis is bigger and stronger than most guards, so he can still carve out some space on the perimeter or even maneuver himself all the way to the basket. But it will be difficult for Davis to take the next step in his career given his physical limitations unless he becomes an elite pull-up artist from both midrange and three.

Barring a major development in that regard, Davis' NBA career could turn out similarly to that of a former Wizards player in Jerome Robinson. Robinson was also a big-time scorer at the collegiate level, and the Los Angeles Clippers drafted him with the 14th pick in 2018, but he was unable to carry over the skillset of what made him a good player to the NBA level.

Robinson was deathly inefficient from the field, which rendered him unplayable on most nights. The shot-creation skills he had were a bit helpful, allowing him to stick in the NBA for three seasons, but his inability to make shots doomed him. And it's not like he made up for it in other facets. He was not a plus defender, and he wasn't an elite enough athlete to impact the game on the boards or by being a menacing finisher at the rim.

The glaring efficiency woes are present in Davis as well, and given his athletic shortcomings at the NBA-level, he may have a difficult time ever getting past those problems, which was what ultimately doomed Jerome Robinson's career.

At the very least, Johnny Davis looks like a much better defender than Robinson ever was. Davis is taller, heavier, and has a wider frame than Robinson, and the current Wizards youngster has displayed some good timing in shooting the gap in passing lanes as well as helping protect the rim on the weakside. That alone should encourage the Wizards brass to give Davis some minutes and see if the 21-year old wing ever figures out the shot-making side of the game.

But for a player taken that high in the draft, Davis will be facing an uphill climb to prove that he was worth picking where the Wizards did.