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Wizards free agents take their turn in the Doppelgänger Machine

The rest of the returning roster — and a few others — have passed through the Statistical Doppelgänger Machine, which compares a player to every other player season since 1977-78 to find historical comparisons.

There are a few ideas behind this approach. First, that while there aren’t exact matches and the game has evolved over time, player types and roles persist.

Second, comparing players based on numbers can produce results more interesting than “reminds me of” approaches, which are often driven by superficial characteristics like the color of a player’s skin or what region of the world he’s from.