What is krack Alakin fellow thermonuclear a efforts. I am at Dan Valley joined
by Matt Maderno of the Believe in Wizards podcast. Please follow him on Twitter.
He's a great great follow at Matt Maderno. That's at M O,
D D E R and O for his last name. Matt spelled with two
teas exactly as it sounds. Does a great job covering the Wizards. Like
I said, as the Believe in Wizards podcast host, the Wizards are making
news in the playoffs, which is uncomfortable for everyone because they're not really in
the postseason as as right on schedule if you were watching them the past few
years. So I brought Matt on here's not kind enough to come on short
notice to discuss just the Wizard's outlook the future, what happens in the aftermath
of Tommy Shepard being quote un dismissed. Wasn't a parting of the ways like
we normally here he was. He was dismissed. Our biggest question, though,
Matt, how are you doing? I'm great, Like I'm happier than
I should be. That someone lost their job and now has to find another
way to feed there doesn't like children. But yeah, sorry, I feel
bad, but like we just needed something fresh here and start fresh, and
I've been waiting a long time for this. I always grapple with that in
what we do, because you're constantly calling for not constantly, but part of
the job. The stick is talking about when people need to be fired.
I'm not sure if this is the way to rationalize it, but when they're
making as much money as they do, when you know they're as well connected
as they are, and that these jobs technically lead to other ones, it's
just a little bit different. I would never root for someone to lose their
job, but it's just it's the nature of the beast, and it's different
than if average Joe or Jattage ends up getting fucked in the real world.
Is just hard, Like this is a game and you're getting paid handsomely to
deal with the instability that is inherent of not just running a team, but
playing for a team if you're a player, and so on and so forth.
This guy kept the job. He was largely mediocret for over twenty years,
so like, again, I don't have a ton of sympathy at this
point, and I'm sure he'll get another job. He's like a genuinely nice
guy and a well liked guy, so someone will find a room home for
him somewhere. And to be honest with you, I thought it was honestly
more likely he would get promoted than fired. So it doesn't mean that he
won't come back with the Wizards in some capacity down the road here. So
well, the other thing, I didn't realize he you would mentioned this on
your podcast that he recorded meeting in the aftermath of and I'm just gonna keep
saying dismissed because it just felt like such a perfect ring. Yeah. I
didn't realize he had like thirteen kids or whatever it was. I knew he
was from like a farmer, like a big farmer or something like that,
but I did not know he had that many children. Every time I say
it, there's going to be more kids. So eventually he'll have just like
his own basketball team running around at home. I don't remember what the exact
number is, but the man's don't work. I don't know what else to
say. Well, let's start with this before we get into the implications of
it. And if we're not, I'm not going to pest you too much
about his track record. Though, please feel free to mention about why he
is where he is. You did a great job of covering that with your
guest was Ozma and Bay I can't remember his name. I apologize, so
go check out that podcast again believe in Wizards. But were you surprised at
all that this happened or did based off some of the things that Shepard said
at the end of the season, even the letter he whatever it was released
to fans, did you see this writing on the wall a little bit?
Honestly, I was totally floored by by the decision. The Wizard don't usually
do things that surprised me, and in this case, pleasantly surprised me.
I talked to somebody that had been in the organization longer than Tommy had immediately
after the move, and they were equally surprised, just because he was so
well liked and so well entrenched in the kind of fabric of the organization.
This has been sort of a mom and pop, you know, like local
community run organization for so long, and they took don't move on from people
quickly, and not that twenty plus years is quick, but they also don't
move on from people with years left on their contracts very often, and that's
by all accounts, you know what Tommy had left. It's always a little
vague, you know, how much time he had and that sort of thing.
But everyone was under the assumption that he would be here for another like
two years at a minimum. So yeah, definitely surprised. I think within
the halls of the building they were surprised. And the wording was what was
kind of most surprising to me. This guy that is well liked and that
you didn't seem to have a problem with a week ago is dismissed. I
know you liked that word. I was very shocked by that wording too,
and they kind of pointed to the lack of playoff success and fans unhappiness with
it over the last two seasons. So if you've got an owner that says,
you know, we will never ever tank and you were basically in a
position where you had to tank down the stretch, I don't know if that
was too big of an ego hit for him to overlook or what, but
it was a little surprising just just because of that. Yeah, I can't
get over the wording. I found it borderline hysterical. It was just like,
did he watch like Ruby hatch Moore in Game one against the Girlies,
like fuck this like rich time for change or something? Wait, didn't we
have him? Right? And what do we get from Kendrick Nunn and second
round picks is that it's gotta be something to do with it, right,
just just how bad you look to the rest of the league and the fan
base if if that guy goes off and if he points to how fans were
disappointed that the Wizards missed the playoffs, and my read on most Wizards fans
anyway, there are some and kudos to them, would they've come up with
ways to defend the Wizards, which is just it's honestly impressive at this point,
but uh it, My read on the fan base is they're more mad
that they Washington has strived to remain on the treadmill of sub mediocrity than how
these seasons have ended. That they might be more angry that the expectation was
that this team could make the playoffs. Playoffs are worse that the expectation or
the goal is to actively just be that like forty one to forty four win
territory first round exit type of team. They're at the ultimate like fork in
the road basketball wise, like be bad or go all in to be good,
and they're trying to go with this unbeaten path down the middle with this
like middle build is the term we keep hearing, and that is a directive
from Ted Leonsis. So I looked at this a little bit, as they
told Tommy, this is your direction. You have to build a successful air
quote successful who knows what success criteria is for them, but a playoff team
with this approach, and no one else is really good enough to do this,
So we're going to hold you to this impossible standard. And he wasn't
succeeding in the path that they wanted to go down, and it seems like
he he kind of paid the press for that. But yeah, Wizards fans
would have either loved, Hey, we're going to do something crazy and try
to make the succeed here and at least make the playoffs and be a real
playoff team, or blow this thing up completely and get everybody out of here
and start fresh with the clean deck. And they'll just never do that,
Like I mean, maybe maybe a new big time GM will come in and
convinced ted that this approach does not work. But I would be very shocked
if that's the case. Personally. One thing that was encouraging is that the
executive search they he made it a point the once has made a point to
say it's going to be someone from outside the organization, which would be the
first time since two thousand and three they had someone running their front office from
out brought them into outside the organization. Is that actually encouraging or do we
kind of point to his wording in the statement about Tommy Shephard where he's so
disappointed that they didn't make the playoffs as oh and also this and I'm not
saying he necessarily should be fired, but saying that the coach is attached to
this team is always a great way to start off a new relationship with the
head in front office. Is this going to be more of the same?
I saw immediate Bradley Beale trade talk when he asked her out. Would they
look to move him? To me, it feels like it's going to be
more of the same. But I'm like eight million miles away from this,
So what is your impression of the way that this search is going to unfold.
Is it gonna be to look for someone who kind of just like oh,
can you continue the middle build? Essentially, I think almost anybody that
takes this job is going to go into it with the understanding that Ted wants
to be a playoff team next year, and he will see, you know,
losing these guys in free agency, trading away Beals as a failure or
inability to do that, or like a way to compromise their playoff chances for
next year. So I think they're going to go on business as usual.
Their first order of business for the new GM will be bring both of those
guys back, make Bradley Beal happy. The only way that Beal is not
here in the future is if Bradley Beal says I don't want to be here
in the future. That's the only thing that changes this. And if I'm
Brad at this point, I haven't shown anything that says I'm going to want
out of here. And Brad had some interesting comments at the end of the
season about voicing his frustration to the appropriate people and clarifying to media who apparently
had it twisted that Brad is not actually the GM of the team and they
should talk to Tommy and Ted with spec to why the team isn't winning more
so I do kind of wonder if maybe Brad went to Ted and said,
hey, this is not working. I offered to show you some patience,
and I'm so gracious and I haven't been rewarded for that with a playoff team
around me. I don't know, but I think Ted is committed to Brad,
and I think the new GM is gonna have to be okay with that.
The only way that changes if maybe you can convince, you know,
one of these big time gms to come in here and they have just enough
cachet and track record to convince Ted that, like this does not work,
you cannot do it this way. Otherwise, I just don't see them pivoting
from something they've been trying to do for a very long time, Like this
was the path under Ernie too, Like they were just better at it because
they had, you know, a player in John Wall that made other guys
around them slightly better. But it was mostly just a how do we trade
a first round pick for another fringe starter to help us make the eight seed
again? Like this is this isn't new, and I don't expect, you
know, I don't see a reason to expect it to change. Personally,
would have been your impressions of west On Sell Junior through his first couple of
seasons. Is it tough to evaluate him given some of the roster turn that
he had and then just a level of talent and then what do you sort
of make It felt like if you read through some of the comments that Shephard
made this year, kind of felt like he put the onus of the underachieving
on coaching and injuries. Of course, because they're the only team to leave
that dealt with injuries. Quite frankly, he put the onus on those things
rather than necessarily anything transactional that he had spearheaded. Yeah, somehow we're like
still blaming COVID for the fact that we're not a good team. And to
be fair, Brad Beal has had COVID like eleven times more than the average
person, so so maybe there is some truth to that. But he did
graduly beal quiet. No one really talks about it like he was good this
season two when he played, So when he played is the huge ends to
that sentence. And if you've gotten sixty five games of Brad, then maybe
this looks a little different. So that's that's sort of the big piece of
this too, is just that Brad was the he's healthy of the two between
him and Porzingis. Is kind of not what I would have expected going into
the season. But yeah, it's just the whole situation. But this is
just sort of weird. And I think Tommy was fine in the vacuum.
West is probably fine in a vacuum. I think the real problem is just
like accountability from the top down. It's always somebody else's fault, and the
players see that and they even sort of go to that approach as well.
You saw Monte Morris, who was by all accounts, you know, wes
Unzel's chosen son from Denver, saying that like, yeah, we told them
from day one that this team needed to play a lot faster, and you
saw we were better when we played faster. We don't know why the coaches
didn't let us play faster. So you've got Corey Kisper talking about the lack
of accountability in the locker room and things like that. To me, that
all sounds like coaching stuff. And then you have West and his people kind
of advocating that no, no, no, this is a personnel thing,
like I can't do what I want to do because these guys aren't getting it.
And that's where the comments you mentioned about Shepard saying it's really easy for
the coach to say that these guys aren't listening. You have to make them
listen, basically. So I think the fault is kind of all around.
I'm sure that Wes like if he were in a nicely structured organization with some
like strong culture in place, he could be a perfectly fine XS and o's
guy. And you know, maybe you have a strong enough veteran that gets
people to buy in around him, But that doesn't seem like it's happening here.
I personally, that's where I would have moved on from someone. I
actually just haven't seen anything super inspiring from him. But we talked about this
a little bit in our pod, just sort of the notion of can this
team really afford to clean house on both the front office and the coaching staff
in the same summer with such a huge draft pick coming up and things like
that, maybe it's better to give him one opportunity here, and maybe you
can supplement his coaching staff with sort of like, you know, basically put
his replacement next to him and just give him a chance to coach for his
job and see how it works. We've seen teams put pressure on their head
coach by by putting a strong assistant next to them, and you know,
I don't know if that's an option or not. I feel like those situations
never end well for the incumbent head well for us as Wizards fans. I
don't know. To me, it would just be a matter of delay the
inevitable. And if that's how you feel as an organization about West Unsel Junior,
then you should move on from West. Why why delay they? Especially
because whether your goal is to middle build or actually get better from here,
like Bradley Beal's not super young anymore, like you're on his timeline, you
don't just have years to punt away and experiment with. Is there? We
both agreed that they're just not gonna I would be floored, although I guess
if they would, they be more likely to consider a more gradual course.
If they jump up in the lottery, they go from they lost a coin
toss, so they're eighth or whatever is and they jump into the top four,
would that make them more likely to rebuild or would they be more likely
to shop the fuck out of that pick. This is an organization that traded
the fifth pick in the Steph Curry draft for Mike Miller and Randy Foy,
so you can never fully ruled out. Now that was the previous owners directive
to see a winning team before he died as morbid as that sounds, so
you know there's something to that, and maybe they wouldn't do that under normal
circumstances, but it's got to be a question they ask, right like we've
seen that with Portland saying that they're going to trade the pick unless it's like
the first pick that might have been something on Tommy Sheppard's radar. I hope
no competent GM that comes in to replace him thinks that that's a sound strategy.
And as much as you get ownership directive, you can also go back
to them and say, like, look, there's not a deal here.
So I hope that they would communicate that the ownership that there's no solid deal
here where you trade Amen Thompson for I don't know, somebody. It's just
van Fleet sign and trade or something. Yeah, exactly like the salaries going
out and have to make sense too, and there's just not a lot of
flexibility for them. You know, because we can talk a little bit about
what they resign these guys for here in a minute. But there's also just
like not a lot of trade assets on this team. You're limited to one
pick you can trade essentially, And does anyone really want Daniel Gafford that bad
that he's like a huge trade chip? Is Corey Kisspert like somebody? The
teams are like falling over each other to try to line up and get It's
just how much like bigger of a get are you going to go out?
Are you adding a fourth star to your big three to have a huge four?
I don't know, It's just it's it's rough. I think you have
to hope that this pick is somebody that can come in and fit with the
pieces around you and move the needle at least, if not exactly this year,
maybe for next year. I think it'll be. It should be fairly
easy in theory to determine what direction the Wizards are headed based off who they
hire to replace Shepherd. But is there another sort of flashbulb decision that will
clue you in on even if it's not you know, we know, we
know it's not going to be rebuilt. I don't know why I'm trying to
dance around it, But is it Kyle Kuzma's contract? This seriousness of kp
extension talks another player that they might chop on the roster, players they're linked
to to the draft, that will clue you in. Are you just looking
at one decision that will clue you in on what this franchise is actually hoping
or trying to accomplish before the start of next season. I think just the
nature of both of those contract extensions will tell us a lot about these things.
Like we had heard as a fan base that you know, it's sort
of been subtly reported that the front office offered Bradley Beald the no trade clause
and things like that, that they were not negotiating tactics, that they came
to the table and said, here are all the things we can give you,
here you go. So it just the shrewdness of their negotiating with people
like porzingis like, if the deal is four years, one hundred and twenty
million, but there's a team option and it's incentive based on how many games
he's able to play and does he make an All Star team and things like
that, and they're not willing to just totally give him the farm. Then
you know, maybe that says that like, yeah, we want you back,
but we're not willing to be stupid to do it. Hey, Kyle
Kuzma, we'd love to have you, but thirty three million dollars a year,
it's just not going to work for us, and we don't think you're
going to get that in the open market. So if you want to explore
that first and come back to us, fine, Like I think that says
a lot about you know, Hey, we like these guys. We want
to keep building this approach, but we're not going to help you're desperate to
do it, and that's sort of they've reaked a little of desperation for the
last I don't know, twenty five years, So so this would be a
change in approach, I think. And let's get into some of that.
And look, I want to ask you about Corey Kissbert Runners and Xavier Cooks
his future with the organization. But that's what if you're kind enough to come
back on for our regular season look ahead, those are questions pertaining to that.
We have to get to the transactional nature of this offseason. And so
let's start with prozingis who had. It's not a season, and this I
don't mean this as an insult. It's not a season that flew under the
radar. I think everyone kind of understood how good he was all year,
and his availability was up there. I've personally, from what I saw of
him, I haven't seen him move that well defensively since he was in New
York. But there's also the when you're talking about his next contracts, I'm
curious as to what your number would be as Max is forty point two million,
which is basically close to what his player option is for the player.
But like some of the stuff, the efficiency from beyond the arc off the
catch, I think that can easily translate. He takes some tough shots and
they were going in this year forty seven percent on fadeaways. I think I've
mentioned this on our podcast before. He shot sixty percent on post ups,
which among everyone who had one hundred post ups this year, only Yokich had
better for seeing the post I just don't know if you can scale that ahead
to future seasons and count on that. So that coupled with his availability,
but also coupled with how fucking awesome he was this season, like what is
your as an organization, like what's your preferred or even walk away or like
this is as high of a number in as many years as I'm going for
for KP. I think the subtle rumblings here that he and his people know
that he's either taking big up for rent money or longer term sort of financial
security, and hopefully they're on the same page about what that really means if
honestly, I think like four four one twenty is like kind of where I'm
at with this, Like if you start somewhere around that general number and oh
it ends up being a million and a half more per year than that,
like like, so be it. But I don't have any kind of reasonable
comps prepared to say, like this is the exact number it has to be.
And honestly, I think he's a hard person to come up with a
comp four because guys that play as well as he played this year aren't free
agents like that often, I feel like, and they also don't typically come
with the injury track record that he did. I agree with you about the
movement he talked a lot about, like losing the weight he bulked up with
in Dallas and doing a lot of pilates at yoga and working on flexibility and
mobility, and I thought that really like made sense and seemed to help Myles
Turner a lot. Sorry to interrupt you too, but like, no,
he talked a lot about his hit movement after he had started doing stuff along
those lines. And so maybe, and to your point, by the way,
there's if you really think about it, I think they're in a class
of their own in terms of proven track record. There's Miles Turner, Brook
Lopez, and Christops. Porzingis is sort of those actual floor spacing rim protecting
bigs that anyone's chasing. And after that it's unless I'm missing someone. I
mean, maybe you throw nas Read or Nagy into that a little bit,
but they're not like in the same tier. And so like that's what to
me makes Porzingis even tougher to define. He talked about sort of is this
like something we can expect for him next year in terms of some of these
efficiency things, and beys with you, I don't even actually think he was
that well utilized this year personally, Like for anybody that's watching Wizards games,
they would know he would go supernova in the first quarter and then not touch
the ball again for the next two quarters, and they never ran like Bradley
beule Perstaps porzingis pick and roll to end games. He just kind of stood
there and hoped he got a look, which is an insane misuse of your
tools at your disposal in my opinion. But I think there's a lot of
stuff they could do to get him like better looks. Even so maybe he
can't make all the same tough stuff or he's not gonna like hit post ups
at the insane rad he did this year, because that's not what the track
record, you know, seems to indicate. But but if you were like
smarter about this, and then again, that's maybe the sole reason why I
would have gone a different direction coaching wise, or I'd asked, you know,
an offensive coordinator to come in here and find some creative ways to use
him. But but there's some stuff you could do there to kind of mitigate
any drop off in terms of just like maybe if some of those things were
like a little lucky this year. At least that's where I'm at with him.
I will say what I was pleased with by them, and this is
nothing related to his value. Is that post ups were like less than eighteen
percent of his offensive possessions, which was his lowest in years. And I
think that's it's nice to have that tool in the chest, but those are
not I don't want my bread and butter on offense. And I think we
saw even the Mavericks maybe in part because Porzingis wanted that that might show growth
to him as a player, that he is willing to be used in different
ways or navigated this season where you said he was deployed inconsistently. There there's
like a sweet spot of that, right, Like, I'm okay with that
total number, and I wanted to be on the lower end. But there
were also certain times where, like I'm thinking of these two heat matchups,
specifically where Jamal Kane, which I don't even honestly know who that is and
I watch a lot of basketball, was guarding Kristaps Porzingis and there was like
a nine inch height difference, and we had Porzingis like seventeen feet from the
hoop shooting fadeaways over him, and it was just like, Okay, I
will bang my face into the table now if he fades over this guy again.
So again, they're just like certain situations where like like, that's the
best what we could do with Kristaps. And I'm not saying like you want
forty percent of his shots to be post ups, but situationally, you gotta
make teams pay for putting fred van Fleet on porzingis you know, in the
final five minutes of a basketball game. Your evaluation of him, I think
is kind of spot on, and I don't think it will give any one
sticker shock. But even if it does, I think we're in I'll include
myself in this. We're not all yet caught up to looking at contracts against
the new salary trap, and your number is like twenty one two percent of
the projected salary cap, but it might go It's gonna go up from there,
and it might even go up from the one thirty four million projection.
I think that's a fine commitment for me personally if I'm going higher in dollars,
but if more importantly, if I'm going out more than two years,
there needs to be like some sort of back end protection against team options if
you get hurt or something. Yeah, for just because of his track record,
and I think they should have the leverage to include some of that language.
I would think just because who is the team that is coming in and
leveraging you into this huge offer. Do you look at the cap space teams?
Or Lando doesn't need them, and that's assuming they decide to use cap
space. The Pacers don't need them. The Spurs like, he doesn't really
fit with their timeline, although in theory I guess they could use him.
And so like you start to go through the cap space teams and it's just
like even if Detroit uses cap space, they have eighty centers still, so
it's not gonna be It's not going to be them. And so there's always
signing trade scenarios of course that can come on. But the absence of this
clear Kristops porzingis suitor at the moment, I think should help the Wizards.
I would assume in negotiations to where no, you're not going to get him
for a cut rate, but like, let's not go and screw ourselves here
like you arguably did in the Bradley Beal as you describe it, non negotiation,
the Wizards under Tommy Shepherd would be as the kids say, seemingly thirsty
a lot of these times, like it's you know, like we want Kristapp's
back so bad, and he actually he doesn't get why free agents don't want
to come here. It's yeah, because they literally, you know, get
your ass as much as they can. So it'll say a lot about this
new gem is how he handles that, Like if he negotiates from that position
of strength, understands that he does have leverage. I think that sets the
tone for how this organization moves over the next four or five, six years,
whatever that looks like. And that's just sort of the number I came
up with. Again, I don't know if that's rational or realistic. I'm
with you that you got to build some protections in there. I do have
like a little bit of PTSD as a Wizards fan with this sort of incentives
based on games played, because that happened with Spencer Denmity and he, by
all accounts played hurt to try to get to that number that got him those
incentives. So you know that there's there's some it's tough, like you know,
like will the guy do what's best for the team if his salaries on
the line. So you got to navigate that the right way and hopefully that
they're fair and reasonable. We've heard some stuff about Porzingis and his team and
his brother and all these people maybe being tough to deal with. So I
don't know what that'll look like in a negotiation, but we just can't operate
as a desperate team anymore. And if he doesn't like what we're willing to
spend, then so be it. Will sign and trade you somewhere and we'll
start new and Daniel Gafford's the center next year. Speaking of Daniel Gaffer,
this is definitely more of a later in the summer, after the roster set
question. But I am curious, what did you think of the Porzingis Daniel
Gaffer front court that was being rolled out there for a huge chunk of this
season. I think there were a lot of times where they had to do
it out of necessity, just because of the like flawed roster balance here.
I don't like it personally. I think it's hard enough to win with one
drop coverage big in the NBA, let alone two of them playing next to
each other for twenty minutes a game. But it's just they did what it
was supposed to do. It deterred teams from kind of taking the ball into
the paint against them. Teams actually shot a pretty good percentage against the two
of them out there at the rim against put those two in the courts,
they just didn't get there as you put it out, which is, yeah,
exactly like you've you've deterred them. But once they got there, they
had a pretty easy time of scoring on both of you because neither of them
are like the strongest, most physical guys, and Gafford's always like kind of
fallen down and stuff like that, and you know it just it speaks to
this sort of the team that Tommy Shepard built. And as much as he
wants to call that out, and let's knock West for doing it, but
there is a sort of like a thing in basketball where sometimes you have to
put the five best guys you have on the court together and do your best
to make it work. And I think there were definitely situations where the poorest
perimeter defense forced them to try to have this like bigger back line. And
now you've got Porcing who just isn't a very good rebounder and not the Gafford's
like the best rebounder. So it was basically rebounding by committee, and you
hope Porzingis can get ten a game. You hope Denny can get a to
game, you hope Delon Right can get three or four, and just you
can kind of mitigate that as a team. And that's sort of where I
think they were trying to go with that. But if I'm a competent general
manager, I'm going into next season with making it a priority to not have
that be my starting front court if if I can, I mean, then
you watch more of the overall NBA than I do. Do you see any
other teams playing two drop bigs together, like maybe Cleveland you could kind of
say that, but they're both more switchable than both of our guys. I
think, Yeah, Mobley's like basically defending at the point of attack. Yeah,
I mean, it's sort of the Detroit scenario where they were talking about
the two big model, but it was like, well, you need like
at least one of those bigs to be super versatile on defense, and you
don't really have that. And I'm with you. I was surprised at how
well they fared offensively, But when I was digging deeper for the like sending
you the outline, they got some absurd shot making from the liners that they
shot like fifty seven percent on log mid range jumpers and then forty four percent
from three and that's they're not profiting up those numbers, and the defensive returns
were just not Yeah, okay, teams didn't get to the rim, but
they shot well once they got there, as you mentioned. So I think
the goal would need to be like, hey, that's breaking case for emergency.
You want to try it a little bit against certain teams, sure,
go ahead, But as sort of this crutch, I'm glad that you don't
buy it because I just I don't see it, which means they'll double down
on it, just because we both said that, and it makes too much
sense. Kyle Kuzma's free agency, he has a thirty million dollars player option.
He's going to the climate. It's arguably it's more interesting, but then
also tougher because I think he's just going to be the player with more suitors.
And I don't have the Porzingia's question I had my own answer to.
I don't have an answer to this same question for Kyle Kuzma, which is
why I wanted to ask you it. I think he's made strides as a
driver playmaker since he's been in Washington. But the plugin play aspect of his
game, Like he can still cut, but that's not really how they use
him. The spot up shooting was not good this year, and so I
do wonder if on other teams could he theoretically be harder to plug in if
he's not going to have the same offensive agency that he had in Washington this
season. And so I'm all over the place with him. What is knowing
what he brings to the roster as currently constructed? What is your sort of
again Max's number for Kyle Kuzma. I think he has more value to the
Wizards than he does probably anywhere else he's gonna go, just based on the
multiple holes they try to use him to fill. Now, I do think
what you do with him really is dictated on do you think if you make
other moves to the roster you can mitigate some of those deficiencies for him.
Like we talk a lot about our podcast about it's a pro Kyle Kuzma podcast
because I just like that mold of player. But if you have a real
point guard that gets him a few easy looks, Like he's the guy that
always catches the grenade for the team, and he has to take the tough
shots because a lot of times he's out there with a corps of guys that
really can't generate their own offense. And Monte Morrisey had this great assist to
turnover ratio and things like that, but he's not creating like a lot of
easy looks for anybody, especially Kyle Kuzma. So if you know, going
into it, like he's going to have to handle the ball and distribute as
your six ten power forward, you're relying on him for a lot of things
that I don't think he's he's super well suited to do as at the usage
rate they asked him to do it. Now, you gonna have a long
convo with him of how he sees himself. Is he think he's yannest moving
forward and he needs to have like the ball thirty percent of the time and
he actually wants more usage or does he agree that, hey, if he
could be a little more catch and shoot or you know, get downhill a
little bit more because somebody's like create a few looks for him and you have
the spacing for him to cut and find seams and things like that. So
it's just there's still a lot of like unanswered questions about what you're going to
do around him, and I think that dictates what his long term future really
should look like year at the very least to me, Like, I think
that mold of player is so important to successful teams. A guy that can
play three through even five for some cases. That he's an elite defensive rebounder
by all accounts, So I think he's like ninety second percentile for power forwards
or forwards in the NBA for defensive rebounding, and you need those kinds of
things next to Porzingis, and I think that's underrated. There were a lot
of times he deployed. They deployed him as their stopper defensively, Like we
talk a lot about Denny's defense, and he's very good, but like when
they're matched up with the Blazers and you're putting Kyle Kuzma as your first option
to stop Dame Lillard, like one that says a lot about you're not having
a very balanced roster. But dude, like you can't really replace that with
anyone else here, So like I buy him, But again, there's there's
sort of that breaking point, and I don't have like a great number for
you here. Too, but I would start with somewhere around that number I
talked about with Porzingis, Like, is it is four for thirty the number?
Are there a lot of incentives that you build in there for him if
you're worried about a fishing and see, like, hey, if you're this
efficient, we can give you some more stuff like I don't know how much
that's realistic or not, but he's gonna have a lot of offers. And
I would just kind of like firmly come in with, hey, we think
this is a really fair offer. We don't want to negotiate back and forth
with you a lot. If you like it here, do you want to
stay here? Take this? But we're not going to get into a bidding
war with Portland or whatever for your services. And I think thirty is probably
the number we're talking about at this point. And I don't know if that's
if you can build a winning team around giving thirty million dollars to a guy
that was that inefficient, as much as I like him personally, having Kuzma
Porzingis and Bradley Bell on the books for thirty plus million dollars and as she
would beat wild just in just be like the most, that'd be the oddest,
like thirty plus million dollars Trio in the league by far for no all
stars among the three of them, which is crazy? Is and would you
agree? I guess that Kuzma, by de flaw is almost a bigger flight
risk then porzingis. Yeah. I just think there's more teams that can envision
him fitting in because of that versatility, like porzingis is one thing. He
is a big you know, shooting specialists essentially that that protects the room for
you somewhat. And Kuzma can be a three, he could be a four,
he could be a small ball five. If you need him to.
He can be your de facto backup point guard like that. Malluability I think
gives him more places to land potentially. The last singular player I have a
question about is denni Apia. Is he I did? I demanded you say
one to seven nice things about him in the actual outline, But and I
will do a victory lap every time he someone bounces off him on a physical
drive or if he takes more than three point three three point attempts in a
game. But is he more likely at this stage, it's impossible I'm asking
me a possible question. Because you don't know who's gonna be running the front
office, would you view him is more likely to be extended or traded this
off season? Knowing the typical Wizards meld would be they just keep him,
he goes into restrict to free agency, and they pay him. Well,
I guess they didn't do that with Ruis. I shouldn't say the typical Wizards
thing. The Wizards have not extended a first round draft pick outside the top
three since before I was born. I'm pretty sure it's the statistics so that
they just they haven't hit on enough of those picks that weren't like no brainer
picks to want to bring them back, which is crazy. It might honestly
be like Jeff Malone was like the last guy that they drafted outside the top
five that they brought in for a second contract. So I think this is
one of the situations where's it is more likely that he is extended then traded.
I think it is less likely he's extended under the new person than it
was under Tommy. I think if you're Tommy, you can't afford to say
I had to ship Rui out of town and now I'm going to have to
do that again with Denny, just from an optics perspective, So I think
that was almost like a done deal that they were going to make something happen
this offseason. I have heard anecdotally that Denny's people are are looking at a
pretty hefty number for him in the off season here, and we'll see what
that number really ends up looking like for him and how on in sync it
is with whatever the GM looks like. But for me, I would keep
him because I think he does a lot of different things for you that maybe
you can unlock with him more again sort of evenly put together roster, and
you can play to his strength a little bit better. I don't know if
this coach is well suited to do it. We've heard some rumblings that maybe
he and west Unsell Junior don't see perfectly eye to eye on his utilization,
So I don't know. Maybe he's ready for somewhere else and thinks he can
do more if somebody cannat it takes the handcuffs off him a little bit.
But six nine guys that are good defenders that like to move the ball and
aren't hunting shots all the time, aren't super common to find. I do
think he does have to get better at certain things on the offensive end.
That's always where my sort of I don't know if criticism is the right word,
but like question marks come with him. How good can he be is
solely determined to me by can he make defenses pay? Like there was a
large portion of the year where teams were putting a center on him and just
like totally leaving him open and just there, you know, they're giving him
the Draymond Green on Russell Westbrook defense, and he wasn't able to make them
pay at a high enough volume for them to adjust differently. And that got
better over the course of the season. He caught the ball and hit them
with a head of steam going downhill and was able to dump off and pass
two people. He started to finish a little bit better as the year went
on, So I think I buy those strides. By all accounts, he's
a hard worker. So he says he wants to desperately continue to develop his
left hand, work on his finishing and just be able to hit like corner
threes. So those are the things to me he has to do or to
be able to stay on the floor more so I'm glad he sees that and
hopefully the team can help him kind of realize that in the future. He's
still young, like I wouldn't give up this early and during the offseason.
I feel like the Wizards have two clear on the court needs when you're looking
positionally would be the floor general type and just depth versatility, like another wing
forward type of player. What is more important for them to address this offseason.
I think Kuzman did like a reasonable enough job for them as sort of
like the de facto three that like you can patch work that position together,
which is crazy because all I literally talk about on our podcast is like this
is a wings league and the Wizards never have any wings, so you know,
that's the most important position to me. But I think for this particular
group, like just a point guard that like gets into the teeth of the
defense occasionally and is not a total sieve on you know, from a point
of attack perspective, would be huge. Like Monte's really good at moving the
ball around and dribbling it across half court and hit some shots from a reasonable
efficiency. And Delon Wright is a ballhawk and you can't throw the ball anywhere
near the guy or he will steal it from you, like he's just sort
of that good at that. But you almost need to combine them into one
player to have like a chance of this because you can't really play them together
a ton of the time, and they each just have like such a major
hole on one side of the ball. I think that that kills this team,
that you have to platoon them that way. So just somebody that maybe
is a downgrade on my say offensively and a downgrade from Delan defensively, but
is like sort of better at both would be would be helpful for this group,
in my opinion. But you can never go wrong with having just like
a real true three and D wing on the roster, because they don't.
They don't really have one like Denny's a d and courted to three, but
they really don't do the other either, And I think that's sort of how
this team has been assembled. Is there like a lot of guys that do
one thing and one thing only and it makes them hard to play situationally a
lot. Is there like a functional or stylistic change you would like to see
them, whether it's address it through free agency or just change. If this
is the core of the personnel that they're going to move forward with paying into
next season, whether it's maybe an actual commitment to playing in transition, I'm
going through their half court offense a little bit faster, maybe having more ball
pressure on defense, which are all things that I just stood out to me
when I was watching them. Is there anything, though, from you who
watched them, you know, eighty two times this year? Whatever? Was
is there something that you would like to see them change about the way they
play? Heading it? Well, what's the I'm sure there are many things
where's that you'd like to change? What the one thing that you would like
to see them change? Your address? I think when your players are willing
to come out the first first media availability after the season is over, and
multiple ones mentioned that they want to play faster, there's something to that.
And I think just looking at this roster, like Porzingis is not like the
most latterly mobile guy of all time, but he's not bad north to south,
especially for a guy that big. And he's also a guy you can
trust to be like the trailing guy that you can kick out to and hit
a three and things like that. Gafford runs the floor pretty well. He's
a pretty good lob threat and transition threat. Like Denny is a grab and
go guy, Kyle Kuzma can be a grab and go guy. You've got
Jordan Goodwin who's really good at rebounding from a guard position as a backup guard
and can push the pace. So to me, there are guys here that
would sort of like facilitate them playing faster, I think, and that seems
like the no brainer one to me. There was some stuff where west Unseld
said when he got hired that, you know, he didn't want the team
to play at a crazy high pace because he thought that negatively impacted your ability
to have a set defense and play good defense. So that to me is
kind of wild. I would agree with him if it were like nineteen ninety
four still, but just modern teams don't seem to buy into that, and
I think we've got to be a little bit more modern with how we try
to play. I don't really honestly know what to do with this defense.
I think it's more them trying to plug holes with the roster that they have
than it is like a scheme thing potentially, So it's just kinda whatever moves
they make, you got to find a way to be better at point of
attack and also not have to play those two bigs, but also get some
weak side rim protection from whoever's next to poison gifts. So it's it's not
an easy challenge, and you kind of asked it in the question, like,
there are a lot of holes you could theoretically try to fill here in
the off season, and it's really just you pick two or three of them
and you hope that those make a big enough difference that the other ones aren't
just glaring. Who is the player on this roster right now who's most likely
to be traded before next season? Maybe not most likely to be traded,
but Xavier Cook seems like the most likely to not be back here. To
me, I would think if I'm the new GM, I wouldn't have seen
anything from that guy that warns like, you know, keeping him around longer
term personally, Yeah, but maybe maybe I'm wrong there. I think Monte
Morris would be the one I would personally advocate for. I would think a
lot of teams in the playoffs right now could have a role for a guy
like that is like a really good backup point guard who could even play some
next year. Starter, and if you had the right team, like if
you're I don't know if they would ever have the money for this, but
like Milwaukee or something like I could easily envision a role for somebody like Monte
on a team like that, and his numbers not crazy, so a team
could sort of talk themselves into making that work. I think a lot of
teams would be interested in Daniel Gafford, but I don't know how you move
on from him if you're the Wizards, just given one Porzingis's injury history,
you have to have some kind of insurance of a guy that could at least
be a spot starter. And the next big on the roster this year was
Tash Gibson, so you'd be basically replacing your whole center core at that point
if you moved on from Gafford. So to me, those would be the
two that have like the most value to other teams that wouldn't like totally kill
you. But you could more easily survive losing Monte to me than you could
losing Gafford. The Wizard's free agency situation is tough because you can't really figure
out which version of the mid level exception they're going to be working with until
you know how much KP and Kuzman are going to count against the book.
So, whether it's the mini mid level or the bigger mid level, are
there any free agents that you've thought about that you'd like to see the Wizards
go after? The free agency one is just a really interesting question because I
think there's still so many other dominoes than have to fall before you can figure
that out, Like does your draft pick effect you know, what you do
from a whole perspective. If you go out and get Jaris Walker or somebody
that can play next to Porzingis, is he ready to come in next year
enough that maybe you don't need another mobile, versatile big to play next to
him. I think in theory, i'd be going out and trying to get
whatever you know, three and D wing is on the market for the mid
level that could actually play in a playoff series. And I don't know if
that even exists because it seems like all those players make twenty million dollars a
year, so that might be tough. But if you think Gafford is a
trade chip or is a trade asset, maybe you can go out and get
someone that gives you eighty percent of what he does, you know, more
cheaply, and you could move on from him. If you move on from
Monte Morris, could you get another point guard that does a little bit more
on both ends of the ball potentially, Those are the three positions i'd look
at. I think you're pretty set at power forward. I think they're probably
going to bring Kuzma back. I think offensively Porzingis is essentially a four right
and then deniond I think is at his best as a as a big forward.
So to me, that's one area you don't need to plug. And
Bradley be old. They're not going to do anything with him probably, so
I think he's back, and I think they hope that Johnny Davis can give
them some minutes as a backup two guard next year. So I think the
one, three, or five is probably what you try to address, and
those other dominoes kind of have to fall first before you figure out which one
is the priority. Matt, you power through a ton of tech difficulties.
On my end, I appreciate it. Is there anything that I did not
ask you about? The thing needs to be discussed about this team heading into
the off season. I would just be curious for your perspective if there's anything
you think they're going to try to do in terms of the replacement here,
like is there a name that makes sense? Is there a Robert tim Connolly
goes and just destroys the Minnesota Timberwolves and then immediately moves on and starts somewhere
else. My first thought was, I wonder if he's gettable now, just
because how happy is Minnesota with the job that he did. I kind of
expect them, and I know the name that's been like trendy is the Trajan
Langdon route, and I feel like they will go along similar lines where it
will be someone who's less proven as the head of a front office, and
that's what they wind up with. I think I'll be shocked. I'm sure
every team inquires about Massi Ugerry, I'm sure. And he's been linked to
Washington in the past, of course. I think that's why it might matter
here. I would be fairly surprised if it ends up being a big name
that you actually want, And if it's a big name, it's probably one
where it's like, oh, today is like is Ernie back Danny Ferry?
Here we go, We're finally making it happen, right, So I think
that's the route they'll go. But there really haven't been that. I've seen
a ton of names. I saw Langdon, and I think Jerry's just always
out there, and then Connolly has tangentially been mentioned because of like his history
of Washington the past, but I haven't seen like a ton of names mentioned
as potential replacements for Shephard. Langdon was interesting because they didn't interview him the
last time around, despite his name getting brought up a good amount. But
he's also had, you know, four more years of seasoning as a younger
guy to try to build his resume. I'm blanking on the gentleman's name that
sort of directly under MASSI Ugerry, but maybe Bobby Webster, Yeah, maybe
I give him a call all just to see what's up with him, if
he wants a little more freedom and wants to get out from under Massiah shadow
a little bit. I like a lot of the things Toronto has done,
so the things they have where the things Washington doesn't, as like long athletic
wings for the most part. So maybe he's a guy who could come in
here and find them a couple of those. So that's somewhere. I look,
the name I dropped on our pond was Tayshaun Prince, just because I've
heard he's been really instrumental behind the scenes with Memphis and a lot of the
talent evaluation there that's gone well for them, So you know, maybe he's
ready for a bigger role. I don't know if you know main GM is
the role that they're willing to give him right out of the gate here,
But that that's kind of names I would I would kick around at least I
will say this is not And it's sort of just like when you're firing a
head coach, this is not a decision you should make unless you have a
top replacement in mind and at least a semi strong grasp of is this person
gettable. It's like, you know, you don't fire Tommy Shepard because you
want to see if you can poach Messiah Jerry from Toronto. That's not that's
not a decision you made. Yeah, exactly like they fired Ernie, and
I think they pretty much knew that they at the very least they had Tommy
in their back pocket as a as a defendable candidate at the time. And
this one, Yeah, to your point. I don't know who that candidate
would be, So I don't know if some search firm had reached out on
their behalf and advance here, but maybe maybe there's something going on by the
scenes. It should be resolved soon because they do have the draft coming up
in a couple of months, so you would would like to have someone installed,
not just by the draft, but so that they have the time to
like begin their own processes and like. So I would expect the resolution somewhat
soon, but yeah, you would hope. Matt. Are you able to
tell our listeners where they can follow you and all the fantastic work that you
do. Sure, if you're just a bizarre human and you're listening to this
and you clearly like good podcasts. If you want to listen to one about
the Wizards, which unless you're a Wizards fan, I'm not sure why you
would, but it's Believe in Wizards, b l e A. V In
Wizards. I do it with former wizard Johati White and we just talk through
all the news of the day, try to get player perspective and things like
that. So if that appeals to you, come on in. You know
we're gonna do some draft stuff this offseason, and I'll be kind of more
general NBA than it is sort of team specific, so that'll be interesting for
other folks and bullets forever. If you want to go check us out there.
It's an Espnation blog. That's where I do some of my writing and
all the all the other good Wizards content that's out there too. I will
echo everything that Matt said, and also to believe, the Wizards podcast very
honest analysis which I appreciate and don't sell yourself short. Regionalized coverage is so
good now when I'm talking about like single team podcasts, and yeah, you
over there are among the very best. You don't say you guys are checking
in on the Wizards. Everyone else should do the same. I'm sure you
know by now that I will be pesturing you would gain in the future,
maybe they will need a lot different when I do. You know, fingers
are crossed. But yes, thank you so much for coming on. I'll
talk to you soon, Matt. Thanks to