Washington Wizards GM Will Dawkins Says Rotation SHRINK Incoming | Will This Help Them Compete?

Washington Wizards GM Will Dawkins Says Rotation SHRINK Incoming | Will This Help Them Compete?

Washington Wizards general manager Will Dawkins joined the Sports Junkies today. What does he think about the Wizards 11game losing streak, the players only meeting and some more? Let’s find out today what he said on Locked on Wizards. You are Locked on Wizards, your daily Washington Wizards podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. your team every day. DC family, you’re locked on to the Washington Wizards, where you’re part of our family. We thank you for making Locked on Wizards your first listen every single day. Part of the Locked On podcast network, the number one sports podcast network in the nation. Today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet just $5. And if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fanduel.com to get started alongside the DC sports content creating Savan Abdullah Aub. I’m Ben Strober and I cover DC sports for 1067 the fan and the team 980 AB. Happy Tuesday. What’s going on man? Yep. Since October 13th, Ben, shout out to Pete Haley from NBCS. The Commanders and Wizards have played 19 games and they are 1 and 18. So right now as a DC sportsman, like I mentioned, the spirit, they’re carrying the town. The Hokes also hired James Franklin. Happy about that. Hopefully that’ll be a turning point for football. But for the Wizards, it’s the same old story. And we’re hoping to get a win soon. Hopefully. Hopefully. We’re going to preview Wizards and Timberwolves, which takes place tomorrow night from Minnesota. That’ll be in the third and final segment. Uh we’ll get in a little bit to Will Riley being recalled to the Washington Wizards. Will Dawkins had some comments on him, which we’ll bring up when we get to that. We’ll talk about the state of the point guard position here in DC. But let’s start things off with Will Dawkins joining the Junkies today. So, it’s kind of been a bi-weekly bit. uh with the radio station Abdullah where it’ll be Will Dawkins one week, the next week it’ll be Brian Keefe. This week it was Will Dawkins. And you know, kind of a fitting time to have the general manager of the team on with the team on an 11game losing streak, a players only meeting, people starting to question or you know, people starting to not believe in what this organization is trying to build. So, uh, no one better to have on to maybe calm some of your concerns than Will Dawkins himself. One of the things that really stood out to me early on in this interview, AB, is from the get-go, he said, you know, I admit like we got to be a lot more competitive in these games. We find ourselves in these situations where we see a lot of our young talent developing. We see guys making these individual efforts, but in order to see them compete at the highest level, they need to compete at a higher level throughout the entirety of the game. the way he brought it up with the defense, he was kind of saying, “Yeah, we see some real good moments defensively, but those haven’t turned into full quarters, full halves, and full games. And if we can’t make that happen, we’re not getting the best experience for our young guys overall.” So, I’m glad to see him still preaching that is the message that they do want to compete. You know, you kind of figured he would say something like that. You’re not going to expect him to be like, you know, this is this is what we wanted. We wanted to lose by 25 every single game. we anticipate losing by double digits at home to the worst team in basketball. It’s all part of the plan or whatever. Like it is part of the plan at the end of the day for Dawkins, but he does reiterate those same points about competitiveness that it hasn’t quite been acceptable to the standard so far. And that’s what they were preaching going into this season, Ben, that every game needs to be competitive, whether it’s the worst team in the league or the best team in the league. And has it been like that so far? And that was very apparent against the Brooklyn Nets where there were times where they were making a run, but then Brooklyn would call a timeout and then their adjustments. Washington could not answer to them. And honestly, it’s it’s a tough position that you’re put in as a GM, a young GM who wants to rebuild from the ground up from where he what he was dealt with the plate, the Bradley Bill contract, the whole dilemma of trying to figure out what’s the future for this Washington franchise to now where it’s the whole idea of keeping that top eight pick. A lot of young guys on the squad. You also have some veterans sprinkled along with Middleton and McCullum and you want them to be traded so you can get some assets for them. And a lot of fans we we talked about how in the Nets game we heard someone yell out, “I wish I was a Hornets fan.” It’s it’s frustration and everyone on social media wanted coach Brian Keefe to be fired. We understand, but some people been for at least fans they I hope they still realize that the whole idea of this season was to not win a lot of games. But I understand the frustration about not being competitive and that’s one thing that will Dawkins I love that he emphasized that the competitiveness defensively. I mean even the Junks JP talked about how we draft defensive players. You got Balah Kubali Keshan George Alex who individually are doing good but as a team they’re just not jelling together. And maybe hopefully we’ll see that like last season where they played better in the second half of the season. You know, it’s funny because I see some of the tweets that people bring up and say, “We got some like good individual talent on this team. The guys you mentioned, Sar, George, Bal, Trey Johnson, who’s trying to make a name for himself, but it seems like this team when they step out on the floor has never played a second of basketball together. It’s like they met up at LA Fitness and are just running fives on the floor.” And I get that vibe because sometimes they look out of sync offensively. They don’t communicate well enough defensively, but maybe that’s just the byproduct of having a team full of guys that are under 24 years old. I think 60% of the minutes, Will Dawkins said today, come from guys 22 or younger. So that’s a big portion of your minutes going to guys with super, you know, with a lack of experience, a better way to say it for this Wizards team. when you go out there on a night, when you’re playing up against an experienced squad, I know Brooklyn doesn’t really fall into the category, even though some of the better players on that Brooklyn team right now are a little bit older than some of our young Wizards players, but uh you’re going to take on a a Minnesota team that’s a lot more experienced on on Wednesday. Uh even a team like Houston that’s still relatively young, got a lot more experience under its belt that’s got through that rebuild. So, the Wizards are definitely seeing those growing pains and Dawkins said it was anticipated. It was kind of expected. But another thing I wanted to bring up was him when he was asked the question about head coach Brian Keefe, how he’s assessed his performance, what he’s made of the terrible defense the Wizards have played, uh, you know, on pace to have the worst point differential in NBA history. He said a big reason why he thinks they’re so bad defensively right now is because they’re playing so many different guys within these rotations. and he said part of the reason why they play so many guys on on any given night playing like 11 to 12 players sometimes is because that’s kind of what he directs from the top. He said at the end of the day the coaching staff does dictate the rotations, but they do have conversations about certain guys they’d like to see in certain situations. So that plays a hand in what they have in rotation. Uh Dawkins said that you might see the rotation start to shrink, which is going to get really interesting because you have a super crowded room on the wing right now. You’ve seen uh minutes for guys like Cam Whitmore dwindle as time has gone on and you know it’s kind of been a up and down time. Uh it’s been up and down in terms of minutes for Whitmore. He had the four game stretch where he was getting practically no minutes and then he comes back and has his two best performances, but since then he hasn’t played a lot of minutes since then. Uh so hopefully we still see him be a feature in the rotation. Cory Kisser, the minutes have been kind of inconsistent. Sometimes he plays a lot, sometimes not as much. It’s going to be interesting to see if they cut down that rotation, if it really does make a difference in the way they play team defense because Dawkins said that’s part of the problem is they have too many different guys that are playing within different lineups. They don’t have a lot of experience playing in those lineups together and maybe that’s why they’re not communicating. They’re not a not on a string and they’re not getting those stops that they need in order to compete. So, I I’m interested to see how that plays out as we move along here. If he says the rotations are going to shrink down, that means we’re probably going to see that at some point pretty soon. Yeah, I would describe the Kent Whitmore experience so far, Ben very much roller coaster like like you mentioned early on this season. First couple games, we didn’t see much of him and Wizards fans were saying, “Yo, we traded for this man. He is special. He is athletic.” Then you see in that Pistons game where he had 19 points, a poster over Jaylen Durant at alltime high and some games after where it’s just like where’s the contribution and at times could be a black hole on offense when the lack of ball movement is just very apparent when he’s on the floor, especially when he gets the ball. And for Cory Kissper, the whole idea of him being here long term, I just don’t think it’s going to happen. I do think he’s going to be dealt. I don’t know if it’s going to be the deadline or the end of the season. He is on a friendly contract this year. I love the aggressiveness that he brings going into the lane. The three-point shooting has been good as well. Will Riley, a guy who’s sent to the G- League, did pretty good and isn’t we’ll talk about it back and forth probably that we’ll see for the rest of the season. I want to see him get more minutes because he’s just so young and again he was a first round pick from this draft class. Jir Watkins and Malachi Brainham. There are games where you see Jir go in like you saw against Cleveland where he was given the assignment of guarding Donovan Mitchell. Malachi Brainham can go in there and give you some nice minutes. But that up and down inconsistency of trying to find a good rotation has just hasn’t been clear and we’re hoping that within these next couple of weeks we figure out who’s that 9 to 10 man rotation and who’s going to be the odd man out. I I don’t know if it’s too I think it’s too soon to say if I had to give a prediction, but for the guard room at least, Ben, and I know he has a big fan club, but I just want to see what you have in AJ Johnson. I mean, I understand he’s not Chris prime Chris Paul, but last season he gave you some good minutes in games where obviously they weren’t going to be competing for it going into the playoffs. So, why not throw him out there? If he doesn’t fit in this guard room, then I wonder what’s his position here in Washington. I mean, why don’t you just send him down to the go- go? I just we’ll just have to see. I was going to say I would be proponent of honestly sending him to the go- go because he’s not getting any run right now on the NBA floor and he needs reps. Uh he’s obviously going to need to fill out get a little bit bigger as time goes on if he wants to succeed at this level. Uh but in order for him to get better as a playmaker and improve his uh skills in the catch and shoot opportunity, something he was trying to work on in the summer league, he needs those reps with the go-go. We know they’re utilizing the go- go for guys like Will Riley right now, Jir Watkins, uh vice versa. But I don’t know why AJ Johnson hasn’t gotten that same type of treatment right now because he’s really just on the bench as a body at this point. And it it seems like that’s become one of these things where you you have this guy as a body. Tristan Vauvich is like a random body that will play only minutes selectively when they feel like the situation is right. like against Houston, uh they tried to go double big for the first time all season because they were getting so dominated on the glass and they needed to make some sort of adjustment. So you saw V get some minutes there. Then you saw him get some minutes in the fourth quarter of the Brooklyn game because Sar was in foul trouble and Baggley needed a breather. So they went to Vukovich in that situation. But the inconsistencies in the rotation have been kind of been a byproduct of them trying different things out. So now that the rotation allegedly is going to cut down, it’s going to be interesting as you say like who is that odd man out and how does this allow certain players to gel? Maybe they’re going to start to get more comfortable with one another because they’re going to have some more continuity in that lineup. I think it’s super important, especially for the offensive side of the basketball. You know what? Actually, scratch that. I think defense it’s more important to find continuity with who you have on the floor because communication is so important. I think that’s been a big problem for what they’ve been doing defensively. getting beat back door, you know, not communicating when on switching on screens, hedging, all of that stuff, I think, is something that can be ironed out with a little more reps, uh, and more continuity on the defensive side. And then offensively as well, uh, finding out what guys strengths are and and maybe you could see some more creativity come offensively if they establish a core group of players that are consistently playing within on the ball within this offensive system. So, I’m kind of looking forward to seeing how that changes over time because right now, you’ve lost 11 games in a You lost by double digits nine times this year already. You’re not in a good spot. You got to see something different. You got to see new looks. So, you know, I’m looking forward to the next couple weeks to seeing what this team brings to the table, especially considering they just had the players only meeting. Yeah. I generally wonder if that’s going to make a difference, man. Not in terms of winning, but just being competitive. You’re going in there after a game where you lost to the Brooklyn Nets and you got to look yourselves in the mirror and say, “What’s our identity right now? We have lost 11 in a row and we lost to a team that’s arguably in the same tier as us as of right now without their best score in Cam Thomas. If you’re a Wizards fan, you just have to realize that I think we all ultimately think hopefully that the second half is going to look different with a lot of these young guys getting more minutes. But I mean, as of right now, it’s just the the the lack of team development. It’s just it’s not there. I understand this team plays fast, but defensively again the the second chance points, man. I mean, we’re getting killed off the glass every single night. And I understand that was a a a tactic where Will Dawkins didn’t put much depth in the forward and center position, but man, for a guy in Alex, for a guy in Tristan Vuvich, you have the bodies. Why not throw out there, go out there and see what you got? If you put VU and start at the same time on the floor, it shouldn’t take down by 30 against Houston and getting killed off the glass to put those guys in. That’s just my take and I’m hoping this team figures it out, Ben, because again, these next couple of games outside of Indiana, these are really competitive games or tough games to win. I agree. I agree. I I especially agree with your uh your take on the double big thing. I don’t know why it took so long to finally see that lineup, but maybe we’ll see some more of it. Let’s take our first break. When we come back, Will Riley is back with the Washington Wizards after a quick stint with a go-go. What is his minutes looking to look like? We’ll talk about it. When Skiims announced they were making underwear for men, the reaction made perfect sense. People have been talking about Skiims comfort for years. Most guys, though, stick to whatever they’ve been buying since college. The same fits, same waistbands that roll, and a whole lot of settling. Ski men’s changes that one upgrade. And it’s obvious why everyone’s been talking. They’re designed to feel good, fit right now, and actually stay put. No slipping, no sagging, no adjusting. Just genuinely great underwear that makes you feel confident and comfortable. My favorite pair is the stretch five boxer brief. It stands out because it’s soft, supportive, and comfortable throughout the entirety of the day. They don’t ride up. They don’t lose their shape, and they hit exactly what they’re supposed to on the thigh. 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Right now, FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head to fandal.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. Will Riley is back with the Washington Wizards. Just a quick twoame stint with the Capital City Go. He exploded in his debut in the G-League, 25 points, seven assist, and then he was ejected from the game in the second one. Had a flagrant two foul after putting up 17 points. So did not get to play the remainder of that one. Dawkins when he was on he was asked about that. He said didn’t really think it was warranting a flagrant two foul but I was happy that he was getting after it he was showing his physicality and playing aggressive. One thing that stood out to me from Dawkins comments about Will Riley is they said they sent him there because they wanted to get him on ball reps to see him utilize his playmaking skills. Now, that’s interesting because we planned on getting into the state of the point guard position uh for this Wizards team here in 2025 in this segment. Abdullah and Will Riley got sent to the G-League because they want to see him as a primary ball handler to see if he can kind of mold himself into that Keshan George role. Now that he’s back at the NBA level, don’t expect it to be long necessarily. Uh Dawkins said directly, expect him to be with the Wizards for a little. They’re kind of have it seems like it’s going to be this back and forth thing depending on maybe the situation like who they have upcoming on the schedule, but I expect him to get minutes. If he’s going to be up on the NBA roster, I made the case for it like you sent him to the go- go because he wasn’t getting minutes on the NBA roster. If you’re going to have him up for these short stints, he needs to get minutes. He needs to get these on ball reps you’re talking about because you got to take the weight off the shoulders of Keshan George a little bit. This is a tough situation, a tough ask for a rookie player like Will Riley. He’s got the slight frame. He’s going to need to fill out a little bit as his career goes along here in Washington. But this is going to be interesting because the Wizards severely lack playmaking ability. The best playmakers in the team have far and away been Keshan George and for the most part Alex Sar passing out of the short role and that’s not really sustainable uh to bring you winning basketball. And the goal for this Wizards team is not to find winning basketball. They want to compete more. They want to see what they have in terms of individual development. So, Will Riley utilizing his playmaking skill is going to be part of one of those measuring sticks they want to see in individual development. I’m I really expect him to get some good onball reps here over the next couple games if that is indeed the case. Abdullah. Yeah, when it comes to the point guard position, I think going into this season, they wanted to see if Bub could fill that role, but ultimately it just hasn’t looked good. And like we always saying, I think he’s better at the combo guard role. And Will Riley, a guy who’s a very good shot maker, like you mentioned, is still very young, thin, needs to fill out his frame. I think he’s a guy where if you need someone to go out there and do some playmaking, see what you have in him. Again, right now, you’re not a competitive team. So, you’re trying to see where does this guy fit in the role when this team start in a role with this when this team starts competing in the future. And like you mentioned, Keshan George is also plays defense and he’s a really good defensive player. So, he’s going to be tired from just playing point guard. And the point guard position, it’s a very difficult position to develop, Ben, I mean, you’re basically the eyes and ears on the floor. And I think for Will Riley, if you’re this this cluster of wings that you have on this roster and you need someone to play that guard role, and clearly we don’t have a guard here right now, a pure point guard, a guy who can set up our young guys like Alex in a pick and roll, like Trey Johnson. Maybe Will Riley could be that guy. Again, it it would be cool to see if he can go out there and dish some uh dimes, but we’ll just have to see. And the pos the opportunities that he’ll get on ball, I can’t wait because again, his playmaking, I didn’t think was talked about much going into the draft. It was all about his shotmaking. But if he can develop playmaking skills alongside his shot making with that size, I mean, he could be potentially really lethal in the future. He’s toolsy for sure. He’s got a lot of different skill sets. I necessarily didn’t even know a lot about him because I I watched him seldomly in the Big 10 conference last year. I saw him play when he played against Maryland. Obviously knew he was a good player. Knew he was a great tough shot maker like his head coach Brad Underwood said. But this playmaking ability has kind of been a revelation for me that took course in the preseason. I was kind of like, huh, we don’t have a lot of playmakers on this roster. That’s evident. But Will Riley has shown me some flashes that maybe he has the ability and just the skill set, the basketball IQ to be a decent playmaker at this level. And I’m not saying that he’s going to be a long-term fix at that position. I think the Wizards are absolutely going to have to address the pure point guard position some way uh or another in this off season, whether that’s drafting a guy in the lottery this year to be your point guard of the future. Peterson, Mikuel Brown, if they fall out of the top three or something like that, those could be options. I mean, maybe Brown’s even better as a pure point guard option compared to Peterson who would just be like your elite scorer that can break down the defense as well. Kind of a combo guy, but maybe a little bit better at breaking down the defense than Bulb would be. I don’t know. But it’s obviously not a long-term fix. But what the Wizards are trying to do this year and have guys develop individually, you know, I’m all for Will Riley getting some reps as a point forward, kind of like Keshan George is for this team. One, I think it could help him develop just as a overall player trying to get his own shot, call his own number at times, but also see him develop his game in different ways we didn’t expect from him because there’s a lot of people in that building right now that are super high in Will Riley. They think he’s got some of the most upside and feel out of like a lot of people saying like this is a guy Dawkins drafted like purely over feel because they have a like a gut feeling this guy could be a super great player because he has a lot of different tools that they can utilize in his game and his great frame. Maybe that’s the situation you see right here. I’m just going to be kind of frustrated if you see him come back up to the NBA level here and not see him get some adequate minutes. I know the rotation is slimming down a little bit from what we heard from Dawkins today, but I hope Riley is at least part of that plan to get some reps here going forward. And honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if eventually he will Riley takes minutes over a guy like Cory Kissford, who again, we understand what Cory Kiss ceiling is in the league. A really guy a really good guy that can shoot and try to give you defensive defensive mindset. But I just I I don’t know how how much he can get offer you compared to O’Reilly who maybe the point forward capability is there. And we’ll just we’ll just have to see. It’s funny, Ben, cuz speaking of the point guard position, I’ve seen some Wizards fans on social media which they’re always throwing out some crazy takes. They want to go out there and bring Chris Paul back to DC. I know his tenure here was very short, but he hasn’t been playing in LA. I’ve seen the idea of trading for Trey Young. I just don’t think any of those guys are is happen. It’s not a possibility. That’s wild. That is wild. All right, Wizards in Timberwolves tomorrow. Let’s preview that next here on Locked on Wizards. If you’re a business owner, here’s the truth. SAS promised to make work easier, but now the average company’s buried by hundreds of apps that slow down your teams and simply don’t work together. That’s not SAS. That’s sad. Software as a disservice. That’s why you need Ripling. 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Wizards is always postgame. Man, the Timberwolves have been one of my favorite teams to watch over the last couple years because they got the alien in Anne Edwards. Like dude is just so good, so prolific. He can elevate a team at any single moment in the game. the kind like the kind of way you’d see somebody take over a game the way Kate Cunningham did in the fourth quarter, shooting up a whole bunch of shots uh for this for the Pistons last week. That’s the kind of player I see in Anthony Edwards. And he’s been doing that at the highest level now for a couple seasons. He’s so fun to watch. That team very very exciting, very talented offensively. And for a Wizards team that’s been the worst defensive team in the NBA, we’re going to see what kind of adjustments they have to try to compete on that level with this Minnesota team. Abdullah. Yep. Anthony Edwards, Ben, like you mentioned, he’s a superstar. I think a guy who can just take over the game at any moment. A guy you want to take that last second shot to win the game. And on top of that, I think rebounding might be another issue against Minnesota, Ben, where you got Rudy Goar, Nas Reed, Julius Randle, who’s a bruiser. Defensively, Jaden McDaniels, not Jaden Daniels. McDaniels is really good off the perimeter. So, I think it’s going to be a really good test for these young guys. if you can find a way to keep up with this squad. I mean, Dante Devenzo can light it up from three-point land. Mike Connley is a very good veteran as well. And they also have Rob Dillingham, who I was a big fan of going into the draft process. So, we’ll just have to see how they can compete. If you can find a way to limit Anthony Edwards, I think Ben, I was going to ask you, do you think Keshan George should be given that assignment of guarding or Bal? Honestly, probably Bal gets the assignment if I had to guess. Hopefully whoever’s on him can stay out of foul trouble because that that’s been such a big problem for this team. Maybe you see George match up with a guy like Nas Reed. They need to defend the three-point line much better than they have because that’s been the real Achilles heel for this Wizards team is they allow so many wide openen catch and shoot opportunities. Uh and with you know the names that you mentioned just a moment ago, Minnesota will knock down plenty of wide openen three-point shots. are not going to be a team you can leave open from that distance. With that being said, it’s going to make it really tough to stop them offensively. Three-point percentage this year down maybe a little bit for Minnesota as a team, 35% 13th best in the NBA. So, probably some room to grow for them, but they can get hot at any moment and they can really devastate you with the three ball. Yeah, I’m just looking at it right now. Julius Randle is averaging nearly 25 points a game off seven rebounds and six assists. So, he’s a guy that can definitely give you some trouble, especially since this Minnesota team can go on runs. So, Coach Keith has to find a way to manage the timeouts well, but also not let the game slip away when Minnesota’s on a 200 run and you still haven’t called a timeout. And actually, I got to I got to correct myself real quick. I was looking at the Minnesota defensive stat, not offensive. Their three-point percentage is close to 39 and they’re fifth best in the NBA. So, it makes it a little more challenging. effective field goal percentage. They’re second in the NBA, just under 58%. Uh they they’re in the top five for plenty of offensive category. Shooting percentage itself at just under 50% uh for Minnesota offensively. One of the better offenses. The Wizards are one of the worst defenses in the NBA. They are the worst defense in the NBA. Not even one of. So, they’re going to have their hands full tomorrow night. That’s not even a question. It’s going to be a matter of can they string together some stops? and they get some individual efforts that maybe encourage you, help you compete. If you get a great defensive effort from Bal, from Keshan George, Alex Sar defends the rim to the best of his ability, goes out and rebounds against Goar, you know, maybe you could look at the positive from that game if you see some more individual strides and hopefully the team as a result can compete a little bit more because I think right now with how the Wizards are playing, how they’ve been playing over this run, you can’t expect them to have a chance to win any game. But there’s a reason they go out there between the lines and play every single game. Uh you know, anyone can win on any given night. The way the Wizards are playing right now, uh they have to they have to be better to even have a chance to be in this basketball game. So hopefully they find themselves in a position to compete. Not necessarily win, but just compete. Don’t be an embarrassment the way it’s been the last couple of games. That’s all I can really say for that. Just go out there and have fun, right, Ben? I think Rudy Gobear and Alex Sar, two French guys going at it. That’s going to be a fun matchup. Sar in the past we’ve seen where he took advantage or not took advantage but he played pretty well against guys who don’t move that fast in the center position. That gives them an advantage compared to other guys in this league. Last season you saw how he matched up against Nicole Joic. And I mean miracles do happen. This Wizard squad, the limited amount of wins they got last season. They swept the Denver Nuggets. So there’s a possibility where they come out in Minnesota and guns blazing play defense. If you can somehow limit Anthony Edwards to less than 30 points, keep Julius Randle in check, I can see this game coming down to the wire. But again, it’s all about given effort and if you’re going to get killed off the glass, it’s going to be a long night. I want to see Sar take it at Rudy Goar. That’s a fourtime defensive player of the year. One of the best defenders of this generation. We’ll see if Shar can keep up that physicality, that aggression we’ve seen from him through the first three weeks of this season. That’s been a strong point for him. You don’t want to see him shy away from a tough competition. And so far, you know, he that’s been his MO so far this year where like he hasn’t shied away from taking it to the chest of anyone. I want to see what he has against a four-time defensive player of the year. This is a big measuring stick game, I think, for Alex Sar to really showcase the development that we’ve seen from him offensively because the rate he’s finishing the basketball at the rim is so much better here in year number two than year number one. Let’s see it against one of the best to defend the rim. Yeah. And I think Trey Johnson, a game where last game we didn’t see much of him. I think he was only given 17 18 minutes. Ben, I was a little frustrated about that. A lot of Wizards fans were. Go out there and run some sets for the man. I mean, you can’t just expect him to just give him the ball and just dribble and create your own shot. He can do that, but you got to give him some opportunities where it’s coming off the dribble. And I understand you need a point guard in some cases for that matter, but right now you just don’t want to limit this kid because he’s so freaking special. You see what the Wizards or the Hornets are doing for their guy Conipu. You see how Dallas is handling their situation with Cooper Flag and Dallas is losing a lot of games as well just like us. So you have to figure out a way to give your young guys the ball and all starts with Trey Johnson, Keshan George, Bal Koulabali. You had the most explosive six-point game in NBA history against the Brooklyn Nets. How are you going to go out there and play offensively? Defensively, you’re going to give you’re going to be given the assignment of guarding Anthony Edwards, who’s a superstar, and it’s going to be difficult, but offensively, how are you going to attack this Minnesota team? We’ve seen the flashes for Bal. He can be assertive. He has some of the most explosive hops on this team for sure, but he’s got to assert himself. That’s going to be a big thing for him going forward. Wizards Timberwolves tomorrow at 8:00 p.m. Eastern time. Be on the lookout for our postgame coverage. of course will be live after the game here on YouTube and then of course it’ll be out on all platforms after that. We thank everybody for making Lockdown Wizards your first listen every single day. Your best Washington Wizards coverage Monday through Friday year round part of the Lockdown Podcast Network where it’s your team every single day. The number one sports podcast network in the nation. For your second listen, check out Lockdown NBA Fantasy Basketball. If you need to get your lineup right, Josh Lloyd is your guy. For my co-host Abdullah Aayub, I’m Ben Sherbert DC family. Talk to you tomorrow.

Washington Wizards GM Will Dawkins admits the team must be a lot more competitive as the franchise endures an 11-game losing streak that has DC sports fans questioning the rebuild’s direction.

Ben Strober and Abdullah Ayubi break down Dawkins’ revealing radio interview, where he acknowledged defensive inconsistencies and hinted at a shrinking rotation to improve team chemistry. The discussion examines critical roster decisions, including Will Riley’s G League development as a potential point forward, the team’s glaring playmaking deficiency at point guard, and whether players like A.J. Johnson should be getting G League reps instead of sitting on the bench. The hosts preview a challenging matchup against Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves, analyzing how Alex Sarr matches up against four-time Defensive Player of the Year Rudy Gobert while searching for silver linings in individual player growth despite historically poor team results.

Discover whether the Wizards’ rotation changes can spark competitiveness and which young players are showing real development potential.

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