POSTGAME: Washington Wizards Young Wings Are the NUCLEUS | Wizards Nearly Mount MASSIVE Comeback

Trailing by 27 at one point, the Washington Wizards actually showed some fight in that second half. They outscored the Timberwolves. A big reason why the young nucleus of wings for this Washington Wizards team. Let’s talk about it. Let’s break it all down. All that more here on Lockdown 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 Lockdown Wizards your first listen every single day. We’re part of the lockdown podcast network where it’s your team, the Washington Wizards. Every day we’re the number one sports podcast network in the nation. We remind you that today’s episode is brought to you by FanDuel. Right now, new customers can bet this $5 and if your bet wins, you’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use across the app. Head to fandal.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 in the team 980 AB Wizards drop at 120 to 109. Some decent fight from our guys in the second half but that is 12 straight losses for the Whiz Kids. Yeah, it was looking ugly in that first half, Ben. Minnesota at one point was up 27 points and I was texting you that it was so fitting that Monumental was having technical difficulties and I couldn’t see what was going on on my screen and so many of my friends that are Wizards fans were saying maybe this is a blessing in disguise. But they fought back in the second half and Keshan George with 27 points. This Minnesota team, you went out there without one of your best young players in Alex Sar. Tristan Voutic had five fouls late in the third. So they were very thin in the front court. But you got to love the fight, Ben. I mean, this team on average gives up 129 points and you give up 120 tonight. I know moral victories isn’t much of a thing for many people, but for this Whiz Kids team and now they dropped their 12th game in a row, you got to be happy. You got to look at some positives. So, I want to get into the fight this team showed today. I want to get into the young nucleus I feel like the Wizards have in wing players. I’m talking about Keshan George Bal Kulabali and Cam Whitmore who I think all had excellent performances tonight. I want to also get into the idea that the youth maybe didn’t play much play enough I should say. Didn’t see enough of Trey Johnson in my opinion. Didn’t see enough of Well, we didn’t see any of Will Riley obviously. So, I’ll get into that later in the episode and then we’ll give you guys all a chance to let it all out as we always do postgame here on Lockdown Wizards. All right, let’s start with the fight this team showed today because after the second quarter, Wizards get outscored 37-7 by Minnesota. After a relatively decent first 12 minutes of basketball, they were competing. It looked like maybe after the players only meeting they came out here with a different energy in this one. That might carry over for a majority of the game and you’d see them compete. Uh that was not the case in the second quarter. I honestly compared to the rest of the game, I I can’t even tell you what happened. The team turned the ball over like it was nobody’s business in that second quarter. They allowed 18 straight points before they could get their first bucket with like six minutes and 15 seconds to go in the second quarter. It was just downright disastrous. And I was honestly anticipating to come on the pod here and say it’s another one of those lifeless Wizards performances. The team showed no guts. They showed no heart. They’ve lost 12 straight games. It looks like the sky is falling on the organization. But the way they played in the second half, outscoring Minnesota by 12, uh looked a lot more intense on the defensive side of the basketball. Saw some key contributions from some young guys. I think you can actually take away a decent load of positivity from this game considering how bad that second quarter was. AB. Yeah, like you mentioned, they didn’t score a point up until 6 minutes left in the second. Ben, and the turnovers after turnovers, it was getting frustrating to watch. And one positive also, you keep Anthony Edwards less than 20 points. I understand Julius Randle and Nazri did their thing, but you have to look at some of the positives from this game. and you’re really comp and you were competitive in that fourth quarter with a Western Conference team that’s trying to make a push in the playoffs. So, Malag Kulabali, it seems like every game, Ben, the guy is getting a poster. I mean, he is just so freaking explosive. Cam Whitmore 13 points, six rebounds. He is finding his role here in DC. Trey Johnson, like you mentioned, Ben, and we’ll get to Will Riley later. It was just frustrating not seeing him in the game. I just didn’t 17 minutes is just not enough for the sixth overall pick. And one thing I loved about Trey is that he air ball his first shot in the game, but that second shot with no hesitation, he switches it from downtown. Some small things like that, building confidence is what you love to see from the young guys. Tristan Vuvich, there were some things that I like, but again, he he got bullied out there to say the least. And it makes sense. Julius Randle, Nas Reed, Rudy Goar, there are guys that are really good in this league, but saw some nice things nice good things from him as well. Just overall, I like how you just didn’t let the Minnesota Timberwolves run through you. you somehow made a competitive 54 point game late in the game and I understand you didn’t come out with the win but you’re hoping that those mistakes that you make late in the game you can learn from and capitalize on it later on in the future maybe somewhat this year when you’re in more competitive games cuz these are the type of games Ben they were talking about going this season or that Wizards fans were anticipating knowing that we weren’t going to win but at some point you were competitive and it wasn’t competitive in that first half or the second quarter rather first half they came out guns blazing after that players only mean they had against post Brooklyn Nets loss, but that second half you turned it up. You love to see it and you just got to figure out a way to learn from this and bounce back against Toronto. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. There were some good things, obviously plenty of bad, especially in that second quarter, but this is maybe the ideal game you have as a Wizards fan because obviously you’re trying to be a lotterybound team and the way it’s looking right now with how bad Brooklyn is, how bad Indiana is, the Wizards are going to have to lose plenty of games this year to find themselves picking in the top of this draft if they obviously do get lucky in the lottery this year as opposed to last year. Uh, but you can live with the performance we saw from this Wizards team tonight. I want to get into this young nucleus of wing players because between Keshan George, Cam Whitmore, and Bal Koul, all all three of those guys are 21 years old and they were the reason they were in this game tonight. They were the main focal point of the team actually uh along that along that comeback that the Wizards had in the second half trying to get back into the game, cutting it to I believe three at one point in this game. And I know Cam Whitmore has caught a ton of flak because of the style of basketball at times he’s ended up playing, but today he was uh tied for second team best. He was a minus two along with Bal and Chris Milton. CJ McCullman actually ended up being a plus one in this game because he didn’t end up playing as much as some other guys that started in u in this one like Keshan George who had 37 minutes and was a minus 7. But I want to get in those guys specifically because of the ability they all have in terms of explosiveness. It’s dynamic. And I want to start with Bal because last game we mentioned he had like the most explosive six points we’ve ever ever seen. Today he was much much more assertive. Five for six from the field, great efficiency from Bal, two of three from behind the arc and some big time jams. He has a unbelievable first step. He’s quick. He can beat his man off the bounce. And sometimes I just don’t think he realizes it. I think for the first two years of his career, my biggest gripe with Bal Kulabali not asserting himself is like he doesn’t realize when he has his man beat and he should just get to the cup and punch it because he has the athleticism. He has the leaping ability maybe better than anybody on this team that if he goes up, he gets a bit of space, he’s going to throw it down on your head. He did that multiple times in this game. I’m seeing something from Bal Kouli that we didn’t see through the first two years. Now that he’s starting to figure out how to assert himself a little bit more if he can stay healthy, if he can sustain this over the course of the season, he actually looks like a player that can really help you out on the offensive end and on the defensive side. Obviously, from what we know, he’s got to continue to assert himself. AB, I’m very encouraged though when he actually is on the floor to see what he’s done offensively. It looks like he’s gotten a lot better with the ball handle as well. Yeah, and I think right now from looking at it took six shots. I still want to see 10 plus a game. Ben, I understand there’s a lot of mouths to feed on this Wizards young roster, but a guy like Balon Kuali who is allegible for extension this upcoming year. If you want to go out there and improve while you’re a cornerstone piece of this franchise, you want to take those shots. You want to look assertive. But yeah, like he’s just so freaking explosive. That first step is amazing. The three-point shots gotten better as well. I know that was questionable this off season where people were saying the mechanics are still off. I mean can you shoot it from the outside? But I think he silenced those guys that were saying that and I just feel like in general I think you had what multiple a lot of people in double digits Ben. I still think there a lot of pauses you can take from this game. It’s a 12game losing streak. It sucks. Indiana did win. That’s also one thing I wanted to point out. So they are two games. There we go. They’re one game ahead of us right now in the standings. So we’re right now I think we’re the only one win team, right? Yeah, we should be then. It should be. Yeah. So, another positive. Just putting that out there. You know what? I wanted to point this out with Bal actually because of the mechanics being an issue. He’s still got that dip in his jumper, but guys on the other teams are not respecting his jump shot right now. He’s being left open for these opportunities. If he can actually knock him down the way he did tonight, two of three from behind the arc, he becomes a weapon for you. Maybe people will have to start to respect his jumper a little bit more and that’ll allow for those opportunities for him to be unleashed and attack the basket. All right, moving on. I want to start with Cam Whitmore because 20 minutes for him. He scored 13, had six rebounds, uh two assists as well for Cam Whitmore on really great efficiency tonight. He was five of eight from the field, one for two from three-point distance. Cam Whitmore is your microwave scoreer. like we know that is his biggest asset to this team right now is that if he comes off the bench for you, he is electrifying. He’s a guy that can get you buckets seemingly whenever he wants at this point. I know he’s gotten so much flack from the fan base over the first three weeks or so of the season, but you can’t deny the athletic ability and the, you know, just the prowess he provides for you offensively. when he comes off the bench, there are moments where I see him come in the game and he scored, I think it was 11 points in the first 10 minutes that he played and then he comes out for long periods of time. So, honestly, if Cam Whitmore is the hot hand out there, I don’t understand why you take him out of the game in these situations. When he gets hot, he’s tough to stop offensively. Yeah. And he’s a guy, like you mentioned, a microwave score that every team in the NBA needs. And it’s starting to make sense now, Ben. I thought at one point maybe he’s a starter on this team, but I think he’s just better suited for coming off that coming off the bench as a six-man and man only giving up two second round picks for him. If he can really carve out a role here in DC, I think I still think it was a great pickup from Will Dawkins in company. We’ll just have to see if he can continue it. 20 minutes tonight, this also defensively a block and playmaking, two assists, six rebounds. So a guy who’s doing it in all facets facets of the game. I generally wonder though, Ben, because again we me we mentioned in the earlier the recent pod where the rotation was going to shrink from W Dawkins said that how will Kam Whitmore be affected by a Cory Kissper tonight only 11 minutes. So maybe this is a common theme that we’ll see can Whitmore take more of Cory Kisser’s minutes which I think we unanimous unanimously agree on is that’s what we want. So we’ll just have to see. But I love Kent Whitmore. I love what he brings to this team. I love the energy that he brings. Bub also only played in 17 minutes tonight. Nine total played for the Wizards. So, a slight decrease than before. You didn’t see Justin Champeni, which I definitely am not a fan of, but we’ll get into that in the next segment. Uh, but yeah, with a guy like Cam, another thing I wanted to point out one stretch of this game in the third quarter where he deflected three passes in a row, I think it was he has that ability to also help out at the defensive end. We’ve seen those moments from him where he can chip in defensively. I think Cam Whitmore’s got to get more playing time. He’s 21 years old. You’re a team that’s trying to develop players as best as you can at this point and you know, you’re losing a lot of these games right now. I don’t think you have anything to lose uh by giving Cam some more minutes to see if he can give you that microwave scoring that he’s provided for you off the bench. Let’s take a quick break. I wanted to tell you why I don’t think the youth played enough tonight and I’m very disappointed with the playing time from Trey Johnson. Let’s talk about something every business owner knows too well. Missed calls. When a customer tries to reach you and you can’t get through, that’s money slipping away. Quo, spelled Quo, is the smarter way to run your business communication so you never miss an opportunity. Quo is the number one business phone system built for 2025, not 1995. It’s simple, modern, and designed to help you communicate faster, look more professional, and stay connected wherever you’re working. 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I think it was around the six-minute mark of the third quarter and he ended up playing the rest of that quarter. But only 17 minutes for the number six overall pick for a guy that has the innate shooting ability, a guy you want to see get in rhythm, get reps, and work in within this offense to try to find some continuity, try to find some consistency, and you’re just not seeing it. I I don’t really understand why he would only play in 17 minutes in this game, but you’re in a situation you’re trying to develop every single night. We don’t need to see CJ McCullum playing 31 minutes in this game. We simply just don’t. CJ McCullum can provide you that scoring that you you ultimately wanted to help you compete a little bit and you want to showcase him to an extent to become a trade asset, but you got to prioritize developing your guy in this situation. And I’m not happy the fact that Trey played 17 minutes. Again, then I was saying at least 25 to 30 minutes is what I want to see from the six overall pick who had a lot of expectations going this season, at least from our end. And limiting him to that many minutes or to that little of minutes is absurd. There was a point in time in the game where he scored four in a row or six in a row and nice mid-range shot. One thing that I love about or one thing that he’s been excelling at so far is just transition threes. That’s one thing that that’s his bread and butter right there. But also when it comes to offensive offensive game offensive game plan for him, I just don’t see anything. Ben, why are we creating shots for the young guy down screens? I mean, you have seven footers and Marvin Bagley and Alex Har when he’s healthy and Tristan Vuvich who can set the guy down screen a corner three. It just doesn’t make any sense for him to get the ball and just the coaching staff telling him to create your own shot. I mean, he can do that, but why not simplify the game and make it easier for him? It just doesn’t make any sense. and Will Riley not playing, man. I mean, we made literally a video talking about how this guy’s going to be a potential point guard here or maybe could play that point guard role here down the stretch of the season and him getting a donut tonight. I just I I don’t know what’s up with that. Yeah, I don’t I don’t understand because you send him to the go- go to play two games. He plays really well and you say it’s because you want to see him operate as a playmaker. You want to get him on both reps. And then also Dawkins made it kind of clear like this wasn’t going to be a long-term thing for Will Riley at the NBA level. said he’d be here for a little bit. Those that’s verbatim what Dawkins said. If we’re going to see this materialize at some point with these young guys, you got to give him minutes on the floor. This was a situation where I know they’re cutting into the rotation. They’re not playing as much. Uh but if you’re seeing Cory Kiss only playing 11 minutes, Bob Carrington will be playing 17 minutes in this game. We can’t get any minutes for Will Riley in this one. It’s just a little bit surprising to me. I feel like it was an opportunity where at some point in the third quarter of this game, you could have had Riley come in and, you know, provide some minutes while Keshan George was on the bench at one point and see what he had, see what he can showcase for yourself because we don’t need to see veterans playing in those spots. We don’t need to see it. We need to see people developing. And yeah, Trey not playing enough, Will Riley playing absolutely nothing. Uh Justin Champeni playing zero minutes as well. It It’s just a little bit confusing. Just a little bit. the inconsistency, Ben. I mean, JC was starting for a couple of games and now he’s getting a donut. I understand Chris Milton’s back, but I just the the trying to find the solid rotation to me is just it’s been up and down and I’m hoping that similar to last season where the young guys play a lot more after you dealt some veterans post trade deadline, but I want to see this right now. A lot of Wizards fans understand that we’re not going to win games, so you might as well see our young guys develop. But if you’re losing games and on top of that limiting your young guys, then what’s the product out there that we’re going to see? Doesn’t make any sense. Yeah. It’s just it’s weird because every single game I feel like you have to watch for something different at the end of the day when you’re watching this Wizards team because you know they’re not going to compete in a lot of these games. And tonight they actually competed in the second half. I was satisfied to see it because I really did not want to come on the podcast today and rip into the team. You just had a players only meeting. If you would have came out there and replicated that second quarter performance for like the majority of the game, that’d be a really bad look after having a players only meeting saying like we all need to take accountability for our effort not playing well. If anybody caught Veroon Shunker’s defensive uh film breakdown that he put on his Twitter, I’d recommend you go check that out from the Brooklyn game. Seeing all the miscues they made defensively, all the ball watching that occurred on the offensive glass, allowing Brooklyn to get so many second chance opportunities. you feel like that message would be clear and you’d see them come out with a lot more intensity, which they did. And that second quarter being so bad was just like puzzling to me. But at the end of the day, it almost works out in your favor because if the Wizards are indeed trying to lose enough games to guarantee themselves a top five pick with Indiana winning tonight, you were competitive in the second half. You can live with it. Would have liked to see Trey Johnson play more minutes. would have liked to see Will Riley get on the floor today, but I think I can live with this performance and some of the things we saw, especially from the young guys like Bal, Cam, and Keshan. AB, anything else before we get to let it all out again? You have Toronto upcoming. They’re on like a fivegame win streak. They just beat Philly. Got to find a way to contain Scotty Barnes and that Young Raptor squad. But I think there were a lot of positives tonight. I understand you lose your 12th game in a row and you lose to the Wolves. But we’re hoping that this next game coming up, Ben, or at least the next couple of games, we’ll see Will Riley out there and Trey Johnson getting 25 to 30 minutes a game. I just I can’t and I’ve seen so many Wizards fans saying it just doesn’t make any sense seeing this team lose like a lot of games in a row and not seeing our young guys play. 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Good fan of the channel. roller coaster of emotions like Ben mentioned that second quarter the cherry on top Ben I’m gonna keep saying you when I saw technical difficulties and I couldn’t even watch the game and I’m just like oh I was so close to crashing out I was I was just it was a lot of emotions but again you bounce back in the second half you love you love to see I am locked on one through one and 13 the Pacers aren’t stealing our number one pick yeah and I’m telling you once they get healthy I mean they have to be competitive in a lot of these games because again you Pascal Seakum, you have a lot of young guys on that squad. I understand you don’t have Tyrese Halleurn, but you just went to the NBA finals. It just wouldn’t make sense to be a win a one- win team. Locked on Law, shout out to Locked on Law, good friend as well. CJ is part of the problem. Never saw a shot he wouldn’t take. Yeah, there are times, Ben. And I mean, outside of this game, the games before, like a three, four game stretch where he had like 20 plus point games, he had 40 against Detroit. But there are some times when I’m just like, is that a good shot? And for a guy that’s played in the league for so long, it’s kind of questionable. But again, he does bring that veteran presence. There was there was one exact play. I feel like I saw somebody tweet about this as well, but I noticed it right away and I I was like, dude, Trey was wide open. CJ had the ball up top. He looked at Trey standing there wide open on the wing. He looked his direction and looked him off and then drove in and shot a contested runner and missed. I’m like, dude, come on. Like CJ, man. Like CJ is such a mixed bag at this point. It’s free him though, right? I I guess I guess according to inside the NBA, it’s free CJ Mcome. But no, no, no. Like look, I’ll give CJ some credit because he’s helped him out at times, but not necessarily in the way that even really matters. They want to develop the young players on this team. We don’t need to see CJ and Chris playing 30 minutes. I just don’t think it’s necessary at this point for what the Wizards goal is this season. I don’t think NBA executives for other teams need to see them playing 30 minutes for this Wizards team. Those guys could come off the bench theoretically and only play 20 minutes and I think they’d be able to showcase enough for themselves for other NBA executive. They know what kind of players those guys are. They watch the film. They don’t need to play 30 minutes a game. It’s just it’s redundant. Yeah. And again, like you mentioned, I understand they’re trying to maximize their trade value, but we also don’t want to hinder the development of the young guys on this roster. DC Onion, the Cam Whitmore, the CEO of the Cam Whitmore fan club. They need a pass first point guard. I mean, I think we can agree on that. We’re all saying that I mentioned how Darren Peterson, that’s a potential guy you can get if you land a top three pick. Again, that’s not happening. But Trey Young maybe want out of Atlanta. Not going to happen. I saw some Wizards fans say Chris Paul. I mean, he’s not getting a lot of minutes with the Clippers, but you need a point guard. Will Riley, I’m not saying he could be the answer to it, but why not try I mean, try him out. Just do something. You got to change it up somehow. Old players make a lot of miss. Miss is a recipe for injury. It’s a very good point. Very good point. Locked on Law. Law Law would know firsthand, wouldn’t he? For real. Tristan is straight trash on defense. Yeah. As much as I love Tristan Vuvich, I think game by game when I see him get a good amount of minutes, I kind of understand why he’s behind Marvin Bagley defensively is a liability and we saw that tonight. Granted, you are going up against Nas Reed, Rudy Gobear, and a lot of this Timber Wolf squad is deep. So, I’ll give him that. But yeah, it was tough. There were some times where he was just he was getting bullied. I like Vu Ginio really developing. Yeah, it’s it’s it’s tough, man. I want to get your stance on this. Like I understand he’s not great, but also you want him to develop. So how do you find that balance with Tristan BH? Especially you needed him tonight cuz Alex Sar wasn’t playing which by the way Ben left toe soreness. I have never heard of that injury. Well, I mean Alex Sar I feel like for the most part it’s been like pretty durable. So I was a bit surprised. Uh hopefully we see him come back quickly. Hopefully he plays in the next one on Friday. uh because you don’t want to see Alex R miss too much time and they were definitely missing him big time out there. You need that presence in the middle defensively for a guy that’s defended the most shots at the rim in the NBA. like this was clearly not going to be a strong suit for Tristan Vukovich tonight. And then obviously Baggley uh who went to the locker room at one point after he came down really hard on one of his uh that was that that could have been potentially really scary cuz you only have TV out there and then you’d have to go Anthony Gil uh basically he he was the last guy that would have been available. Yeah, that was it’s a good thing you avoided that but Oh, go ahead, John. This is a comment from Jack Beny. Look up our plus minus when Keshan and Cameron are on the floor together. I feel like we really do well when they’re both out there. He’s the only guy who really finds Cam in the Cuts. Yeah, I’ve definitely noticed that just based on the eye test. Uh I’d have to go through NBA.com. I think they’ll update a lot of the lineup data probably overnight. I’ll check that out tomorrow and maybe in in tomorrow’s pod. Actually, will be another end up being a postgame pod. Uh on Friday, I can give you a definitive answer or I could post on Twitter if I find any information that really sticks out. But appreciate the suggestion here, Jack. I like this. I like this thing, dude. Thank you, Rich. Reloading. That’s a tough a strobe in a ube. Guru Strong says, “We should be all in on a John trade. Nobody’s untradeable if we can land him.” Ben, go ahead. Chamarant DC. I mean, that’s it’s a great fit right there. Like that’d be my last resort option if they like fall out of the lottery again or something like that. That’s that’s not happening right now. I don’t think they should I don’t think they should get involved in that situation. They need a point guard, but as it stands right now, competitively, they’re not trying to win basketball games. They’re going to intentionally leave the point guard as a big hole. They’re going to have Keshan play in this point forward role pretty much the entire season. Bob Carrington is not the guy at point as it stands right now. He’s not been good here in his second season. I hope he gets it together. I’m not going to give up. What happened? What happened? I I like again, I’m not calling the man trash. He’s so freaking young. But there has been a night and day difference. And I just I’m trying to figure out what’s happening here. And again, like I’m I’m not ready to give up on him. I think it’s ridiculous some fans are saying that, but I need to see some form of improvement because this is a guy that hit the a game winner in game 82 of last season off the glass. Yeah. and he said his confidence was higher entering the season, but I think that confidence has really faded uh over the first 15 games of the season here. What is that? Is it 14 games or 15? I don’t even know what a record I just Right now we’re one and 13. Yeah, one and 13. See, I’m losing. I just know what the streak is. I I can’t even remember how many games it’s been, but I just know we have one win and we’ve lost 12 in a row. So, uh something’s got to give at some point, right? Right, Ben? Be honest. If you had to put money on it, if you were a betting man, do you think this team breaks the record of losing the losing streak held by Detroit? Uh, let me see. Let me let me pull up the the full schedule here so we can really assess where we’re going to be. Hold on. My computer is being mad slow right now. You’re fine. We have all day. Give me give me give me one sec. You can read another comment while I get this up. Yeah, you’re good. You’re good. Appreciate you guys. Also 57 in here on a Wednesday night talking about the Wizards. Y’all the real ones. Shout out to Everyers. Oh my god, look at this. That’s a crime rate. I think he’s talking about John Moran. Yeah, that’s great. Hey, I look I’m a huge NBA Young Boy fan. I know John Moran’s a huge NBA Young Boy fan, but um you guys will get along. You know, we got to keep the antics off the court sometimes, you know. All right, so Friday against Toronto. Uh to I don’t really know what I think about Toronto. The uh the Bulls started off really hot. They’ve kind of faltered since. So 13, 14, the Hawks, I don’t think that’s a team you can beat right now. They’re playing well without Trey Young playing. Um once you get to 15, you have the Pacers on the road in an NBA Cup game. So can you imagine if we win our first NBA Cup game and break a 15game losing streak, but if you don’t if you don’t, you’d be at 16 and then you’d have Milwaukee at home on December 1st for a chance to break the franchise record. Man, if you don’t beat I wasn’t talking about franchise record. I was talking about the NBA record. Forget the franchise record. If you don’t beat Indiana, Ben, then then there’s a big possibility. Well, then all bets are off at that point. I don’t know. I’m I’m going to try not to think about it as Me, too. But it’s just like something you as I can. It’s something in the back of your mind. Let’s Let’s go. Let’s go. Let’s go. One more comment here. Let’s go. One more comment. Let’s see. Uptown Dre, I love the comments as always. Yeah. Why my brothers? I didn’t see the game. Watching the playback with my fan back. Oh, Turkey Day. It was my fans Turkey Day after party ever. Okay, that’s tough. F1 arcade. Also, Bud and Bud Bub. I said Bud and Trash. This guy is 20 and playing a new spot. I agree, Dre. I think the point guard role. It’s a difficult position. It’s hard to develop. We all know that Bub plays that combo guard role well. We saw that last year with Jordan P. I think whatever role he’s trying to carve out here, it’s going to take some time and hopefully we’ll see him flash more the second half of the season. But just remember this kid, he was what our rookie second team, right Ben? Or Yeah. Okay. Yep. So going from that to this, it is frustrating because you see the regression, but also there’s still a lot of season to be played. I think it’s too soon to give up on him. You just, you don’t want to do that. That cuz that really hurts a young guy’s confidence. And I think even putting what what about this putting him in the capital city go that’s too much too, right? Uh if it if it continues to be this bad for a while, it might be something they do just to see if he can get his confidence back and and showcase himself a little bit offensively. Uh I’m not quite ready to go there yet. Yeah. I mean, if LeBron can play in the G-League, I think Bob Yeah. LeBron best G-League player ever. Sheldon T. Last one. If you think Bub is worse, you didn’t watch Johnny Davis. Yeah. Oh boy. I wonder what Johnny Davis is up to nowadays, man. I think he was signed somewhere like early, like a couple weeks back. We were just talking about Troy Brown the other day, too. Jeez. All right, that’ll do it for us here in Lockus. There’s over 60 of you in here right now. And for a team that’s lost 12 games in a row, we got some dedicated fans. We got dedicated fans of this channel. We appreciate all of you every day so much here in the Lockdown Wizards channel. We thank you for making Lockdown Wizards your first listen every single day. For your second, check out the Lockdown NBA fantasy basketball channel. Josh Lloyd, he’ll get your lineup right. Everything will be smooth sailing from there. Wizards fans, stay in the fight for my co-host Abdullah Yubi. I’m Ben Strober, DC family. Talk to you later.

The Washington Wizards were down big-time after a disastrous second quarter. Still, a great second half headlined by the Wizards’ young wings, Bilal Coulibaly, Cam Whitmore, and Kyshawn George, nearly led a massive comeback. Are the wing players the difference for this team?

Ben Strober and Abdullah Ayubi react following the Wizards’ 12th-straight loss.

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24 comments
  1. Bub enters the game at the 4:48 mark in the 1st Q with the Wiz up 20-17. Checks out at the 8:25 mark in the 2nd Q with the Wolves up 43-29! He subbed in for Bilal (who I assume is the SG?) and saw the floor before TJ who subbed in for Keyshawn at the 2:42 mark in the 1st Q (with the Wolves up 28-24)… Tre and Bub ended up playing the same amount of minutes. Bub didn't score until a late three in the 4th Q, had one assist and one rebound… he was a -16 in 17 min played and Tre was a -1…

    All that to suggest that maybe Bub forgot to look at himself in the mirror and ask what he wants out of life 😂…

    Seriously, we can't have it all, e.g. losses, competitiveness, a consolidated rotation, not giving up on Bub, minutes for Champainge / Will Riley, boosting the CJ ans Khris trade value etc.

    How are Kispert and Bub ahead of Tre in the rotation at this point? If we are talking about shrinking the rotation, there are some guys who need to be out of it all together. What would be you all's rotation at this point based on what we've seen to date? I personally cant justify NBA minutes for Bub or Kispert and they would be totally out of the rotation (they can stay ready with the GoGo for stints).

    If we are looking at a nine man rotation, mine would be CJ, Tre, Alex, KY, and Bilal starting and playing at least 30 min / game with Bagley, Riley, Whitmore and Middleton off the bench…

    Id like to see that for 10 games to see how they do…

  2. Tre Johnson needs to be STARTING. It’s not about winning, it’s about developing! CJ and Khris do not help us develop by starting. Let Tre run 30 minutes and have a green light to learn. We are losing anyways, so might as well develop. That’s why Keefe needs to be fired.

  3. How can Tre build confidence and develop when he’s sitting the bench. You want the future young core to develop together, yet Keefe doesn’t play them together and starts CJ and Khris. Horrible.

  4. We need a center that demands space in the paint and a veteran PG that puts everyone in positions to succeed, even if that's like a TJ McConnell coming off the bench. Long term starting 5 would ideally be Sarr, Boozer/Dybantsa, Bilal, Tre, Kyshawn with Cam as 6th man.

  5. I'll say the quiet part out loud. KeyG is our pg. His numbers have been elite. Especially, the last 4 games w/ a 21% Usage rate. A team of KG-TJ-Bilal-Sarr- Boozer is premium. Even, Caleb or Jayden will bring a winning record. Im chill, for now. As for Ja…. run 🏃‍♂️ from that option.

  6. Bub is not a natural point. He is a combo guard that needs to come off the bench. So it's not really his fault. And, now he is questioning himself. He needs to find his roll.

  7. 🐍🐍🐍🐍
    What we Got
    SARR. KG. TREY
    CHAMPAGNE. CAM.
    Bagley. Kispert.

    Might have Watkins and Riley.

    And your Most Athletic PG is AJ
    🐍🐍🐍🐍
    Everything outside that
    Just Fits your Narrative.

    Bilal ain’t stopping nobody
    CJ can’t pass or rebound or defend
    Khris is Stealing Checks

    BUB my dude but he got personal stuff.

    I Trust 7 guys
    And 3 I like can’t get PT

    🐍🐍🐍🐍
    Spirit Undefeated

    REBOUNDS AND TURNOVERS
    Fix that and we better off

  8. Cam Boozer is exactly what we need. That'll be a perfect pick…match made in heaven for DC. True Dawg…His Hustle is unmatched. Cam Boozer and Cam Whitmore on the court together???? 👀 lookout

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