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Wizards owner Ted Leonsis was bluntly told about the fallout of the rebuild, but gave his full support to the effort. Getty Images <\/p>\nBam Adebayo of the Miami Heat scored 83 points in a game against the Wizards. Unfortunately, it was the night the Wizards started five Make-A-Wish kids.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0‘Saturday Night Live’<\/p>\n
The jokes rattle off the walls of the Washington Wizards\u2019 upgraded practice facility, sarcastic darts that ricochet past the chefs and the masseuses and the psychologists before falling on deaf ears. A rebuild \u2014 not to be confused with the crude four-letter-word \u201ctank\u201d \u2014 is a living, breathing, evolving monster, measured in micro victories, lottery odds and accusations that an owner and his executives are losing on purpose. The secret to maintaining sanity is the plan. Or, in this case, the plan before the plan. <\/p>\n
Through it all \u2014 a 16-game losing streak, the Adebayo embarrassment, the minuscule local TV ratings, the bottom-rung attendance and the social media potshots \u2014 young, effervescent Wizards equipment man Jamil Ludd, or other team attendants just like him, carve out time every day to synchronize the ball racks. It is no arbitrary thing. They meticulously line up the \u201cWilson\u201d labels on every basketball side by side, facing forward, an attention to detail that sends a subliminal message of: We take this shit seriously.<\/p>\n
The same goes for the Wizard-branded towels in the locker room that are compulsively folded, hung and pulled to a certain length. Or the new brass silverware in the cafeteria. Or the gourmet chefs lightly braising the salmon. Or the tinted filters that were stripped off the windows to lighten the front office. Or the brighter wall paint that is a metaphor for sunnier days ahead amid the chronic losing and Beltway ambivalence.<\/p>\n
Weaker or less competent executives might not have attempted such a blatant remake, a tear-down followed by a build-up that they warned Wizards owner Ted Leonsis might take five years. But now Year 3 has come to a close, and the reconstruction phase is likely in the rear-view mirror, no matter what their final league-worst 17-65 record says. But it\u2019s not about the players, even though recently acquired all-stars Trae Young and Anthony Davis are waiting in the wings next season to uplift a partly teenage core. It\u2019s about the RC Buford and Sam Presti trees from San Antonio and Oklahoma City, respectively. It\u2019s about the idea that infrastructure comes first, talent acquisition second, 50 wins third. <\/p>\n
But, mostly, it\u2019s about a front office led by President Michael Winger and General Manager Will Dawkins, who\u2019ve been entrusted with a reboot full of conspiracy theories, Tank Standings, Adam Silver lectures, an 83-point fiasco and now \u201dSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wizards owner Ted Leonsis was bluntly told about the fallout of the rebuild, but gave his full support to the effort. Getty Images <\/p>\n
\u201cWe can be up 30 points or down 30 points, we could be executing on a plan and getting a great player on the cheap or we made a terrible trade. It doesn\u2019t matter \u2014 this is Michael,\u201d says a grinning Leonsis, imitating Winger with his head in his hands. \u201cI said to him, \u2018The Chief Worrying Officer.\u2019 And that\u2019s kind of what you want. He\u2019s introverted and he\u2019s secretive and he\u2019s methodical. And that flows down to Will. And they value secrecy. They value the power of their data. And they\u2019ve been building that trust amongst themselves.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s how culture gets built. It gets built from who the leaders are. So these guys are highly professional. They\u2019re very thorough. They\u2019re playing chess when sometimes it seems I might have been playing checkers. Or our organization might have been playing checkers before.\u201d<\/p>\n
They may be playing chess, but, fact is, they\u2019re also playing the lotto. And with a public journey like this, when you\u2019re all over social media for the wrong reasons, when a loss is considered a win and a win is considered a loss, somebody has to be the CWO.<\/p>\n
Then again, maybe Winger isn\u2019t worried at all. Maybe he and his executive team were groomed for this \u2026<\/p>\n
Relegate the Wizards<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@YaronWeitzman on X<\/p>\n
Winger used to worry about taking notes in San Antonio. There are worse internships.<\/p>\n
A native of the Cleveland area, Winger was a law student at Maryland and an intern for Baltimore-based agent Ron Shapiro when Shapiro was hired as a Spurs consultant. They flew together to San Antonio in 2003, this prominent agent and his lackey, and the person who picked them up in a white Lexus sedan was none other than Danny Ferry, the team\u2019s new director of basketball operations.<\/p>\n
Winger gulped. He was expecting a taxi. Or a ride from some faceless team attendant. But this was Ferry \u2014 not only an executive, but a former Cavalier player whom Winger had once rooted for. Winger began to wonder: What kind of organization is this? The future of the NBA, that\u2019s what.<\/p>\n
The Spurs\u2019 front office consisted of GM Buford; Lance Blanks, director of scouting; Presti, director of player personnel; and Ferry \u2014 and all they did was caucus and win. The conversations Winger was privy to, while fetching coffee, were priceless, a ringside seat to culture-building. He sat in while the four executives and Shapiro discussed ways to negotiate an extension for Tony Parker. He learned it\u2019s an art.<\/p>\n
Winger remembers them brainstorming for hours on Parker \u2014 how often Tony flew back to France in the offseason, what schools his kids attended, whether he\u2019d prefer a deal front-loaded or back-loaded, what peers he needed to out-earn. They were preparing peace talks.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf culture\u2019s a non-negotiable, which it was for them, then it\u2019s non-negotiable,\u201d Winger says. \u201cWatching the camaraderie among them \u2026 that was really my first look behind the curtain of a pro sports team \u2026 Everything I\u2019ve done in my career in the NBA stems from getting to know those guys because that was \u2014 how do I say it? \u2014 \u2026 that was a genesis, but also the prototype.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was more educational than any law school course. When Ferry was hired as Cavaliers GM in the spring of \u201905, Winger wished he could have picked him up at the Cleveland airport. At the time, Winger was preparing for the bar exam, curious who Ferry would surround young Cavs star LeBron James with. But when Ferry called to offer him a job as his front office intern, he saw it all up close.<\/p>\n
It was more hands-on training. Winger saw how Ferry was a \u201cprotector\u201d of the staff, of the plan, of LeBron, of \u201cinternal second guessing.\u201d He saw him have \u201chard conversations\u201d with owner Dan Gilbert. He filed it all away, until someone else from the Spurs tree called: Presti.<\/p>\n
For any Wizards fan freaking out, just remember the Thunder lost by 73 to the Grizzlies during their rebuild, and now they are world champions<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@BrysonAkinsNBA on X<\/p>\n
Presti had left the Spurs in 2007 to run the Seattle SuperSonics, and a year later, he fielded a call from team owner Clay Bennett telling him to brace himself \u2014 and clear the office. So Presti sent everyone home except for a couple of interns, one being Will Dawkins.<\/p>\n
He told the eager Dawkins \u2014 who, like Presti, had played basketball at Emerson College \u2014 \u201cStay here and take notes.\u201d And these weren\u2019t just notes, these were marching orders.<\/p>\n
Bennett called back a half hour later to say the team was moving to Oklahoma City \u2014 like, tomorrow. \u201cWhat? Let\u2019s go find Oklahoma City on a map, let alone build a practice facility,\u201d Dawkins jokes now. But what happened next changed his career.<\/p>\n
Dawkins was on the ground floor of a rebuild, of a mystery, of a culture change or a culture shock \u2014 one or the other. The Thunder set up shop in an OKC roller-skating rink that they gutted and turned into a basketball haven. Dawkins was basically in charge of magnets on a whiteboard. Or washing clothes. Or teaching forward Serge Ibaka how to drive. Or being a faceless employee picking people up at airports. Or taking notes. \u201cLow person in the front office,\u201d he says. Sound familiar?<\/p>\n
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A symbol of the Wizards rebuild is the basketball racks synchronized with the Wilson’s facing forward \u2014 so they are organized at every level of the organization. Courtesy of Washington Wizards <\/p>\n
By 2010, he was still overseeing the whiteboard when in walked Michael Winger. Presti had not only hired Winger away from Ferry, he\u2019d anointed him assistant GM and team counsel. \u201cHow do you like your magnets?\u201d Dawkins remembers asking Winger the first day. But it wasn\u2019t long before Dawkins had more of a front office voice, learning strategy and salary cap from Winger \u2014 and both of them learning patience, secrecy and infrastructure from Presti.<\/p>\n
At one point, for instance, before Winger arrived, the Thunder (with Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook) started 3-29. Dawkins remembers players swinging at each other in practice one day and another player, Chris Wilcox, saying, \u201cWhy are we fighting each other? We\u2019re all 3 and 29.\u201d That was the point: Presti had taught them they were in it together and never deviated from his plan.<\/p>\n
Presti compiled draft picks, hired psychologists, hired masseuses. He brought in chefs whose meals were low-salt, high protein. He made sure the facility kitchen never closed. He sent players home with dinner so they\u2019d avoid fast food. He protected Durant the way Ferry protected LeBron, the way Buford protected Parker. It was Spurs 2.0.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe education in Oklahoma City is, it\u2019s an Ivy League education with extremely high standards,\u201d Winger says. \u201c[Presti] created like an institution to raise young players, and that\u2019s what Oklahoma City became. They are the barometer by which all player development systems ought to be measured.\u201d<\/p>\n
Disorganization wasn\u2019t tolerated. The Thunder\u2019s best player now, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, did an interview a few years back describing how anal the franchise is, how every water bottle has to be turned correctly, every towel tugged a certain way \u2014 the most neurotic, yet purposeful team on earth. The result, finally last season, was a championship. <\/p>\n
\u201cSam\u2019s level of intentionality, the level of attention to detail, nothing\u2019s too small, everyone has a voice,\u201d Dawkins says. \u201cAnd not only do we need to have a plan, we need a plan for the plan \u2014 is kind of the mindset we came up with \u2026 And that\u2019s something Mike [Winger] and I are definitely doing here in D.C.\u201d<\/p>\n
Which takes us back to \u201cSaturday Night Live.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wizards fandom is just a one way street to depression<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@MasriNBA on X<\/p>\n
The two of them, the Spurs intern and the Thunder intern, ended up taking over the woebegone Wizards in late spring of 2023. But \u2014 in an era in which Commissioner Adam Silver says it\u2019s difficult to decipher between a rebuild and a tank \u2014 their lips were sealed.<\/p>\n
Winger had left the Thunder in 2017 to be Clippers GM, while Dawkins, by 2020, had risen from intern to scouting coordinator to vice president of identification and intelligence to Thunder vice president of basketball operations. And one thing they each learned (Winger specifically from Ferry) was: Have hard conversations with your owner.<\/p>\n
By summer of 2023, those hard talks were with Leonsis. At the time, the Washington owner was ready for his own recalibration, considering his Wizards\/Bullets hadn\u2019t won a title since 1978, hadn\u2019t won 50 games since 1979 and had won only seven playoff series in the last 44 seasons. The franchise was almost chronically middle of the road \u2014 never quite bottoming out and never ascending much higher than the 8 seed \u2014 and so the loyal-to-perhaps-a-fault Leonsis decided to start over with the Spurs\/Thunder front office template.<\/p>\n
\u201cWell, yes and no,\u201d Leonsis said when asked if Spurs\/Thunder lineage influenced his decisions to hire Winger as president and Dawkins as GM. \u201cI mean you can fall into a trap: \u2018Oh well, this person worked at Amazon, so they must be as smart as Jeff Bezos.\u2019 And so obviously there\u2019s these trees in the league and OKC is developing a really, really strong tree, and it\u2019s not just Sam Presti \u2014 the owner had to be in alignment with the timeline and the budget and the plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so I know Sam a bit, and he gave a very good reference for Michael. And then we got permission to bring Will here. … I mean, they had a lot of great executives grown there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winger didn\u2019t promise wins; he promised a plan. And a plan for that plan. They would create a symbiotic front office, make D.C. an NBA destination \u2014 and he and Leonsis would stay in sync. The word \u201ctank\u201d never came up.<\/p>\n
Leonsis had his own vision. After a proposed move to Alexandria, Va., was denied by the state\u2019s general assembly, he and D.C. jointly funded a $1 billion renovation of Capital One Arena to open in time for the 2027-28 season. It included a training facility \u2014 and he and Winger hoped the Wizards\u2019 roster would \u201ccrescendo\u201d by the reopening. Five years away.<\/p>\n
![\"Fans](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776464848_139_Y3AYDP4TMRCJRBFISVFKO45LVE.jpg\")
Fans hold signs during the second half of the game between the Washington Wizards and the Los Angeles Clippers at Capital One Arena on January 19, 2026. Getty Images <\/p>\n
Winger made a quasi-list. He asked Leonsis to build the \u201cbiggest and best\u201d home locker room in the league and the \u201cbiggest and best\u201d visiting locker room, too \u2014 so all NBA players would know D.C. is first class. He asked him to pour $1 million more into the current practice facility, from locker rooms to office rugs to a biomechanics lab. He wanted to retain the respected front office voice of John Thompson III, senior vice president of Monumental Basketball and the former Georgetown head coach. \u201cHe has not said no to me one time,\u201d Winger said of Leonsis. <\/p>\n
At that point, the hardest conversation hadn\u2019t happened yet; in fact, Winger almost avoided it altogether. During the May 2023 draft lottery, the Wizards \u2014 who owned only a 6.7% chance of landing the top pick \u2014 suddenly had a 54.55% chance after the first three combinations of ping pong balls fell their way, the best odds of any team. Victor Wembanyama (and an accelerated reboot) was staring Winger in the face \u2026 until the last ping pong ball rolled out in favor of the Spurs. And RC Buford.<\/p>\n
What was done was done \u2014 the Wizards had the eighth pick \u2014 and Winger went about his business of hiring Dawkins. The two of them bonded again over old video room stories, over magnets. The word \u201ctank\u201d never came up.<\/p>\n
Next was Dawkins\u2019 own chat with Leonsis, with Presti telling him, \u201cYou need to spend some real time with the owner before you take a job like that.\u201d It could have gone either way. But, the way Dawkins remembers it, \u201cWe didn\u2019t say we were going to decide to blow it up. But we said if we wanted to go this route, this is kind of what it would look like. And [Leonsis] was like, \u2018Whatever route you guys think is best; that\u2019s why I\u2019m hiring you and trusting you.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The word \u201ctank\u201d still never came up. But the word that did come up in their hardest meeting with Leonsis \u2014 once they traded their most valuable asset Bradley Beal to Phoenix \u2014 was the cryptic word: \u201crebuild.\u201d <\/p>\n
Using a deck presentation \u2014 with pros and cons up in lights \u2014 they told the owner they wanted to start from scratch. Dawkins described an average rebuild and longer rebuild. Winger painted a brutally honest picture of: perhaps five more years of losing, fans bitching and business basically going down the tubes.<\/p>\n
\u201cI said, \u2018Ted, you\u2019ve got to understand: the fans are not going to be happy about this, we\u2019re going to lose a lot of money, it\u2019s going to have an effect on ratings,\u2019\u201d Winger says. \u201cHe\u2019s like, \u2018Yeah, I get it, but at the end of the day, I want to build this thing the right way, and I trust you to do it.\u2019 <\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so he\u2019s let me tear down the team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do something nice for your Washington Wizards friends today. They need something nice after last night. It\u2019s been a season.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@therealknelson on X<\/p>\n
Three years and 196 losses later, the word \u201ctank\u201d does come up \u2014 everywhere else. The night Adebayo scored 83 against the Wizards, with Davis unavailable and center Alex Sarr on a minutes restriction, was the lowest blow. Particularly for those who witnessed the first day of the basketball racks.<\/p>\n
At the Las Vegas summer league of 2023 \u2014 in their first bird\u2019s-eye view of the operation \u2014 Winger\u2019s and Dawkins\u2019 jaws dropped at the disorganization. It was 100-plus degrees outside, and there was no water, snacks or Vitamin D for the players and staff. \u201cThings you need to survive in Vegas,\u201d Dawkins says.<\/p>\n
Some player hotel rooms weren\u2019t ready, either, or their names were misspelled \u2014 so they couldn\u2019t check in. Staffers carried gear in Home Depot bags, and before the first meeting, players were served hot dogs and hamburgers.<\/p>\n
\u201cLike it was ballpark day,\u201d Dawkins says. \u201cI was, \u2018What are we doing? This is not it at all.\u2019 To their credit, they were like, \u2018Hey, this is the budget we\u2019ve been allotted.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
That first day, Winger called a staff meeting, emphasizing, \u201cThese things are not acceptable, we can be better at these.\u201d Then he stared over at the ball racks and at the ballboy Ludd \u2014 and delivered a speech that basically set the tone for the next three years of their lives.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to shine a light on Jamil,\u201d Winger said, before pouring his heart out. Turns out, Ludd had researched Winger and Dawkins, had seen the Gilgeous-Alexander interview explaining how meticulous the Thunder were. So Ludd had synchronized the \u201cWilsons\u201d on the ball racks in Vegas \u2014 amid the hot dogs and burgers\u2014 so the new front office would know he gave a damn.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow people know what excellence looks like,\u201d Winger told the staff. The rebuild was off to the races … at glacier speed, anyway.<\/p>\n
The front office meetings began as they had in San Antonio, with the executives Winger, Dawkins, Thompson and Travis Schlenk, senior vice president of player personnel, at a conference table pontificating. \u201cSomething that was really key,\u201d Thompson says, \u201cis Michael\u2019s phrase when he started off of: level up every other department.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, the plan before the plan was to fine-tune ancillary parts of the organization so when the on-court product was humming (in three to five years or whenever the basketball gods decided), the off-court product would match it.<\/p>\n
That meant bringing a chef on the road with the team, to prepare an organic breakfast and lunch in every city. That meant players and staff \u2014 and their families \u2014 getting bloodwork done so they knew which vitamins to take. That meant doubling the staff size. That meant creating 21st century job titles \u2014 hiring former D.C. talk show host Craig Hoffman as senior director of basketball identity and integration and former ESPN Executive Editor Cristina Daglas as head of research and identity. That meant borrowing best practices from other teams, leagues and corporate America. That meant reading books and magazines about staff development, about the military\u2019s soldier development.<\/p>\n
That meant consulting behavioral psychologists or organizational psychologists. That meant hiring author Ethan Kross, an experimental psychologist and neuroscientist from the University of Michigan who specializes in emotion regulation and wrote the book \u201cChatter: The Voice in Our Head (and How to Harness It).\u201d <\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776464849_422_5XPMZGNC2FBADAXPQQ5EJ2XZ2U.jpg\")
The Washington Wizards mascot interacts with fans during the second half of the game between the Washington Wizards and the Indiana Pacers at Capital One Arena on March 27, 2025. Getty Images <\/p>\n
That meant asking Kross to build out what amounts to a mindfulness department. That meant hiring three mental health professionals and bringing one on every road trip. That meant being ready if someone from, say \u201cSaturday Night Live,\u201d told a lousy joke. <\/p>\n
That meant \u201cdecimal meetings\u201d \u2014 ideated by Dawkins \u2014 where about every 10 games a player would meet privately in a room with 10 to 12 staffers: at least one each from mental health, physical fitness, culinary, nutrition, health and wellness, coaching, skill development, management, etc. \u201cThe first time is always a shock,\u201d Winger says. \u201cThey\u2019re \u2018Oh shit, am I in trouble?\u2019\u2026 But after that, they realize this is not an undressing. This is a buildup meeting.\u201d<\/p>\n
In some ways, it was an offshoot of what the Spurs did with Parker, the Cavaliers with LeBron, the Thunder with Durant. These were peace talks. This was management \u201ccelebrating the micro wins\u201d of a player hitting his hip mobility goal or the \u201cinvisible gains\u201d of reaching his paint-touch goal. Winger\u2019s philosophy was that he, Dawkins, Thompson and Co. should over-meet, and, when they became exhausted, they\u2019d under-meet. He\u2019d learned that from Buford and Presti. <\/p>\n
The front office augmented it with what Thompson called a Player Pathways Enrichment program, where, during road trips, the organization would take players and staff to Google or Meta offices or to see high-end financiers. They would bring in Martin Luther King III as a speaker or attend Tyler Perry\u2019s studios in Atlanta or the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis. They staged a \u201cmoms trip\u201d to San Antonio. They took at least six of their peach-fuzzed players to get driver\u2019s licenses. They built what Winger believes is the most decked-out family room in the league.<\/p>\n
Three years later, the front office was suddenly a front, side and back office, ready for a competitive team. Meanwhile, down on the court \u2026<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776464850_236_5WXAW42AT5AP3C5VAWCOLK56LI.jpg\")
The Wizards have brought in chefs to formulate food plans for players while at home and on the road. Courtesy of Washington Wizards <\/p>\n
Ted should pay fans to go to their home games. Total embarrassment.<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@blackbeanslover on X<\/p>\n
Leonsis has his own plan: hydrate, regulate his weight, exercise. \u201cIt sucks, OK?\u201d he says. \u201cBut maybe I\u2019m going to live another 10 years longer than the average bear, right? So no pain, no gain \u2014 and that\u2019s how I\u2019m looking at this [rebuild].”<\/p>\n
One reason Leonsis approved the teardown was he\u2019d been there, done that with his other team, the Capitals, who drafted Alex Ovechkin No. 1 overall and won a Stanley Cup. \u201cSo I wasn\u2019t afraid of it,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd I appreciated their truthfulness.\u201d But bottom line is the Wizards were last in attendance in 2024-25 and are second-to-last (ahead of only Memphis) in 2025-26. Although there was a 176% uptick in unique direct-to-consumer viewership this season, their linear Nielsen Station Index ratings in the D.C.\/Baltimore DMAs were lowest in the league, down 27% year over year.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter three years, like, \u2018What are you doing to your fan base?\u2019\u201d said a top executive from another team. \u201cBecause three years is a long f—— time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Five years is even longer, and, at that point, there was no end in sight and no turning back. Every crevice of the organization \u2014 from the sales team on down \u2014 was informed and all-in, with Zach Leonsis (the owner\u2019s son), Monumental\u2019s president of media and new enterprises, saying the franchise was \u201cselling hope and selling the future … not unlike what other teams have had to do in the past.\u201d <\/p>\n
But the drip-drip you heard was lost revenue, and there were single-digit layoffs this February within Monumental Sports Network. When news broke that next season\u2019s average ticket price rose 6.31% \u2014 largely due to the arena renovation and the vault suites\/premium lounges that are coming with it \u2014 the negative chatter rose, too. But Leonsis says, \u201cThe chatter that bothers me most is the long-term fan base in Washington, D.C. They don\u2019t love the team. I mean, they don\u2019t trust the team because we haven\u2019t broken through.\u201d<\/p>\n
Winger warned him about this during their hard talk: Ted, the fans are not going to be happy about this, we\u2019re going to lose a lot of money, it\u2019s going to have an effect on ratings. But here we are, with all these acerbic comments on X, and the obvious question for Leonsis is: How\u2019s business holding up?<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s where we\u2019re fortunate,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019re fortunate in that we\u2019re one of the bigger organizations in sports. We own the building, we own the [Monumental TV] network, we own multiple teams. So we could have some patience, if you will \u2026 Michael, Will \u2014 [they] tell us what to do and we\u2019ll do it. And by having the resources of the Monumental platform, it makes it easier to … Renewals are 82% instead of 90%, but we also have the data to show that when we do become good and make the playoffs, what\u2019ll happen and it\u2019ll be worth the wait. That was our comment when the Caps won the Stanley Cup. It was worth the wait, right? That\u2019s how we have to look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He grabs a water bottle from his mini fridge \u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a venture capitalist,\u201d Leonsis says. \u201cI\u2019m not afraid of taking risk. And a lot of times it\u2019s: \u2018Am I betting the jockey or the horse?\u2019 \u2026 The NBA, as the horse, is rock solid. The NBA is a growth stock if you will. We have this great media deal. The players, the popularity globally has never been stronger. It\u2019s why we\u2019re expanding to Europe now. We have a big position in Africa. We\u2019ve always had a position in China. It\u2019s a growth stock. I looked, and I said, \u2018If I can find the right jockeys to ride this horse that\u2019s galloping \u2026\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
So it\u2019s on the jockeys, Winger, Dawkins and Co., who\u2019ve brought in three top-10 picks and five overall first-rounders over the last three years. Or as Winger says, \u201cNot unlike investing, you just keep making your inputs, making your deposits. At some point, you\u2019re going to wake up when you\u2019re 65 years old and you\u2019re going to have a very nice outcome \u2026 Losing is just an output. None of our inputs are losing inputs.\u201d<\/p>\n
The marquee inputs have been trades for Young and Davis, both injured (though Young wowed the crowd in the three home games he did play) and both returning next season while the team hopes this year\u2019s lottery falls their way. <\/p>\n
They have a top 8-protected pick, but the reason for the incessant tank talk \u2014 for the \u201cfive Make-A-Wish kids\u201d joke \u2014 is that if they hadn\u2019t finished bottom four in the standings, they could\u2019ve lost the pick to the Knicks at 9. The insinuation all season was: They\u2019re dying to lose. <\/p>\n
So the word \u201ctank\u201d had to come up, had to be asked straight to their faces. Their responses?<\/p>\n
Winger –probably because of what he learned in San Antonio, Cleveland, OKC and L.A. — chose not to dignify it with an answer.<\/p>\n
Dawkins rolled his eyes and said, \u201cIgnoring the noise is a skill I developed very early in Oklahoma City. Sam didn\u2019t go full rat poison, but he definitely taught us that we have to kind of stay within our walls \u2026 Basically, we know what picks we have, we know how they\u2019re protected, we know the odds that go into the lottery and things of that nature, and we make decisions amongst each other, knowing the value and the likely outcomes of every decision we make. Basically planning for the plan all over again.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leonsis, in the days following the Adebayo game, said: \u201cThe last couple of weeks have not been fun because I\u2019m not tanking \u2026 We\u2019re now trading some of [our] picks for players from Atlanta and from Dallas. And I go: \u2018So are they tanking now?\u2019 They\u2019re trading us their highest-paid players for picks, right? Tanking to me is you\u2019re telling the players, \u2018Miss the three-point shot or I\u2019m not playing you.\u2019<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big difference between tanking and rebuilding and player development. That\u2019s been my position. I told our fans what we were doing. I\u2019ve told everybody. Everyone knows what we were doing.\u201d<\/p>\n
So, if what they\u2019re doing is playing chess instead of checkers (and if the micro-wins turn into macro-wins next season, that\u2019s definitely chess), the sense leaguewide is the Wizards could be a playoff threat next year, could be Thunder 2.0, could be all over social media for the right reasons.<\/p>\n
Don\u2019t be surprised if the new joke is: \u201cTank you very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
I have learned to embrace it. How sick is that<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0@SkellyFreaks on X<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Bam Adebayo of the Miami Heat scored 83 points in a game against the Wizards. Unfortunately, it was…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":255914,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3780],"tags":[7,6,682,468,3892,683],"class_list":{"0":"post-712752","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-washington-wizards","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-washington","11":"tag-washington-wizards","12":"tag-washingtonwizards","13":"tag-wizards"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116422408371641987","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712752","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=712752"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/712752\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/255914"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=712752"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=712752"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=712752"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}