After joining Chris Russell on The Team 980 immediately after his introductory press conference, new Monumental Basketball president Michael Winger joined Grant & Danny on 106.7 The Fan – and when Grant asked him if he and new GM Will Dawkins, whom he worked with in OKC, ever imagined this day, we got an answer we never would’ve expected.
“Never,” Winger laughed. “That would be way too presumptuous.”
Winger spent a half-dozen years in both Cleveland and OKC before becoming Clipper GM in 2017, and in his 20 years in the game, he’s seen two NBA Finals and negotiations with superstars ranging from LeBron to Kawhi, RW3 to KD, and been part of a ton of big moves.
So why, then, did he choose DC, and taking over an organization seemingly stuck in neutral?
“A combination of things. I felt Ted’s passion and believe he knows exactly what it requires to run an ultra-high performing sports organization, and he made that clear to me during the interview process,” Winger said. “I’m drawn to the DC market that I think is starving for hope there is good basketball coming down the pike, and it’s pretty moving to be the guy chosen to help usher that hopeful basketball future in. And, the fans; when you’ve been in the NBA for a long time and traveled to every market, you can feel the fan bases – some are extremely passionate, and this is a basketball town.”
Those fans, and being part of the basketball town, was the ultimate sell beyond the job title.
“I think a basketball town ought to have a basketball team they’re proud of, that when they show up on TV, fans are wearing the jerseys and can point to the TV proud of their team,” Winger said. “To be chosen to be one of those people to help the fans have a smile on their face…it’s going to be moving to see them smile and say, ‘that’s my team.’ I’m a guy that likes to be compelled to do something; this opportunity really did come out of left field, but Ted and the market convinced me this is the right move for me. I have four young kids, and while opportunities like this don’t come around every day, part of the equation was where I want my kids to grow up…and if you showed me a map, I would’ve picked Washington D.C.”
Winger explained the scope of his title as President of Monumental Basketball, and the silos that report to him – and like Ted Leonsis said he does with all of Monumental’s verticals, he plans to let the people in charge of each individual team run their show, and stay out of the way while he deals with business.
“We have a hard job ahead of us, but we get to lean on each other to do it,” he said of the org chart.
So, what does, or did, Day 1 look like?
“Meeting with as many staff members as I could to get the lay of the land,” Winger said. “Day 1 was walking around with a lot of coffee and my eyes wide open, taking notes and learning as many people and processes as I could. We’ll make some procedural tweaks where we can, and then lean on Will and Travis (Schlenk) to make basketball decisions with the draft and free agency coming up.”
The previous scouting department is still in place, so they will be leaned on for their part in the process when it comes to the ultimate draft decisions, and Winger thinks they have done “a very impressive job” gathering data and intelligence – but there will be collaboration between new and old over the next few weeks as Dawkins and Schlenk build the long-term vision for the franchise.
The same goes for roster decisions, and there is an archetype of what a “Michael Winger player” looks like – but again, the ultimate decisions will be collaborative based on the vision for the future, as he knows “you have to piece everything together to see how it fits, because the whole universe of players isn’t always available to you.”
Winger told Russell exactly what that means, especially when it comes to the thoughts of Bradley Beal, Kyle Kuzma, and Kristaps Porzingis – and he reiterated to G&D that if a full tear-down and rebuild is the ultimate vision they come up with, his staff is indeed authorized by Ted Leonsis to do so.
“We had that conversation in the interview; he told me he wants to win at the highest level, and I will have the authority to build this team the way I want to, by any means necessary, to win a championship, period,” Winger said. “My truth is that I don’t like losing, and that’s a difficult path, because it requires patience and tolerance for losing; it’s not necessarily a last resort, but I don’t think it’s the first thing we’re looking to do. We’re not showing up to the office looking to hit the detonate button – we want to see what this team is made of. We have a lot of talent on this roster, and it could be that this group just needs some reinforcements, and we have the ammunition to go out and get those, and we get better using our resources.”
You can hear all three of Winger's speeches today - with Russell, with G&D, and in the intro presser - above!
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