New Wizards GM Will Dawkins was introduced officially to the media on Thursday along with the rest of the newly-constructed Wizards front office, and then he joined Grant & Danny for a quick first hit on 106.7 The Fan.
A long way for Dawkins from his first job in the NBA many years ago…as basically a clubbie?
“I built myself brick by brick, step by step…when you go into it, you just want to get your foot in the door,” Dawkins said of his NBA journey. “They took a chance on me when I was young, a 21-year-old kid in Seattle, and forced me to wash laundry and pick up people and take a lot of notes – literally washing clothes and staying at the airport until 2 a.m. You learn what to do and what not to do, and then, sometimes, they’ll ask, ‘hey, can you make this DVD for us?’ and you just stay in the room wondering if they’re going to kick you out.”
From that internship to becoming a GM 15 years later – all with Seattle/Oklahoma City – is “surreal,” and he told G&D it was a phone call he dreamed of since he was playing in college, not even graduated from Emerson College, even though he never believed it would happen at his current age.
“I’m a weird person in that I had that dream pretty early, and my coach Hank Smith, was able to instill in me that there might be a job in the NBA for you,” Dawkins said. “He said he knew a guy who was going to be a general manager real soon – and it was Sam (Presti, Thunder GM). He had gotten a job in Seattle and said, ‘I need a grunt intern I can run into the ground but has some Emerson DNA and will get run over by a truck and come back and fight and be here – and coach said, ‘I have the perfect guy for you.’”
Dawkins was soon on a plane to Seattle, and the rest is history, minus a quick trip back to Boston for his graduation two weeks after starting the internship – “my mom would’ve killed me if I missed that flight,” he laughed – and he never stopped focusing on basketball operations no matter the job.
“I always looked towards it; even when I was doing the player development side and behind the bench, I always kept my lens on learning the ins and outs of basketball operations,” Dawkins said. “And I think I’m better for it, because I can have real conversations with players and coaches, and then bring that to the strategy group and be able to carry that message throughout the building.”
And when he finally got the call to interview in DC, the dream of a lifetime was about to come true.
“When you first get that phone call and it’s like, “Hey, we’re interested in you in this position,’ your mind goes a lot of different ways,” Dawkins said. “But once you really go through it and take the time to talk to Michael Winger and Ted Leonsis about what they have going on here in Washington, you get really excited about it.”
Perhaps Dawkins is a natural, being from Springfield, Mass., the birthplace of basketball, even if he realized long ago he wasn’t good enough to play in the NBA, but he’s fortunate to still be around it.
He knows, from his experience in Seattle and OKC, that the job of a GM is 24/7/365, because the minute the season ends, you’re looking ahead to the draft and free agency, and when that’s over, it’s still time to evaluate before the season starts – and the GM’s ultimate job is to set the tone and the culture of the team, and as he said, carry that message throughout the building.
So, what does Dawkins want his team’s identity and philosophy to be?
“Each team is a reflection on their coach and the front office that put the team together, and I think a Wizards player is one who is selfless, connected, smart, and tough. We already have some of those guys here, and we’re going to bring those guys in,” Dawkins said. “What we try to do is find the guy who is passionate, that works, and will buy into the system and has a skill set that’s different. We’re not just going to be a team stuck in one way; we’re going to be able to evolve and grow and have multiple ball-handlers and playmakers so we can play different ways. It’s going to be an exciting brand of basketball.”
How long it takes to turn that culture around and build a winner is TBD, but the ultimate goal is the same that Winger and Ted Leonsis laid out: build a team that the city is proud to be supporting.
And now, just like in OKC, where he called the staff “a lot of specialists like Ocean’s 11,” there is a collaborative effort with all the new front office pieces to make sure everything is built correctly according to the vision that is laid out – and it’s a group that’s familiar with both building and rebuilding, the latter of which is ‘a last resort’ according to Winger but still on the table.
“We have to assess the talent we have here first, but we’re not afraid to look at everything,” Dawkins said. “The most important thing in talking to Mr. Leonsis was knowing we have the ability and the resources to come up with a plan to know we’re building competitive basketball that can achieve the goals year after year. We want sustained success, and however long that takes, it takes.”
You can hear all three of Dawkins’ interviews today - with Chris Russell on The Team 980, with G&D, and in the intro presser – above…but before you do, we have to give you perhaps the one fatal flaw with the new GM: when Grant, in the usual ‘get to know you’ portion of an interview with a DC newcomer, asked Dawkins what his celebratory dinner would be…and it was the answer you’d expect from a transplanted Oklahoman, albeit with a terrifying twist.
“I’ve been in Oklahoma for 15 years, so it has to be a steak, with some cheesecake at the end of it,” Dawkins said, and then came the dagger: “You’re going to be embarrassed, but I am a well-done steak guy. My dad is like rare, bloody, and my sisters are like medium-rare, but I can’t do it.
So I became a well-done steak guy, and I get made fun of every time. The looks I get from waiters like, ‘really, you’re ordering this prime cut of steak and doing this to it?’ I might as well get a hamburger!”
Can’t win ‘em all?
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