The Junkies WERE the Wizards’ lucky charm, but they lost Friday night as the guys did the Monumental Sports Network Alt-Cast, and then again Saturday…although maybe that was just all the trade deadline moves that left the minimum eight guys available for the start of Friday’s game?
“It was a busy week for us,” GM Will Dawkins laughed as he joined the guys Monday. “The deadline is always wild; as you guys saw from some other teams, there was a lot going on and I think there was a shift overall in the NBA, but for us, we wanted to be active. It takes two teams and sometimes three and four to make deals happen, and a lot of times it comes down to the wire, so we felt that we were pretty fortunate to get what we got done.”
And it was clear, based on who went and what the Wiz got back, that the shift for the future began last week, if it hadn’t already.
“We obviously dealt some helpful players that I'd love to thank for their time that they were here with us, but at the end of the day, where we are as and organization, and the life cycle you guys are talking about of building it back up, we needed to shift towards more long-term stuff, and I think we accomplished that,” Dawkins said.
So, for those wondering what the deadline looks like from a war room perspective…
“Believe it or not, the movie ‘Draft Day isn't necessarily accurate on everything when you watch it, and how you communicate back and forth,” Dawkins said. “Mostly, Michael Winger and I have a big staff that prepares us and makes sure that we're ready, so we have a lot of scenarios already planned out and it's kind of on us to execute it. That’s mostly through phone calls, but to be honest, a lot of times it could be quick follow-up texts just to lock it back in and make sure we're not missing anything, and then it gets to the emails where the deal is actually made. But for the most part, we're lobbing back and forth a lot of phone calls and making sure that we're keeping both of my phones charged at all times.”
Because of the way trades processed, they were a bit short-handed this past weekend, but Dawkins anticipates some of the veterans they acquired to be coming after the All-Star break; that means a couple more games without the full squad going forward, but for now, it is what it is.
“I think the cavalry will be coming after the All-Star break. We're going to make sure that we assess them properly, get them healthy, and start making sure that they're ready to go post All-Star break,” Dawkins said. “I expect that to be closer to the time where we see the full group together, but fortunately some of the deals have gone through that hadn't gone through by the time we played on Friday and Saturday, so it made it a little tougher, but everything's official, so we'll have 15 guys on the roster at least for tonight, and then once we get back from the break, pretty much everybody should be back and healthy, so we should be able to kind of see that group.”
So, why didn’t the Wiz tear it down ALL the way and look at dealing pending free agent Malcolm Brogdon, or even maybe Jordan Poole?
“We got some veteran players to support and help our young guys and we got a lot of calls on all our veteran players,” Dawkins said. “I won’t go down the deals we didn't do or we could have done, but I'd say there's interest leaguewide on the guys that we have, and that's a good thing. But, we also have interest in them and we also value them, and that's why we kept them here and look forward to what we have with them into the rest of the season.”
Take a listen to Dawkins’ entire visit above, as he goes into some of the things that interested him in certain players who came to DC at the deadline, and more!