Media Day: Will Dawkins & Brian Keefe

I don’t know about you all, but I’ve been impatiently waiting for the Wizards Media Day. I don’t think the team's media team was excited as I was because they went radio silent on us leading up to the days. The media team did step up their game during and after Media Day so I will give my 10’s to them for that. I’m impressed. Of course, the reels and photos are always fun, especially seeing the team having a good time and looking like they are on the same page. The vibes are definitely vibing. I really wanted to deep dive into the interviews and share how I feel about this upcoming season.

An overall theme throughout majority of everyone's interview that I watched was camaraderie. I love that everyone on the team seems to be very connected and on the same page. Last year was a new experience for Jordan and his supporters, we were so used to how the Warriors do things from top to bottom. Everything with the Wizards was like a culture shock. With a year under his belt and the past, in the past, we move onto year two.

Brian Keefe and Will Dawkins Photo Credit: Washington Wizards Instagram

Before media day, GM Will Dawkins spoke to the media giving us all some insight on what we would be seeing this year. Of course, the first couple quotes I see on Twitter make me raise an eyebrow. “There will be no primary ball handler,” is one of the first things I saw, and I was not happy. Now I’m a very emotional person so I was immediately annoyed, but I also know how the Internet works, so I decided to watch it for myself and see the full statement. Only then I felt I can decide if I want to be mad or not,

Even though last year is the past, and I tried to forget about it, it is a part of our journey, so we have to acknowledge it. Will said that last year his main focus was to observe, assess, and to get to the path of success while learning on the fly. I can understand because I am that type of person who likes to come into situations, stay quiet, assess the situation a little bit before I actually involve myself. It also makes sense from when it comes to building a successful team, As I spoke about in one of my threads, you have to know your personnel and see what you have before you can start making adjustments. . The team is currently in a rebuild and that is a process that I am not accustomed to dealing with as a fan. Every great team started off and a bad one at one point. It's just like life, we have ups and downs, different phases we have to maneuver through. We have to embrace the process to really appreciate the results.

Will Dawkins. Year 2. General Manager.

Dawkins explained that in rebuild there are four phases, deconstruction, laying the foundation, building back up and fortifying what was built. Currently the wizards are in the deconstruction and laying the foundation phase. Coach Brian Keefe fits into exactly what they're trying to do now as well as what they want to happen in their future. Since this is BK’s first full year as head coach, he had the opportunity to choose his coaching staff. Both Will and BK said they brought in coaches with backgrounds in development, team rebuilds and building relationships. I'm really excited to see what BK does with the roster now that he has had the whole summer to prepare. Dawkins also noted that they drafted aggressively and planned to continue to do that as needed.

Will Dawkins Photo Credit: The Washington Times

Something that was very interesting to me and got me a little excited is the addition of Jonas, Saddiq and Malcolm. Something that really stood out to me from what Will mentioned is that all of them wanted to come to DC. It's a great sign to have players that actually want to be there and want to help the team. Another good sign is the younger guys have been in DC since May and of course Bilal after the Olympics. The rest of the guys joined after Labor Day.

The goals that really stood out to me that Will mentioned was for players to have individual development but have some development as a team. Last year most of the players hit all their metrics individually but now it's time to put that together and start building good habits collectively. The major thing that I agree with is being competitive the entire game. Watching all of the games last year there were certain times where they just weren't present in the game and either had to play catch up and ran out of gas or just went missing for a quarter. Something else that is really important is building the culture they really want to take care of players and make it a place that other players would like to come to.

Brian Keefe. Year 1. Head Coach

After watching BK interview, you can really see how aligned he is with Will Dawkins. They both were reiterating a lot of things which is a good sign that everybody is working in conjunction to accomplish the same goals. My favorite part was when BK said that Jordan will be the primary handler which means we get a lot of razzle dazzle at the point guard position. This is something his fans have been begging for all season so I’m estatic that we get to see PG Poole. BK was asked about how he unlocked Jordan towards the end of the season and he responded with something that really displayed how much faith that he has in him. BK stated that Jordan unlocked himself, he has already had a great career and is a great player and just wanted to remind him to go out there and be himself and to be aggressive. I'm so excited that Jordan has a coach that truly believes in him and wants him to stay true to himself and be successful.

Photo Credit: Washington Wizards Instagram

Referencing back to the clickbait material from Dawkins, it was expanded upon from BK. Now if you only look at headlines and run with that, you'll never get the real explanation of what they meant by planning to have multiple ball handlers. From a basketball aspect you want to be able to count on multiple people and not just have a bunch of specialists on your team. Having multiple people that can handle the ball makes the team more dangerous and harder to guard. When you have one person that always has the ball in their hands like last year, you become very predictable to the other team. It's easier for them to scout against you because you only have one trick, one plan and one counteraction to that plan. Being able to go out there and switch things up on the fly opens up things for everybody else. After all this is a team sport and you want everybody to be able to eat. They were comparing last year and how Tyus had the ball in his hands most of the time to versus how they want to switch that up this year, afterall last year did not work.

As we seen when BK took over everyone on the team stepped up defensively, that is something that BK emphasized they're going to maintain this year. The lack of defense last year cost a lot of games because very few were playing defense all four quarters.. Now me personally I don't expect every player to go out there and be the defensive player of the year, that's not possible, but I do expect effort, Having effort on defense goes a long way. After all defense wins championships. Now we're not winning any championships just ye but the plan is to build good habits so when it comes to a time where we are competing for championships, we already know what to do.

BK was asked about Alex Sarr and what he position that he thought he would be at, either the three or four. I like BK's answer a lot because he didn't categorize him in either position but just noted that Alex has a lot of versatility in his game, and he just wanted to assess him as a player and see where he fits best. Fit is something that BK said he worked on throughout the summer, he wanted to be able to really analyze the team to figure out the best rotations. That's the fun part of preseason because you really get to plug in and switch things around, you're more of looking for who works well together versus winning the game.

High character people and building relationships is something that was constantly repeated throughout this interview with BK. They are really focused on not only building a good team but just filling that roster and staff with really good people. Having the offseason to be bring in a staff that really aligned with that was extremely important and I just think it's best for a coach to be able to bring in the people that he thinks are best for him and fill in the gaps where he's lacking. BK really wanted a coaching staff full of people that love to coach, love to teach and love to work in collaboration with others. It's important because you should be able to work with your team and everybody have input and feel valued at the same time. Everyone working together to create the best options, and everybody's experience bring something to the table.

Overall once I watched both interviews for myself it gives me a lot of optimism for Jordan this year and some for the team as well. We’ve been warned this season will not be easy by any means, but they seem to be heading in the right direction. Honestly, I’m really just happy that Jordan will be in the right position and seems to be fully supported by the coach and the organization. Jordan deserves it and his fan base too. Part 2 we will do a deep dive into the player interviews.

Hope you enjoyed reading. Until next time.

Stephanie BKA S.Dot