Yes, the Wizards’ miserable 2009-10 season will be over tonight. In fact, they’re not even coming back for exit interviews tomorrow. They’ve already been done, and the final open media availability for the players will be after tonight’s game against Indiana.
Done and done.
With that said, I’ll do my best to do my own exit interviews with every player on the roster. Head coach Flip Saunders spoke before shootaround this morning.
82 games.
“You never really like to see a season come to an end, whether it’s 82 games, whether it’s through 89 games or whatever it is. What you do is you go through, you evaluate, and you hope to end on a good note where guys feel good about themselves as far as playing. Most of our guys, especially our young guys, have gained some confidence and a little bit more awareness of what it takes to try to have success.”
Did you accomplish all you had intended after the All-Star break?
“The only we didn’t is I think the injuries prevented from Josh [Howard] and then maybe Randy [Foye] finishing the year, I think we would’ve liked to have Josh in our mix to have him play Andray [Blatche] and the guys that we had. I think there’s no question that when you look at what we did, I don’t think anyone anticipated that Andray, JaVale [McGee], Nick [Young] and Shaun [Livingston] who probably have the last month of the season that they had.”
What will be remembered most about this season? [Did that really just get asked?]
“I think no question the incident with Gilbert [Arenas] will be something that will, that’s probably the thing that will stick out because it’s something that’s never really happened before in the league. From that standpoint, that’s probably the most memorable. and I think it was just a combination of so many things with – to this day, I don’t know if we ever had the group that we put together in the summertime. I don’t know know if we had all those guys play together at all the whole year because of the injuries that happened. Of course, you had Antawn [Jamison], and then you had Mike Miller, and then you had the Gilbert situation, and then of course you had the trades and then we had more injuries. It’s a very different type situation. I think, as a coach, having had success in this league, what it really does is you become even more, it reaffirms what I really believe you have to have to win, as far as your players that have a high character, high intelligence, have an aggressive, physical mindset and players that care more about the team than they care about individuals themselves.”
So, was there a high point?
“The high point, the first game of the year, when we beat Dallas, it was such that you had a lot of high expectations. But there are games. The Cleveland game at home that we played well, Orlando, we beat some pretty good teams at times. I think the most amazing thing I’ll take out, since the the All-Star break we really didn’t have that many games when we got blown out. A team, usually when you struggle, you have so many games when you’re not even in games, and we had so many games that we were in, even in the fourth quarter and had opportunities. I think that’s a credit, since we made the trade, these guys went out and competed and played hard. The highlight would be how we competed from the trade in a very undermanned situation, especially after Josh got hurt.”
Do you feel like you should receive an incomplete grade for the season?
“Maybe a little bit. But as a coach, you adjust. We didn’t have success here the last two months, but overall, I’ve enjoyed working with these guys the last two months and seeing the development of the players. That was probably as rewarding as anything.”
What will this team look like next year?
“Right now, we have an open canvas. We’ll start sketching a little bit starting tomorrow, and as it progresses, and as we find out where we are in the lottery, the lines will get a little bit thicker, and as we get to free agency, then eventually we’ll start painting that canvas and find out where we’re at.”
