After I missed Wizards training camp on Saturday for a family event, and didn’t really see a whole heck of a lot of actual play on Friday when camp opened, Sunday offered the first chance to really watch the players in action with and against one another.
“I feel ahead of where I thought we’d be at this point,” Wizards coach Flip Saunders said, sticking to a positive tone and praising his players, including an offering of the hard hat for hardest working man in practice to Andray Blatche in a close race with JaVale McGee, leading to Blatche deciding that he would pass it on to McGee himself.
“We haven’t really had anybody who hasn’t given a lot of effort,” Saunders said. “That’s the one thing that has probably been the most impressive as anything. Part of it is that we’ve got some new guys and we’ve got guys that fit our mold as far as energy.”
A couple other observations:
It’s training camp, but there are a couple hints that guys who need to grow up might be doing exactly that. McGee showed off his crisp jump hook six feet, and finished at least set offensive plays with easy, wide-open dunks. It’s still a little early to see if that play translates to when he faces first-tier centers on a nightly basis once the season actually starts, but it’s a good sign that for right now, he’s in the right place.
Jan Vesely’s head has to be spinning. The most telling play of practice on Sunday was watching Vesely get out on the break, where he does some of his best work, and getting caught looking down at his own feet as he ran the floor and completely missing a long outlet pass from John Wall. Yes, as in he never saw it at all. Vesely looks like a deer in the headlights as he adjusts to the highest level of the game. He’s a massive presence on the floor, with tons of length and a body that doesn’t look totally out of place (defined arms, though he needs to find religion with the bench press). But those two things just aren’t enough by themselves at this level. He’s constantly searching for the right place to be, and I’m not sure I saw him grab a single rebound. He’s a work in progress, folks.
Saunders said all three rookies practice well, but singled out Chris Singleton for his consistency and called him one of the team’s best defenders. Yeah, it took two days for Singleton to earn that distinction.
Ronny Turiaf isn’t bothered by the business of basketball, and he hopes to channel the spirit of Fabricio Oberto –though he might want to rethink that since Oberto’s numbers weren’t actually very good (1.5 points, 1.8 rebounds) when he was in Washington during the 2009-10 season. Both Blatche and Turiaf referenced the comparison, which gives me the sneaky suspicion that Saunders may have been the first to suggest it.
“My life is already full of positivity so I’m not going to let the negativity affect my life,” Turiaf said when asked about being the other guy in trades twice in two seasons. “I get it from a positive, where a team wants me, and I’m not looking at it as disrespect. This is a business. Just like players leave teams, teams try to get better. Why would I be offended by a team trying to get better? This is life. There are people that are better than you, people that bring something different to the table, and it’s a matter of people just wanting to go a different route. I still get my paycheck last time I checked so it’s all good.”
Said Saunders: “He has a very, very high basketball IQ. He really knows how to play as far as getting guys open, how to set screens, knows all the veteran-type moves. He just gives us fundamentals, another veteran-type guy… We’ve got a lot of length. We are long and athletic. If we can stay disciplined defensively, we can change a lot of shots around the basket and be a good rebounding team.”
Turiaf, who played against Vesely in Europe and with Roger Mason Jr. in New York, may know Kevin Seraphin the best of all among his new teammates. He back Seraphin’s inclusion in the French national team this past summer and set the tone for being his mentor in Washington.
“I think Kevin, all he has to do is just have one little step, and that’s either a bucket or a dunk,” Turiaf said. “That’s what he brings to the table. He’s very physical down in the block, and I think he has a real nice upside, and I told him that a long time ago when he was playing in France, and hopefully I can try to guide him and make him better.”
As for his take on the mood in Wizards camp: “It’s definitely fun, energetic. I’m a guy that loves to have fun, that loves to work hard. I’ feel like I’m a nice little fish in a nice little aquarium.”
On the news side, the Wizards announced over the weekend that they signed both Larry Owens and Hamady Ndiaye. It’s believed that Owens isn’t on a guaranteed deal and Ndiaye’s is only partially guaranteed, which makes sense since the futures of Josh Howard, Nick Young and Maurice Evans all remain unresolved.
Saunders was asked about if Young doesn’t return how he feels about Jordan Crawford: “Jordan was lights out shooting today. He was probably our leading scorer, as far as things he can do. He has the ability, he can score. We like the things Nick does no question. But Jordan also did a pretty adequate job when Nick went out and he played. The biggest thing is, you want to have depth. You want to have a solid eight or nine. We feel good with how he and Mason have played, no question. But we’d also like to see Nick back here.”
