Gilbert Arenas has already played his first game for the Orlando Magic, but Rashard Lewis will only finish his first practice as a Washington Wizard on Wednesday morning.
Getting traded wasn’t exactly on Lewis’s list of Christmas wishes, and he said in his first appearance with his new team on Tuesday that he needed all of Saturday and more just to get his head around the changes that he was facing.
“The past 48 hours have been hectic,” said Lewis. “The hardest part was just that day. Like I was telling my mom, she asked me how I was feeling. I said I’m fine, I have thick skin. Once [Saturday] was over, I was going to be completely fine. Just everything was running through my mind 100 miles per hour. I just needed a little time to think, with moving, being traded, my family coming with me, living situations, there’s a lot of stuff running through my mind.”
Yes, moving from a team expecting to contend for the Eastern Conference title and an NBA championship to a long-term rebuild isn’t easy, and despite Lewis’s struggles this season, he didn’t expect it.
“My first reaction was obviously a little surprise as well as a little upset just for the fact that it came so quick. I went to shoot-around that morning, and I went home to take a nap, and my phone was just ringing off the hook,” said Lewis. “I kinda had a feeling because I heard the rumors that morning, but by me being in the league for 12 years it wasn’t as big of a blow to me because I’ve been on teams to where you have different teammates every year, where guys have been traded, like when Gary Payton was traded [from Seattle].”
On the bench at Verizon Center for Tuesday’s utter demolition of Charlotte, Lewis got to see the kind of victory that just doesn’t happen for the Wizards, and he won’t need to be reminded that the Wizards haven’t all of a sudden turned into a contender despite playing two solid games in a row, even with John Wall out injured. But similar to how Arenas is feeling now that he’s with Orlando, the weight also seems to have been lifted in Washington now that Arenas is gone, and Washington is far from totally out of contention in the Eastern Conference. We’ll let Lewis say the P-word.
“The goal’s obviously changed for me, and I’ve thought about it ever since the trade happened,” he said. “Now my ultimate goal is to try to get this team in the playoffs or hopefully in the hunt to make the playoffs. I think that should be the goal, and to help these guys grow and be a veteran in the locker room, not by voice but most definitely by example.”
Lewis is now the Wizards’ highest-paid player, but he doesn’t have an outsized personality to go with it. What head coach Flip Saunders and the Wizards hope to do is rekindle some of the fire that inspired the 6-foot-10 forward to first become an All-Star with the Seattle Supersonics after he was passed over by his hometown team in Houston when he declared for the NBA Draft straight out of high school in 1998.
“One, he’s extremely professional,” said Saunders. “I had the opportunity to spend three weeks with him when I coached him in the Goodwill Games so I understand not only how he plays, but mentally he’s very professional and how he goes about doing things. I think he’s going to be extremely motivated. We’re going to try to use him how he was used in Seattle, move him around, let him play a couple different positions, run plays for him where he doesn’t become as much of a one-dimensional-type player.”
Nothing like a subtle jab at Orlando, which has lost seven of it’s last eight games, to stoke the fire.
“Most definitely [the trade] can be used for motivation,” said Lewis. “It’s most definitely going to fuel me a little bit. Obviously, from the situation I was in to coming to the Washington Wizards, I think I’m the type of guy who I’ve been doubted my whole life growing up, from high school to the NBA. I feel like it’s always something in front of me that’s challenging me. I just look at this as another challenge. But I’m a positive guy.”
