With his job done for the night, Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld wasn’t limited to a half dozen questions solely about John Wall, but that was still the major topic – that and Gilbert Arenas, as always.
While Grunfeld was unable to acknowledge the Kirk Hinrich/Kevin Seraphin deal, he did talk about Trevor Booker (pick No. 23) and Hamady Ndiaye (pick No. 56).
On Booker: “He’s a tough, aggressive, hard-nosed competitor. He’s mature. He’s played in college for four years. He’s very athletic. He’s a good rebounder, and a real pro kind of player. He’s a very serious guy with a great work ethic… he’s really fast getting up and down the floor. He’s very aggressive. He’s a good rebounder. He’s very physical, and one of the things we wanted to address was the physicality of our team and getting tougher, and I think we’ve added a couple players that have shown they have some toughness and will compete and are not afraid to put their bodies in the way.”
On Ndiaye: “He’s long. He’s a good defender. He’s a good rebounder. He’s an outstanding kid, and he’ll be playing with us, hopefully, in summer league.”
On how the trade of pick nos. 30 and 35 developed: “There were two or three guys that we were looking at, two players that we were really looking at for 30 and 35, and it was really looking like it wasn’t going to happen, and we wanted to make sure we got the player that we were looking at, and that’s the reason that we moved up. If we stayed at 30 and 35, we could’ve lost both players.”
On another rebuilding task, which he likes to make sure everyone knows isn’t his first: “We want to be competitive, but at the same time, we want to get the kind of players that are going to be with us long term, the kind of players we can build a core with, players that are hard working and willing to do whatever it takes to win basketball games.”
On the draft’s influence on the Wizards’ free agency plans: “I think everything influences something else. I think we still have needs. We filled a couple of needs, but also with young players, you want to let them develop and want to let them grow. We have some solid veteran players coming back. They are also very young, but thye’ve had some experience, and we’ll have to add a couple of pieces to that.”
Grunfeld didn’t say anything about free agency other than to acknowledge that the Wizards have cash: “I think it’s going to be very exciting. I think the fans will see an exciting team, and they’re going to be excited because we’re going to have a lot of young players who they can see develop, who they can see on a nightly basis and like we said, we want to be competitive for many years to come. We have a new CBA coming up, we don’t know what that’s going to be like, and I think the way we’re going about doing this worked for the Capitals, and Ted believes in it, and I believe in it, and we’re going to try to carry out that plan… It’s very seldom that one player steps in and changes the whole core of the franchise by himself. That’s why we want to get these young players, and we want to continue to grow with them and add pieces. This whole process started last year at the trade deadline.”
On Wall’s ceiling: “He can be an outstanding player. That’s going to be up to him and how quickly he develops and how quickly he feels comfortable in the pro game, but he has all the physical tools to be an outstanding player. He’s a very good defender, which you normally don’t see in a young player who is coming out of college. He takes pride in that, and he has close to a 6-foot-10 wingspan, and he rebounds, pushes the ball. He does a lot of things, but there’s going to be a learning curve, there’s no question about that. We don’t want to put too much pressure on him. He’s going to have to learn, like a lot of rookies. But a lot was expected of him when he went to Kentucky.”
As for Arenas, Grunfeld touted his ability to defend the two. As for a reintroduction and contrition tour? “That’ll happen.”
Can Arenas be the leader? “It’s not always your best player who is your leader, but I think he is excited about where we are right now. He’s excited about getting the number one pick. He’s been in contact with John, and we’ve spoken with him. Nobody’s happy with what happened last year, but I think people forget that Gilbert didn’t miss last year because of injury. So he didn’t miss a practice, he didn’t miss any games, and in 30-some games, he averaged 23 points and over 7 assists, which is a career-high for him, so we’re getting back a very talented player.”
