MICHAEL WINGER: Thank you guys for being here. As Scott said, we're a week away from training camp, and I think after a pretty complicated off-season, we are delighted that we are sort of in the home stretch of the off-season and on the cusp of starting our first regular season together, at least here.
On a personal level, the last four months have been, in one sense, they've gone by in the blink of an eye. In another sense, there was some -- these are some long days, some long weeks, complications that sprang up that made for long days.
It's a delight that here we are a week away from camp, and you can probably hear the ball bouncing. There's a lot of guys in the gym sort of eager to get their legs under them, feel the basketball, get back in the gym, and having that energy in the gym has really uplifted all of us.
When I look back to -- it was May 24, May 25 or even potentially -- I think probably more accurately when Ted and I sort of had our first conversation, there were a lot of things that I just -- I wouldn't have forecasted at that point in time at the beginning of May. One, I wouldn't have forecasted sitting next to Will and having the opportunity to sort of partner with Will again. It had been a long time, and I've said repeatedly, I was honored that he took my call and even more honored that he decided to join us.
Same with Travis; I wouldn't have forecasted having the opportunity to work with Travis. We had never worked together, and I had always respected Travis' ability to run a team, choose players, lead people.
I wouldn't have forecasted being together with the both of them, and so here we are, and I'm very honored by that.
I would not have forecasted the speed and the cleanliness of our off-season transactions, the reset, the refresh, whatever "re" word we want to use. But coming in, when you look at the roster and you look at sort of the complications that existed, I think it was pretty easy to -- it was easy for me to imagine that it was going to be difficult, that it was going to include a tremendous amount of tension, dissent, and we didn't experience any of that.
We had great trade partners. We had tremendous collaboration among our staff, our players, the ownership group, even the fans. There was just -- everything over the course of the summer, even though some things took longer than others, they felt clean. They felt precise. They felt right. They felt collaborative.
Dating back to the beginning of May, having those conversations with Ted, I just would never have forecasted that.
Third, I wouldn't have forecasted the warmth of the welcome that I have received from our players, from our staff, from our fans, from you guys. It's pretty easy to see the new guy come in and maybe look through lenses of cynicism, suspension, what is he up to, who is he, who is he about, and I didn't feel any of that.
Washington is a big, big city and a big region, passionate fans. I think it's fair, maybe reasonable to expect that I wouldn't necessarily get or we wouldn't necessarily get the benefit of the doubt, and I think we have.
We have a tremendous amount of appreciation for that. We have a long road ahead of us, but that level of belief is a really encouraging and motivating start for us.
Piggy-backing on that, I wouldn't have forecasted the belief that the fans have expressed to us in sort of this new path that we've charted organizationally, whether it's we're out on the street and people come up to us or they're sending us emails, almost universally the feedback is positive, very hopeful for a future where people can rally behind an ultra-competitive contending team down the line.
Again, five months ago, beginning those conversations, I don't think I would have forecasted that.
So here we are. It's September 26. We're a week away from camp. I've been here four months. My family has now been here one month. Those three months without them was very hard.
So now they're here, and we're in a house together finally. We have minimal furniture. We have painter's tape all over the wall, gouges, scratches. We dine on folding chairs. But we're together. And my oldest, also just a little one, started kindergarten, and that has been going extremely well, almost surprisingly well, like maybe waiting for a shoe to drop somewhere.
As it relates to the team, with Will, with Ted, with our leadership group, we have a vision for the team. It is ambitious, and it is a very heavy lift. We want to build an organization that develops and can support a sustainably great team. We don't want to be a flash in the pan. We don't want to be a one-hit wonder. We want to build the right way.
We've studied all the teams in the league, historically and currently, that have done it what we would character as the right way. And it is a very heavy lift: hard decisions, a lot of patience, an intense focus on player development, an intense focus on research. And that's what we're going to do.
We will usher in at some point in the future an era of sustainable contention, and we're going to work our butts off every single day to get us to that point.
That requires a lot of sustainability within the various components. It requires sustainable athletes, a sustainable infrastructure, sustainable support from ownership, sustainable work from us, sustainable support from the fans.
I think when you begin compounding those things over time, those inputs, those investments, those individual sustainability elements, we will get to a point in time where sort of we blink, and one day we are good; and then we blink again, and we're really good; and then we blink a third time, and we are contending. Like we come into the season, and we're one of the four or five teams picked to be in the Conference Finals and make some noise in the postseason.
It will take time, it will take patience, it will take difficult decisions. It will take investment from everyone from Ted to me, Will, every single person in the organization. Every single person that supports the organization will have to -- we will be asking of those folks investment, investment in the team.
I think that if we get those things, at some point we will deliver that sustainable contender.
You'll hear over the course of not just this season but every season some of the guiding principles that help us stay alive, that help keep Will and me tethered together, messages we send to our players and, quite frankly, they send back to us.
And those guiding principles on which we're going to base every single decision, every single behavior are pursuing excellence, doing it with joy, competing at the absolute highest levels, holding each other accountable, and doing it together.
And we wholeheartedly believe that if those are our five ingredients over the course of time in everything we do -- player development, player evaluation, preparing breakfast, scouting, team travel, everything -- that if those are our five inputs into all of those things, the outputs will -- we will live with the results because we believe that the results are going to be that era of contending basketball.
At the risk of sounding preachy, that's our vision. It's not terribly complicated. We set our sights extremely high. It is that era of eventual contention. We're going to stick with a plan. We're going to compound the moments, those micro moments, those investments. We won't ever stop. We're not going to take early withdrawals. And we're committing to that long-term vision. We're sticking with it. We are enjoying the journey, very much so enjoying the journey, and we'll live with the results.
By my early impression of what we're doing, as I said, a week away from training camp, I couldn't be more excited than I am right now despite not having a humongous smile on my face, I'm just ready to get after it. But I'll pass to Will. He's got some things, too.
WILL DAWKINS: Thanks, everybody, for coming out. Obviously the weather and traffic was pretty bad today, so we appreciate you guys coming through.
I think a word you used early was eager, and I can really feel that in the environment that we have in the gym on the other side of these walls, guys, staff, everyone involved in the organization is really, really eager, myself included, to get it going.
I've been blessed and fortunate, this is my 16th training camp that I'll be starting. This one will probably be extra special because it's the first one here in D.C. No matter what, I think you always get that -- your daughter is going through it with kindergarten -- first day of school feeling and positivity. I think every team has that right now, but I know we have it within the walls.
It's been a summer of work. Guys have put a lot of time in. When Michael and I first -- I think we spoke about three months ago when we had our initial presser, we came in and said we're going to assess everything top to bottom and put a plan in place to make this a place where players want to be and put this on a trajectory where we're achieving the sustained success that we're looking for, and that starts with training camp.
It's been a summer of work for our guys. The best part for me when evaluating training camp is these guys put time in individually. They spent time individually working on their craft, and now you get to put it in a team environment, team setting, 5-on-5, and see how it works.
For me, it's a starting point individually, but it's also a starting point of the team, and that's all it is. We come in, we assess, find out where we're at. We'll set goals, set metrics to be better a month from now, two months from now. At the end of the year, hopefully each player is better and our team is better than we are when we start.
But the excitement to find out where we are at and what we're going to be, that starts next Tuesday.
All of our guys are in town. We're really, really fortunate to be in Washington, D.C. It's a big-time city. A lot of our guys spent a lot of time this summer in D.C., and we've had a lot of leaders within the group who have spent time bringing guys to them in their cities, and we're fortunate.
We've had a majority of the team here since post-Labor Day?
MICHAEL WINGER: For sure.
WILL DAWKINS: To be honest, we've had the entire team, 1 through 19, here the last two weeks. That's really, really important for us when you talk about what the group is going to be and connectivity and getting ahead of it, having this reshaping of the roster.
I know we had a busy off-season. The front office had a busy off-season, but I'd argue our players and our coaches were just as busy if not more.
They've crisscrossed the globe, to be honest, to go meet our players, be in their home environment, spend time, get to know them and just work on them as people. And all that just adds to the benefit of connectivity, camaraderie, and what we think we've seen so far -- I don't want to speak for you, but we have these conversations often about kind of what we're seeing, and it's evident to us that our guys like being around each other. That's really, really important.
I think it's also evident that these guys are serious craftsmen. They care about the work, the way they go about it. After practice, their individual workouts I should say, they're sitting there and they're watching their own film and trying to get better.
They're rooted in doing the work. These guys have been coming in, doing their individual workouts in the morning, coming back, getting extra shooting in, and just spending time working on their game. We talked about it in the team meeting today, the habits they're building are things we're looking for in current players but also future players, and they're helping setting the standards here.
So we're seeing a lot of the core characteristics and values that we talked about and that we envisioned when we first took the job already on the court and in the locker room, and for us, we're excited to see that.
Michael touched on leveling up and organizationally, top to bottom, just improving the way we do things and the process. The one thing that jumps out that you touched on and I'll touch on it, as well, is player development.
I would say player development has shifted around the league in what that looks like. It's no longer one coach, one player out there on the court. It's the holistic approach, making sure that people are taking care of everything they need to before they even get on the court.
So your family is taken care of, nutritionally, performance, mentally, everything that encompasses. Player development, we're going to level up and make it the best in sport. Michael will get tired of me coming back to him asking for more resources to pour into the staff as well as the players.
But we know what it looks like, and we want to get it to there. And we want this to be a place where people want to come, players want to come, staff want to come work because they know they're going to get better and they're going to be supported while they're here.
At the end of the day, in the three months we've had, like Mike said, it's been long, but also times have been short. If we look at some of the Summer League development, if we look at some of the development guys have had individually, it made small incremental gains, and they've been able to stack those gains to make them bigger gains. I think that's going to be the measure of success individually and as a team throughout the year.
We're going to identify those small wins. We're going to stack those small wins and make sure that we're searching for those throughout the year. At the end of the day, we're doing it because we're pursuing progress. We're focused on the here and now, day-to-day approach, and that's going to be the mindset of all of our guys, all of our players and all of our coaches throughout the year.
I think we used the term reshape, is one of the "res" we're going with. We're fully embracing it. It's a phase that we wholeheartedly believe will lead to the sustained success that we want and we envision.
We will not skip steps in doing that. I would say in the short-term, our evaluation group, our front office, we're always evaluating our competitive team. We'll continue to be opportunistic, continue to be flexible and build towards enhancing what we have and then eventually sustaining that.
And at the end of the day, it's a team that the fans can get behind. You're going to see the joy, you're going to see the pride, you're going to see a competitiveness that basketball fans and the common fan alike can notice and see through the TV screen and see when they're around each other.
And at the end of the day, we talked about this being vital. These guys are members of the community. They know what it's like to go outside, be those young kids that they're reaching out to, and making their life better. A lot of players have their own initiatives, team initiatives. We'll be there to support. We're going to be active in the community, and that's important to us.
I'm excited. I'm eager to get going, and I know our players are, as well.
Q. Will, you guys acquired a lot of new personnel this off-season. How do you think that could change the style of play for the team overall?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, thanks for the question. I would say when you look at the new group, the best thing that they've done so far is come together and learn each other. I always like to say that basketball will take care of itself. That's what the training camp is for.
What we've done I think is bring a group together that has a lot of experience, mixed with youth, as well. So they'll have mentors in the locker room.
But the experience and the vets that we have, we have a lot of young vets that are still getting better but also a lot of high-level vets that have been on contending teams recently who are valuable and can still play.
When talking to Wes and how we're going to play and style of play, I think I'll let him dive a little bit more into that and you guys will see that in preseason and training camp, but specifically we have a lot of high IQ players and a lot of shooting, and the ball will be moving.
Q. Will, when you talk about not skipping steps in the reshape or whatever, what does an ideal year one of that look like? What are expectations you're kind of laying out to players? Is it more about how they act and do things, or what are the broad expectations for this season?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, I would say a lot of the stuff when we look at expectations, we don't put limitations on players, how young, how old, but we also don't want to project too much. We'll have internal measures, internal standards as people that we have to live up to for sure but also as players, and when we go through and do individual goals with players, it will be things that they are aware of, things that they contribute to, things that are attainable, things that can be recited and things that can be tracked.
So at all times they know what they're at and they know their goals.
But I think it'll be closer to a week-to-week, month-to-month approach with everything and then figure out what happens there.
Q. Just wondering when you set out to make your forecasts, when do you realize reset, refresh was kind of the appropriate course for this team to take?
MICHAEL WINGER: Good question. Early, and it was a function of conversations with the players that had finished the season with the team. With the coaching staff and with some of the front office personnel, really the analysis was can we in pretty short order assemble a legitimate and sustainable contender around the nucleus that we had.
I think through really hard analysis, really difficult conversations, the conclusion was no, and I think the players concluded the same.
So ultimately once we had those conversations with the players, with Wes and the leadership team, we all sort of same to the difficult conclusion that we probably can't put together a long-term sustainable contender with just the limitations that we had at the time.
Pretty early in the process, prior to the draft is when we came to that conclusion.
Q. You talked about player development. I was curious in looking at other models around the league, what do the best teams do player development wise that really sets them over the edge and stuff that you'll try and take and implement?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, we actually had a conversation with the entire team today because I think Michael has his experience from teams he's been with, Travis has his, Coach Thompson has his, Wes has his. I've been in Oklahoma City where I think they do a high level job of player development. But you reach out to other sports, as well, find out what they're doing, best practices, and the research that we've done, it's about investment. It's about time. It's about being connected. It's about taking a holistic approach and surrounding players with a group of people that know what they're doing.
I would say player development is not a department, it's a mindset, and the people who we've hired within our organization since we've been here have that. So we feel pretty confident that we'll achieve that, but I asked the guys today, if you've been somewhere else or you've done something different and it's worked for you, recommend it. Throw it out there. We're all trying to get better, and it's going to be a group mindset in the way we attack player development.
Q. Michael, you referred to a complicated off-season. What were you referring to?
MICHAEL WINGER: The volume of transactions that we had to examine and potentially undertake from the day I was hired until the draft, and there was just a lot to do in a very short period of time. That's what I meant by that.
Q. Unrelated follow-up, which of your players, if any, will not be available to fully participate when camp begins a week from today?
WILL DAWKINS: Yes. Obviously they're playing right now. They're all out there right now. I don't know if any injuries are happening; hopefully not, but as of before we walked in here, our anticipation is that everyone will be available for at least parts of training camp, to start day one.
Q. Including full contact, 5-on-5?
WILL DAWKINS: Yes.
Q. I wonder how you plan to navigate the inevitable fits and starts of a reshuffling. There will be successes, there will be failures, and how do you plan to not only share that with the public at large but within your team because players may not be able to see progress if they've lost four in a row. How do you plan to show that to them, to show that they are doing the right things even if they don't win games?
MICHAEL WINGER: Will mentioned briefly the idea of illustrating those weekly or those monthly improvements, and a lot of those can be caught on film. A lot of those can be caught in practice. A lot of those can be caught in data. Some of those improvements are just physical improvements, looking differently than maybe a player did in September, running a little faster, jumping a little higher. Whatever it is our athletes are trying to work on, we're going to take very detailed notes and we're going to measure everything that can be measurable.
Then I think frankly just the frequency of conversation. If too much time goes by between conversations with the athletes, then to your point, they don't necessarily know if they are improving, and it's incumbent upon us, it's incumbent upon the coaching staff, and we're all aligned. We're going to be in front of our players a lot, probably more than usual.
It's exactly for the reason that you're alluding to, indicating where progress is being made, letting those guys lean into that progress, like those marginal gains will compound, and it's up to us to share with them where these marginal gains are occurring.
Four-game losing streak I think you said. There will be gains in every single one of those losses, and it will be on the coaching staff, all of us who do have that player development mindset to extract from those losses those marginal gains and illustrate those, and I think if we do that repeatedly over time, our players will come to appreciate that we're very serious about the idea of marginal improvements, and we're very serious about player development, and we are not necessarily -- we are of course holding everybody accountable for everything, and we're not going to let slippage go unspoken. We're not going to let something other than 100 percent effort go ignored. Like that's not what we're going to do.
So if we lose four in a row but we're competing our behinds off, we're holding ourselves accountable on the floor and we are getting marginally better in practice and in those games, we're going to live with that.
WILL DAWKINS: The only thing I'd add to that, and our players might get tired of hearing this, but developing the mindset of process over outcome, investing in the process. We will be evidence based, not results based. I think those two things go hand in hand, and once we can explain that early on, it allows you to easily more identify those wins and those gains.
And there's going to be setbacks. There's going to be losing streaks. It's basketball, and even in games that we win, we're going to be like, hey, we should have done this better. As long as you have that process over overcome and searching for what the data says, what's in the evidence, not necessarily the result how you got there, that's something that we want now and moving forward.
Q. Just to follow up, you all have each come from places where you had to rebuild at some point. There was a rebuild, there was a reset. I've always felt the biggest enemy of progress is inertia more than anything else, and there's been a lot of inertia here for a while, and I wonder how you plan to attack that, what you think will work quickest to attack that inertia.
MICHAEL WINGER: Can I rephrase your question and you tell me if I'm answering the right question? I'm sort of interpreting it two ways. The first way is what happens if there isn't enough speed, and then conversely what happens if the speed happens too fast or what happens if the results come a little bit sooner than you think you're capable of carrying. I'm basically playing both sides of the inertia question.
I think that with respect to why is it taking so long or how long is this going to take, the research is pretty telling, and the research is -- Will said it, you just cannot skip steps. We're going to get some draft picks wrong. That's going to happen.
Guys are not going to reach their full potential for one reason or another. That also is going to happen.
We have to identify that at the outset, that we're going to make more mistakes than we are going to get things right, but we just have to get enough right to eventually over time put enough of the right players together and have the right culture and the right infrastructure to support that kind of a team. We know it's going to take time.
To help alleviate maybe the slog they could feel at times, January, February, year two, year three, January, February, we have to continue to highlight the successes that we've had, and they're going to come in the form of players elevating their games. They're going to come in the form of really special regular season wins. We don't know where they're going to come from.
But we are going to win some regular-season games that people don't expect us to win, and we're going to highlight those, and we're going to make some spectacular plays on the defensive end that probably aren't going to make it on the highlight reel but we're going to broadcast those.
Then the other way, what happens if things happen a little bit too quickly, and we want to put our -- we want to hit the gas. We won't. That's the promise that we've made to Ted, and that's the promise that Ted has made back to us, that we will hit the gas when we have the absolute perfect road to hit the gas on, and it means we've got core players who can carry a super heavy load in the postseason, a platoon of players around them to support them in the postseason, and then an infrastructure that can help carry a lot of water when things aren't going well. Like we're not pointing fingers, no blame. It's just --
So that's sort of how I conceptualize how do we avoid going too fast, what are we going to do when things aren't going fast enough. It's pretty ethereal, but that's what we're going to try to do.
WILL DAWKINS: Summed it up pretty well.
Q. I want to ask you guys about the importance of having fresh eyes on young players that have already been here and not coming in with a preconceived notion about their skill set or their talent.
WILL DAWKINS: When we talk about a refreshening, it wasn't just the staff and the way we do things operationally, it was our eyes on the players.
I think to evaluators throughout the league, when you watch the Wizards at the end of the year, you saw some young players take some steps, and we were more casually evaluating it when we were other places, but as you get here, you watch the tape, you evaluate a little more, you see the guys in person, you get excited about those guys.
I would say we're not going to hold them to what they've done in the past. The rear-view mirror has been ripped off. We've put people in situations to where we're going to give them goals to be successful this year and won't hold them to what it was before, but there are a few guys that you feel good about where they're at and where they're coming, and there will be a refresh from our coaching staff and a refresh from the guys on how they look at things.
Organizationally I would say that's how we're addressing that.
MICHAEL WINGER: I mean, I can come up with something to piggy-back, but that was pretty good.
I mean, we're giving everybody a fair look, and whatever they've done in the past, the good stuff we will sort of respect and carry forward. Anything that they would probably tell you in person when you talk to them next week, I could have been better here, I could have done better there, we're ignoring that. It's not relevant to what we're building.
It was a completely different team, a different roster, a different spirit around the building, a different intent. Like there was a -- they had different goals last year and the year before than we have this year.
With new teammates, with new coaches, with a new organizational spirit, with new goals and new intent, I quite frankly think that we would be naïve to carry forward any disappointments that any of those players have had in the past. But I also think we'd be foolish not to honor what they've done well.
Q. What do you hope to see from Bilal Coulibaly this year?
WILL DAWKINS: That's a question I've gotten a few times, mostly like on the street when I'm walking by and people are asking me, how is Bilal doing.
I would say with Bilal, he's just like any other rookie. He's going to have his ups and his downs this year, but with him being the third youngest player in the league, he's got a competitiveness on the defensive end that I think will allow him to get on the floor right away.
The biggest thing with him is not skipping any steps, not rushing him, allowing him to declare who he is as a player, and understanding that his prime is five, six, seven years down the line from now.
So within the lines, we expect him to compete. We expect him to play for his teammates. We expect him to get after it defensively. I think Coach is going to put him in situations to make some decisions, so hopefully each week, each month he's continuing to get better in those roles and getting more comfortable.
I think physically it's really hard for rookies, let alone for rookies who are third youngest in the league, but also he's making the transition coming from France, coming to a new country, a new environment.
All rookies have the things they have to go through. He probably has a little bit more than that. But we've talked about it. We've addressed it. He knows what it is, and we expect him to be a leader within the room and a leader in the building, on the court and off the court and in the community.
Q. When you guys talk about evaluating players, everybody in the organization, how is that going to work with Wes this season? I don't know if you will have time for weekly conversations and measurements and things with him, but how will you approach that from that perspective?
MICHAEL WINGER: Evaluating Wes? I don't think that there's going to be this overly scientific criteria. Will and I, we've now been together three months, I've been here four, which means I've been with Wes for four months, and I was delighted to join in large part because of Wes. I mentioned this -- maybe I mentioned this. If I didn't, I'm sorry that I didn't.
We spoke with Wes a couple years ago when we had a vacancy with the Clippers, and we all walked away very impressed with Wes. His basketball intelligence is off the charts. His unflappability, his calming for a room, a competitive room -- everybody is flappable, but he's a stable guy, ultra high-character guy. He's a basketball junkie, and he has been an amazing partner for us in the four months that I've been here and the three that Will has been here, whether it's in selecting players, participating in the conversations vis-a-vis trades. He's just been awesome.
From a coaching perspective, he's going to coach his butt off. We know that. He's registered with us countless times how excited he is about this team, how excited he is to figure out -- it's going to be really hard for him, but figuring out how to blend those young players with the vets.
We're going to have streaks. We're going to have ebbs and flows throughout the course of the season, and there's no evaluation on that kind of thing. If our young players are getting better, if our vets are contributing, if the culture is in a good place, I think that Wes is doing exactly the job that Wes wants to do.
Q. Will, could I ask you what you would like to see from both Jordan and Kuz basketball-wise this season?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah. You guys got a chance to speak with them I think it was July when we were at Summer League when we finally got to speak with them.
With Jordan and Kyle, the things that impressed me so far the most is their willingness to bring the group together. They've had guys come out to their summer homes and spend time with them out there, and when we talked about guys being here post-Labor Day, they've been here. They've been here the entire month.
When we talked about acquiring them and had the conversations with them, what happens on the court starts off the court, and the leadership mentality that they've taken on.
I would say they've embraced that. They're running with that, hitting high marks on that.
In terms of basketball, I view both players as being in a position where their games are going to go to more and more levels. Neither of them are at their peak. Specifically with Jordan being a little younger, he's probably still a pre-prime player, while Kuz is getting towards his prime.
With that, it's a responsibility to do more with the ball. I think with Jordan and talking to Coach, you'll see him play on the ball a little more.
We did not let them spend too much time to each other this summer so they had enough space to come in and compete because we're going to need them to get after it on the court, but with Kyle taking a step defensively, being more vocal, having more consistent games on that end where he can anchor our defense because he's capable of doing it, with Jordan flying off, creating activity and making sure that he's hunting the right shots, and just making sure that they're getting the young guys involved and making the game easier because of their athletic abilities and offensive talents to stretch the defense. It's going to be fun to watch them on the same team and get after it. They're bonded, but they're also both competitors, so the trash talking will be live next week for sure.
Q. I wanted to dive a little bit deeper into the holistic player development approach. Can you guys give specific examples of how that's going to affect a player day-to-day both on and off the court?
WILL DAWKINS: Sure, I'll dive a little deeper without giving up too much of our company secrets. I would say to be honest, and I think this goes to the question a little earlier, the biggest benefit we have is that Wes is a player development coach by nature. He's a grinder. He's put his time in in a lot of places working on players, getting them better, and he understands that that's important.
When you have collaboration, you have buy-in at the highest level, I think it just trickles on down from there.
When you look at who he's added to his coaching staff this year and the development background that they've had with high-level players and getting players when they were young, as well, I think that's another benefit for us.
But holistically, it'll be a group of almost 10 people that are touching every single player, from mental, physical, performance, medical, nutrition. It's a big group of people, a specific player development pod that's around them that we're tracking the goals, using the analytics department. It's all-encompassing, and it will be a bi-weekly thing that everybody is checking in on to make sure we're not skipping steps in that, as well, but the goal will be for every player to understand why they're going it, how they're doing it, and where they can get better along the way.
Q. You mentioned not skipping any steps, making this an organization that players want to come play at, making sure players are feeling comfortable. When you take your feedback from these players before heading into the season, asking them I'm sure, hey, what happened last year, what can we change to be better this year, what was maybe a common theme or a big takeaway that when you guys gathered together we've really got to hit this one first, make sure the players feel more supported or something they didn't have last year that you're doing this year besides a holistic approach?
MICHAEL WINGER: The theme was joy. Every single guy we talked to said we love playing basketball, and we just want to have more fun doing it. We said, easy, done. We'll take care of the rest.
But that was the -- in my mind, I didn't necessarily track it and weigh which pieces of feedback that we heard more, but the one that resonated with me the most was we want to have more fun.
WILL DAWKINS: I think big picture, joy for sure. I think granularly, it was communication, just making sure that the communication is solid. It's consistent. The left hand knows what the right hand is doing, and that's something that we realized right away and addressed.
Q. I want to get your opinion on the new load management rule and how that's going to affect this organization, if at all.
MICHAEL WINGER: I think the latter, if at all. One, we fully support the new process, believe in it wholeheartedly, in the spirit of competition, in the spirit of giving our fans the best product that we can conceivably give them.
As it relates to our team, we just have so many guys that want to get after it, it's just not going to be an issue for us. I hope I don't have to look at the policy again.
WILL DAWKINS: The one thing I would say about the policy is it was very collaborative. I think everyone came together. You have the competition committee looking at things, and they want it to be an 82-game season. We all do. We all want our best players out there to play.
The thing that gives us and the front office confidence is just the consistency and the transparency of the rules and who will be evaluating it, that being consistent.
That makes you feel really good about the process that they put in place and we look forward to making sure that's the thing, the goal with more endeavors that they pull out more policies, so I'm happy for that.
Q. As each of you evaluated the team and the culture you inherited, how did you evaluate or what did you see in terms of the culture, whatever that means, that needed to be improved here?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, I think you've got to keep some stuff internal. To me, it's less about culture and more about the environment. I think you can impact the environment more because the environment changes day-to-day.
I look at culture myself, you're kind of like born into your culture. You're around your culture, within your family, but within that you can create your own environment, and that's the thing we needed to address right away. It starts with joy, it starts with giving the guys the resources. It starts with playing player centric and player first, being more collaborative, making sure the guys have a say in what they do, how they do it, and making sure that we just treat everyone with elite level professionalism and give people the resources to do their job.
For me if it's an environment that breeds competition, that breeds pursuing progress, we're only going to look to our left and to our right and see someone doing something at a high level, it's going to force you to want to do it at a high level. So we're just going to raise the bar and make sure that everyone feels supported and opinionated. They can step up and say what they need to say and know that it's going to stay within the walls and be protected.
When you come to work and you have a place where you feel protected but you also feel like you have the resources to do the job, that's when you can get your best results.
Q. I'm wondering how you guys square -- you want this year to kind of have evaluations of everyone, know everyone has a fresh start, but you guys have hard deadlines of Denny's contract or giving him an extension. Specifically for Denny how are you looking or approaching that in the context of you have to evaluate everyone first and all those sorts of things?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, I would say with Denny specifically, he's really invested in his body this summer and really invested with the team. We've had a lot of people travel to go visit him and just spend time with him, and he spent time in D.C. this summer. So he's professional. He's going to approach training camp like he has at the very beginning.
We won't start or -- create a policy where we're not talking about player contracts or player negotiations or things moving forward, but we have a great relationship with his agent. We'll have professional conversations with him when the time is right.
Just like all of our young players, they're ready to go. They're eager, and they look forward to getting after it.
Q. Michael, why has the word "rebuild" become taboo among NBA executives? Why is that word specifically become taboo in a sense, if it has?
MICHAEL WINGER: It's a good question. I avoided saying it because you're right, it sort of does have this -- it has a little bit of a non-competitive ring to it.
I think that it's become that way over the course of time. Sort of people are -- what's the word I'm looking for? Like rebuild and being uncompetitive are not synonyms, and I think at the risk of people drawing the conclusion that they are synonymous, I avoided using it.
I'm not averse to using it. When you have the types of competitors we have on our team, it doesn't feel like your traditional tear-down-to-the-studs rebuild. It feels more like, to Will's point, an environmental refresh, a roster reset. We do still have a lot of players from the previous team, and we're leaning into those guys.
Take Kyle, for example. Kyle went into the off-season a free agent. The easiest thing to do is for Kyle to go somewhere else. But he didn't. He made the commitment to us. We made the commitment to him. There was mutual belief that we were going to do something pretty cool together.
When you bring back a talent like Kyle, it doesn't feel like your traditional rebuild. When you have a talent like Jordan and a talent like Ty, it doesn't feel sort of the way you would look at a historical rebuild and think, they are clearly trying to do something that we are not trying to do.
Q. Is there a danger of getting stuck back in that no-man's land by bringing Kyle back or making those moves to stay competitive? I understand what you guys are trying to do, but the flipside of that is say it's just no-man's land all over again.
MICHAEL WINGER: Is there a danger? Of course, yeah. When you are trying to reset those things and you are trying to sort of tunnel a little bit with the expectation that there is going to be this era of contention down the line, well, how are you getting to that era of contention down the line? You certainly can't do it by just being mediocre, mediocre, mediocre. But we're not trying to be mediocre. What we are trying to do is we are trying to instill competitiveness, intelligent basketball, and raise young players while at the same time winning basketball games.
What we don't believe in is we don't believe in a player development mindset where you can breed a lot of good habits through intentional losing. Like we just fundamentally don't believe in that.
Part of building good habits is putting our players in positions where they have an opportunity to experience those moments where habit can develop. That happens through competition. That happens through the opportunity to win games or win quarters or win possessions. That's why we wanted a competitive team.
Q. With all the retooling, reshaping, redesigning, with the players you want to have in this organization, what would you define a Washington Wizards player is, if you could so kindly fill in the blank with that.
WILL DAWKINS: I think I probably touched on that earlier in terms of finding players who are serious craftsmen. They take the game seriously. They're invested in their own development. They are guys who are rooted in doing the work. They know what it takes and are willing to build good habits.
It's players who can really buy into team dynamics and understand how they can use themselves and how important it is to sacrifice for your teammate.
On the court, the 94 by 50, we'll look for guys who are advanced processors, who can know the game, speak the game and see it early. In basketball you're trying to find more time on the court. We all operate within 24 seconds, but those that can process information and think quickly and move the ball to a spot to force the defense to shift, to have the advantage, and defensively the same way, if you can anticipate and see things ahead of time.
We'll find guys that have that. Obviously the game is changing. You've got to find players who can stay in the game and play on both ends, have versatility and athleticism. But at the end of the day, basketball is basketball. You've got to have the other things that support the 94 by 50 that will drive success internally and individually.
Q. You spoke today a lot of the player development, you mentioned quickly touching on the new staff, with announcing that yesterday. What went into reshaping and retooling the staff from Wes on down and bringing in new guys who have worked with top-level talent and player development? How does that go into this holistic approach and what went into that mindset of reshaping it?
WILL DAWKINS: I'll go first. I think when I walked in, I think even when Michael walked in, there were some vacancies already, so at that point I apologized to Wes right away. I was like, listen, we're going to get to this. This is really, really important. We're going to help you and be collaborative with the decisions you want to make with your coaching staff. But we've got to get through the draft a little bit. We've got to get through free agency a little bit, and then we had the time to really, really invest.
Wes was talking to people, getting a feel for different candidates and spending time with them, and then looped us in. At the end of the day it's his decision.
The goal that we kind of gave him was at the end of the day we want the coaching room to be better than it was last year. So whatever additions we have to make, let's make sure we do that. He vetted every one. There's some consistency with the type of people that we've brought in in terms of their player development, their opportunity to grow young players, the way they see things, and I think it was internally and also externally.
We don't look at it as just the coaches that we had on the front of the bench, Landon in player development, Sam behind the bench. That's really, really important, as well, that collaboration within the coaching room and the meeting and what's going on with the players. They're having the daily conversations with them.
And then at the end of the day we wanted to make sure that our Capital City Go-Go staff thought the same way, and that was a long process working with Wes and Michael and finding the right hire there. We were extremely excited to land with Cody Toppert, and we're finalizing his staff, as well, but I think you'll learn that they also have player development backgrounds and they see the game a certain way.
They're innovative, they're creative, and they're going to try to push us forward and try to do new things and try to evolve the game of basketball and what a Wizard player looks like and how we play.
At the end of the day, we were just there to help Wes. We thanked him for his patience, but I think he found the right guys to really come in and help us.
Q. Michael, kind of a dumb question for you. Do you prefer Michael over Mike?
MICHAEL WINGER: No preference.
Q. Obviously you're going from being the GM for the Clippers, Will is running the day-to-day. How do you envision your day-to-day or week-to-week job description as you hit the season running?
MICHAEL WINGER: Probably the only thing that we haven't created a vision statement for, and we're just going to duke it out along the way -- Will and I were together for seven years in Oklahoma City. We have a deep respect for each other, a genuine friendship, and we know how we want the job done. Not each other's job; we know what we want from the organization, and whoever first lays eyes on something, whoever's impression is first impression, that's what we're going to lean on.
But I wouldn't -- I don't think there's any bright line between like what my day-to-day looks like and what Will's day-to-day looks like. I do have the Mystics, as well, and I'm very passionate about helping them build a sustainable contending team, as well. So Will is going to spend all of his time working on the Wizards and the Go-Go. He'll probably be with the team a lot, supporting them and sort of showing what -- demonstrating as the example of the things that we're looking for, and then as the mile markers come down, whether it's the draft, free agency, trade deadline, obviously we're going to be ultra collaborative on that sort of thing.
But one thing I promised to Will three months ago when we had our first conversation, and I'll promise him until I need -- like I'm not getting in his way. Whatever that looks like on paper or however that looks on the road, at the gym, I'm not going to get in his way.
Q. For you, Will, Michael talked a little bit about getting to know Wes these past few months. I don't know if you had any prior history with him besides just being in the league circles, but in the last three months, what have you learned about him and what has he impressed you with?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, we previously hadn't really crossed paths too much other than hi and bye. Which is surprising because we've both been in the league as long as we have.
The biggest thing I think that I've learned about Wes is the type of person he is. He doesn't have an ego. He's supremely humble. He carries himself like the video guy that first started, even as a head coach in terms of his work ethic and his approach and his diligence.
He's a grinder. He's about the right things. He's welcomed me. He's welcomed Mike. He's welcomed our families and being the local guy and kind of showing us the ropes, so that's been helpful to have him in our corner there, as well.
We probably talk or text every single day. We probably haven't missed a day, so we're really learning each other's cadences and kind of how to go about it.
I'm looking forward to the plan he has for the staff. I really am, to see him lead the staff but also be a leader of young men on the court, as well.
You sleep good at night knowing that Wes is in charge of holding up the values and characteristics that we find are important because we've got together as a group and made sure that we all thought they were important. That's important to me.
Q. What did that meeting happen where you guys said, okay, these are our tenets and principles going forward?
WILL DAWKINS: Early on. Early on we wanted to establish that.
Q. There were a lot of references earlier in the conversation to research and data. Just because I don't know the day-to-day that typically happens in the background, are you bringing a stronger focus on that with your leadership philosophy, or has that kind of always been a part of the process? Could you just give more insight into that?
MICHAEL WINGER: Both. Will and I come from -- our growth in the NBA, I've been in three places, he's been in one prior, but we had the great fortune of being in an environment where the person in charge leaned very heavily into analytics and research and understanding history, so as not to repeat historical mistakes or lean pretty into historical trends that drive success.
So from that perspective, it's sort of in our NBA management DNA.
Then secondly with the Wiz, when we got here, we spent a lot of time with the folks in the front office, and there's a team of people here led by Brett and Kathy who -- they're extremely intelligent, very creative, very forward thinking, passionate basketball fans who are providing us with, I mean, more information than we could have ever dreamed of.
WILL DAWKINS: A lot of paper. A lot of paper.
MICHAEL WINGER: But it's extremely thoughtful work that they're doing. And they don't stop. There's no quit. I spent the last six years of my life in LA, and you would go to the beach and you would see these waves coming, like they never stop, just the waves never stop; you can't just say pause. And that's sort of what this group is doing. They're just constantly feeding us ideas. Some wild ideas that would turn the league on its head if we tried, so we don't try them.
WILL DAWKINS: Keep them coming.
MICHAEL WINGER: But that group has been a delight to work with. I'm extremely proud of the work that they've done in helping us get to where we are, in making decisions, giving us the information, the risks, the rewards. Hope that answers your question.
Q. Will, you've touched on a lot of the players, but Tyus Jones, could you talk to us about why you acquired him in the off-season and what you think you'll bring?
WILL DAWKINS: I appreciate you asking about Tyus. For his age, he's even more wise, I would say. Obviously people look at his game and you see the assist-to-turnover ratio and the guy has never averaged more than one turnover per game. Hopefully keep it that way.
But he just sees the game from an advanced processing perspective. He's a committed athlete to the team, and that's something you really, really want.
I think when you watched him in the moments where he got an opportunity to start in Memphis, you saw the capabilities that he had. We're going to put the ball in his hands a lot more, allow him to make decisions. We'll challenge him to continue to be a pest defensively, but also take the young guys under his wing, which he's already started doing, put them in position to be successful, be an extension of the coach on the floor, and like Jordan, like Kyle, he's won, and he's won at a high level and won a National Championship, so he knows what goes into it and what it looks like, and he doesn't get bored in the day-to-day monotony of putting your time in and putting the work because he sees the payoff on the other end.
He comes from a basketball family. I've got a chance to spend some time with his little family, as well. He's a true girl dad. I think he came in today wearing the shirt girl dad.
His responsibilities, the way he looks at life, the things he values are aligned with me personally, so I've been able to enjoy spending time with him, but I think it's aligned with what we're looking to put on the court. We're happy to have him.
Q. I just want to follow up with that. Besides the fact he just never throws the ball away, how much did your evaluation of him either coming off the bench or starting and the fact that Memphis still had success with him starting have an impact on you guys making that trade?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, I think guys that can impact the game off the bench, starting, we just look at their production when they're on the floor, and when you look at his plus/minus and you look at his ability to impact the game on both ends, he's someone that it's clear that players enjoy playing with him. We've had players that have played with him in the past, and they speak about the quality of person but also the quality of player.
Basketball takes care of itself. We don't know what the roles are going to be. We don't know what the minutes are going to be. But we anticipate him being on the court a good amount, and us being better for it.
Q. Will, you spent 15 years in a place, and I'm sure you've gathered a lot of intel and you've probably had a lot of mentors along the way. But to have this opportunity this first year to be the general manager, what are your thoughts going into it and the work that you've put in now to hand this team off to Wes?
WILL DAWKINS: Yeah, when Michael first reached out, the joy that kind of goes through with you like getting an opportunity, mixed with like all the work you've put in to try to have an opportunity like that, mixed with like, are you worthy, do I deserve this, am I ready for this. And then like, do I have the humility to go about this in the right way to where I don't have all the answers. I'm young in this job, young in this role. I'm fortunate to have people like Michael who have done it, who have been around it that I can go to every day.
Travis has run an elite organization. He's right there next to me. Put all my other mentors that I've had throughout the years that have done the job and continue to do the job with other teams at a high level. I have a strong circle and an extremely strong support staff at home that starts with my wife and my entire family to give me the confidence to push through.
It's going to be fun. I'm going to enjoy it. I know that I'll give Mike my best effort to try to lead this team, and that's all he's asked for. I appreciate you asking that. It's daunting, but it's also encouraging and humbling at the same time.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports