- 1 day ago
The Washington Wizards selected AJ Dybantsa with the first overall pick in the NBA Draft. It's officially winning time in DC.
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00:00uh what a night for the washington wizards after a long long period of speculation since they
00:07won the draft lottery on mother's day uh we finally see it to fruition last night first
00:13pick of the draft no no questions no rumors no nothing aj debata is the pick i got to spend
00:21some time with him last night but just your initial reaction when it all became fat let's
00:27play ball now i mean i i know everybody makes a big deal out of the the pick and when
00:32they have
00:32chosen and how now i care about let's go get it done you know i look at him he goes
00:37number one
00:38that's what he wanted to do peterson went number two and like he said i wanted to go number one
00:42now i gotta go put the work in that's what i want to see aj do put the work in
00:46now you know getting
00:48where you get drafted that's a one-day thing now you got to go out there and perform and that's
00:54what
00:54i am i'm expecting him to go do talking to people last night all all from all sides from team
01:00sides
01:00from media i talked to a young man that's covered every single one of aj's games at byu for the
01:06deseret news like his game is great led the country in scoring talking with this dude from from provo he
01:17was explaining that you know byu was a pretty decent team they had this other kid saunders who got hurt
01:23two-thirds of the way through the year and aj told coach he's like play me 40 minutes a night
01:29we got
01:29to try to win like he seems to have i think there's a period there where he's doing 100 podcasts
01:35and
01:36stuff and you're like oh like is this dude about the limelight like what's he about and i it is
01:40hoops
01:41first second and third and i think it's just such an exciting fun morning um to wake up to knowing
01:50the wizards took aj debonsa number one and it's it's just that dude that kid had to do so much
01:58media last night i've worked enough that comes with the territory right when you are the number one pick
02:05you got that that comes territory so two stories one that i saw one that was told to me from
02:11last night
02:11that that really stood out to me and i don't know if you'll care about this or not but we
02:16can talk about
02:17the player and how he fits in i love that he said the wiz have challenged him to be a
02:21plus defender
02:22i love that he's like i'm happy to be an off ball guy between trey and ad like i do
02:27think there's one
02:28i think davis is here two i think there's a structure in place where there's not immediate pressure on him
02:35to be the star like he doesn't walk into a team that's gonna immediately anoint him the savior and
02:41say okay here's the ball go do your thing whether they do it or not that's what the fans gonna
02:46do
02:46that's the media you're gonna do they're gonna expect it i mean you don't go number one and
02:51people think you're gonna just fade into the no no i'm not saying fade i just think it's not like
02:57year one game one go drop 30 you know what i mean i think having trey young and presumably davis
03:04changes that calculus a little bit i think eventually the expectation is go drop 30 but it was
03:11it was remarkable last night so he gets drafted these guys get pulled a zillion directions he has
03:18his people with them then all of a sudden he has nba people with them then all of a sudden
03:22he has
03:22wizards people with them there's a zillion ass there's a million trading cards he has to sign
03:27there's cameras everywhere there's big cameras little cameras cell phones like he had every step he takes
03:35for hours there's probably 30 people around right and he's walking from like the the draft bowl like
03:43the the arena floor that's converted into the draft scene and he's finally walking to come do his
03:49podium session his press conference and he's carrying like a bottle of water or something
03:54and he's got legitimately 30 people surrounding him that are there to do whatever he needs done
04:01and he's walking down this hallway and i'm standing right there because i was kind of like
04:04waiting just to get a look at him and he walks by a trash can it keeps walking then he
04:10realizes he's
04:11still holding this water bottle and in that moment it would be super easy to hand the water bottle to
04:18one of the 30 people following him around and instead he just stops takes what was like probably one
04:25step that covered six seven feet and and stopped to throw away the water bottle and i just thought
04:30like it was an incredibly small glimpse into the person right like it wasn't performative in any way
04:37he's just like oh i have this trash i want to get rid of it meanwhile there's a hundred handlers
04:41that
04:41would happily take it for him and it was just like as as i built up a little bit of
04:48experience with the
04:48young man last night it was marginal i'm not trying to act like i sat down and talked to him
04:52for three
04:52hours i got to talk to his dad for a while and his dad's his dad's a cool character dude
05:00he was he
05:00was fun to talk to but i think you're gonna love this especially i know the relationship you had with
05:04your father and what was always driven home in of importance to you and aj senior um they call him
05:16ace ace ace the bansa told a story that it was like kind of you know sixth grade or so
05:24when the
05:25bansa decided he was going to take basketball really serious and he wanted to be a professional
05:30basketball player and dad said that's fine i want college to be paid for because that's a priority for
05:37our family yeah because his father i mean their origin story you know he migrated to this country his
05:44wife like you know i don't think they grew up rolling in cash i don't know specifically but
05:51and so dad said listen i'll support you with all of your basketball as long as you get good great
05:57like that that's the deal and so you know they're going along and aj brought home a c minus and
06:04that
06:04weekend they lived in boston that weekend they had a au tournament in philadelphia and gets a c minus
06:13ace asks aj you know what happened he's like you know it was a tough test he's like okay
06:18at that point ace calls the aau coach and says listen i'm gonna drive him down to philly this
06:25weekend but he can't play and the coach is like huh he's like he needs to get his grades in
06:31order
06:31that's our deal and the coach is like you're gonna drive him six hours each way just to teach him
06:35a
06:36lesson and he's like yes they drive down to philadelphia this song like my dad done this i thought
06:42you'd like this story dude god ace drives him down to philadelphia tells him he's not playing
06:47sits there roots on his team they drive back aj's crying the whole way so upset at himself so upset
06:53at the situation you know all he wants to do is play basketball be there for his team dad said
06:58he was
06:59on the honor roll ever since yeah never messed around see that's exactly the type of parent you need
07:06unlike the ones that i discussed yesterday when you mentioned the thing about source me
07:09okay yeah the ones that want to basically pacify and and just let them do whatever they want because
07:18they're thinking oh you're gonna make the money that's all they care about but what he was doing
07:23is teaching the young man how to become a young man how to be a better person and all the
07:28other stuff
07:29will come because it's easy to go play basketball you know what i mean and what you find out is
07:34if it's
07:34that easy to play basketball play football it's that easy to take care of school
07:38my dad always told me straight up you know if you don't have a certain a b say you need
07:44to have
07:44a b average or higher and i and every time you got a high grade point average guess what he
07:49did he
07:49moved it it never stayed the same so if you show him you can get a three five okay well
07:53i think you
07:54need to get a three six show him you get three six oh i think it's three seven he kept
07:57moving it up
07:59so you have to be that way and for all these parents out here that just want to sit back
08:03and let
08:04your kid do hell you most of the kids that are playing in aau and stuff like that and the
08:08parent
08:08think they're gonna make it they run their parents because the parents are sitting there being their
08:13friend instead of being a damn parent his dad was a parent i respect that yeah man i i think
08:20you're right like you you got to play basketball now and he's going to be at summer camp or summer
08:25league here in like two weeks like the summer league starts super fast and i i just think it's such
08:31an exciting time for the whiz now and there's so much stuff to kind of happen over this process
08:37and what i always say with the nfl draft is go back to the end of the college football season
08:43remember how you felt about players then and just fast forward to the draft because everything that
08:48happens during the silly season in between is largely irrelevant maybe the combine maybe the
08:53workouts i did love that the it got reported out last night that when the bonsa came to the
09:01wizards he actually did work out he had told folks that he hadn't but he had a real workout where
09:06they pushed him pretty hard and i think video emerged of trey young and trey johnson kind of
09:11working him out in in that workout i think the wizards did their absolute due diligence on this thing
09:19and i think this young man has the potential the potential to have all of it and that's what you
09:30want
09:30in your number one overall pick he was blown away in the moment but also like measured in that those
09:36were his expectations you know what i mean like yeah i wanted to go number one i am number one
09:41i went
09:42number one still though the amount of work required to get to this level it was just really cool to
09:49be
09:49able to see him enjoy it all and then going forward it's like all right now you've got an opportunity
09:55to be the biggest star maybe not the biggest star in town but you haven't you have the opportunity
10:04for young basketball fans in this city that have never experienced anything yeah yeah like and the
10:12reality is for young skins commanders fans in this city they never experienced anything either but at
10:19least their parents could tell them how good it once was oh yeah or their older brothers or their
10:23grandmother or whoever like you know with the young guys with strober and toby i called into their show
10:29last night from new york and they were saying like what does this mean for basketball in the city
10:34i'm 44 years old i don't know what it's like when it's good i've seen snippets yeah we saw snapshots
10:41with wall we saw snapshots with gill i remember the rod strickland chris weber teams those were my
10:46favorite teams ever but it was never a sustained period it was certainly never a sustained period of
10:54greatness it was never even a sustained period of goodness you know like the gill teams were
10:59good yeah that the year he blew out his knee they were first in the east first in the eastern
11:04conference at the all-star break like that team was legit people don't properly remember
11:09antoine jameson and karon butler like how good that team was however lebron was in cleveland
11:16yeah and i maybe the whiz could have gotten over that hump if gill didn't blow his knee out
11:21but i kind of doubt it because it was still lebron with you on that one and then the wall
11:26and
11:26beale teams were fun and they won a playoff series but like they were never contenders no
11:32they need them they needed more around them maybe they needed more time yeah this feels like it could
11:38be different yeah i just think that you know gotta let it let it come let it come together i
11:45mean
11:45you got a point guard who many people believe is as good as any when it comes to assisting uh
11:52let throwing the lobs and all that anthony davis when he's good he's as good as anybody when he's
11:57healthy aj debons is supposed to be that generational type guy he comes in and you have a lot of
12:03pieces
12:04on his team saw and all those guys cool body where young guys that you think can make you a
12:10better
12:10defensive team and as i say all the time you know people like to sit up here and start talking
12:15about
12:15certain players playing defense well that's not what the league does okay especially down the
12:21regular those teams that show a little interest in it and begin to focus on it guess what they do
12:26they win more so if they could come out here yes you can have you have the chance to be
12:31great
12:31offensively but if you could just be better than others defensively and give yourself a much greater
12:37chance of winning on a consistent basis so that's what i'm looking forward to i i can i understand
12:44the hype and all the happiness when you pick make the pick but let's see what we're gonna do now
12:49let's work and win how about this the great david aldridge must be listening to the show he just
12:53texted something i didn't get to experience and you weren't here he said bro it was great i expected
12:59the bullets in the finals in the 70s like i mean imagine operating that way like honestly the only time
13:07in my like when i was a kid a little kid the skins were great and it was i remember
13:13you know the 91 super bowl i i truly believe changed my life i became obsessed with sports and
13:19and on a very long and meandering path i ended up kind of working in sports right and then
13:26gibbs retires after the 92 season and and things fell apart but there were still these high
13:32outsized expectations for the bergen gold but outside they still live outside of the 99 team and maybe
13:39gibbs 2.0 playoff team like those teams were not contenders there would be these flashes we had
13:45the robber flash we had the kirk flash and right now we've seen the jaden flash right yeah certainly
13:50the hope is that that's not a flash that that's going to continue and last year was was a downturn
13:56due to injuries and yeah they've changed a lot of things but in my lifetime the gnats had that run
14:04where they that's were like a playoff team for almost a decade and you you wonder if they can
14:09break through and baseball's fluky and they broke through but that has since kind of been torn down
14:13even as enjoyable as this nats season is the caps are the closest team you got to like yo these
14:19are
14:19legit contenders for 15 years or whatever hell yeah and i don't know i don't know what that will feel
14:26like if the nba team gets like that well i mean you know what it feel like because you've seen
14:32you
14:32you've seen other people do it and it comes naturally i mean when uh i've seen it in other
14:38cities yeah but when the gnats went out there and got their championship and when the caps finally got
14:44theirs it didn't seem like it was like like their best year but i'm saying you go out there and
14:51you you
14:51see it and you want more of it i just want them to be consistent because the way you get
14:57to the to
14:58the dance is you keep getting involved you know you can't be the prom queen if you're not at the
15:03prom you know so if you never get invited then that's the problem if they can find a way to
15:09always
15:09be in the playoffs that's when you start having those type of feelings and you can feel that opportunity
15:13when i got here i remember before i got drafted my coach barry wilson he said
15:20bergen didn't go is in the in the super bowl every five years so if you're in the super bowl
15:25every five years you mean playoffs all the time i got here they had been there in 87 boom 892
15:30we
15:30right back in the super bowl so i would say ho 97 we'll be going back it doesn't work like
15:35that
15:35right right like in the nba you look at teams that have a true the word superstar gets thrown around
15:43far
15:44too often in the nba and i think a lot of that is their own fault with the supermax and
15:48the
15:48contract structure and all that right but like when you you and i can name how many teams would
15:56you say are real title contenders next year for nba nba thunder thunder spurs spurs hey the heat
16:05might be with the stuff they got now they can get this stuff together but the thunder nuggets the spurs
16:10uh gotta say the knicks at this point you throw the knicks back in there you need a star player
16:17for
16:17it to work like to be in the conversation where yo this team could pop like if joker wins another
16:23one
16:23next year they get the right supporting cast guys stay healthy that a surprise to anybody no no you
16:28need you yeah you need a star player but i think what you need in the nba is a closer
16:33you know and and it sticks in my head john always say everybody care about who starts
16:38he say watch who the coach put on the court at the end who close who who do you the
16:44coach have
16:44the coach have enough faith in to put out there offensively and defensively with that mindset
16:49to go finish a game that's the one that you really that's the glue of your team
16:54so if aj the moms is not expected to be the big dude because he got people running right now
16:59down the stretch he needs to be that type of mindset give me the damn ball 100 one thing i
17:06really like
17:07about him especially at the college level where you know he can probably get his shot off with ease
17:14and doesn't have to go to the rack all the time i he got to the free throw line a
17:19lot like i love that
17:21mindset and i think that will continue if you look at some of the advanced metrics um chase hughes did
17:27this deep dive looking at boozer debansa and peterson's numbers and man it was uh certainly encouraging stuff
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