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AJ Dybantsa was all that and more in his summer league debut. Grant & Danny think the Wizards got their guy.
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00:00Danny, there were a couple of moments last night when he went to the rim and dunked over everybody on
00:05the Jazz.
00:06That was a get out of your seat, hands on your head, Brady just won his first Super Bowl.
00:12How am I so lucky? How is this player my player to root for?
00:16Ladies and gentlemen, we got one. We got one. Sorry.
00:21Apologies to the rest of the league. Peterson was awesome too, by the way, for the record.
00:24And again, he didn't shoot it great either, but you saw some of those moments where those little floaters,
00:29those little gimmick shots, the ability to get to the foul line, et cetera.
00:31You go, yep, he's a special scorer too, but we got DeBonsa.
00:34And I want to do British welcome to Wrexham style songs.
00:38Like we got AJ, I want to do a little song and dance. I want everyone to understand.
00:41We got one. This is a badass. Does he have room to grow? Oh, absolutely.
00:45There's a million things that people that have watched Hoops a long time noticed right away
00:49where he hasn't been as defensively accountable, probably he's never been asked to.
00:54He doesn't have second order defensive effort. In other words, he gets screened and then his play's over.
00:57He doesn't understand the next level that has to happen to be successful.
01:01At the highest level, that's going to come. They probably didn't ask him to do that for summer league either.
01:05When you get into training camp, you'll learn some of those concepts about how to defend in the NBA.
01:09That's secondary. You solve the thing. This is what I always ask for.
01:12When you are a high draft pick and the hope of the franchise is on your shoulders.
01:16Sorry, AJ, but I'm not going to say no pressure. Lots of pressure.
01:20All I want to do is see it. And I saw it.
01:21You saw the ability to go left, the hesitation, the long strides that belie how explosive he's actually going to
01:28be.
01:28The up and under move, the dunk in traffic, the strength, the ability to get to the spots that he
01:32wants to get to.
01:33Oh, hell yeah.
01:34The reverse layup, up and under, kind of, you know, I'm in the NBA now and here are my first
01:40two points.
01:40That was a move that most of the guys that just got drafted can't do that, right?
01:48It is a disqualifying, I'm talking from the moment you take it off the bounce, you slice past defenders,
01:55you get to the cup, and then you go up and under with the reverse layup.
02:00We just ruled out 92% of the guys that got drafted.
02:03And then if you account for his size at 6'9 and bigger, the number of guys that can do
02:07that is very, very rare.
02:09So there's someone out there that saw a layup.
02:12I saw something that only 2% of NBA players at his size or whatever are able to do.
02:18And that happened last night over and over and over again.
02:21And, yeah, we could sit here and talk about the areas of improvement that are necessary.
02:26This is a teenager who just played in his first summer league game.
02:29I actually was surprised.
02:30I think some of it might have been nerves.
02:32But, like, his handle was not as tight as I anticipated it to be when he was actually dribbling,
02:36especially early in the game.
02:37Not really sure.
02:38There are little nits you could pick or whatever in terms of if you're grading this against two years from
02:44now
02:45when he's at the peak of his powers, hopefully.
02:47But for a first game with more pressure maybe than anybody's had in years in a summer league game,
02:54going into that game with Peterson having poured in 53 points over two games
02:58and chirping a little bit about, you know, being excited and then sitting out so he could get ready for
03:02DeBansa.
03:03And this is your first game as a pro.
03:05He was just throwing out the first pitch, sitting with me in the dugout a couple days ago at Nats
03:09Park.
03:09Like, he hasn't had – this is not a lot of practice time.
03:11This is not a lot of ramp-up time.
03:13He was amazing.
03:14He passed the test.
03:15I just wanted to see the athletic traits.
03:17I wanted to see the physical tools and abilities that everyone has kind of been raving about.
03:23And you saw them.
03:24I mean, 27-7, and it was about as sexy as it can get with some of the – the
03:30dunk that became the highlight of the night.
03:33I think I tweeted it at Grant Paulson and said, okay, I'm good.
03:36I can leave.
03:36I was Paul Pierce last night, by the way.
03:38Did you see that video?
03:40Paul Pierce got up, told the security guard, like, I've seen it.
03:45He, like, motioned to the floor like this dude's the real deal.
03:47And he left the game after the first quarter last night.
03:50He's like, well, I came to see this dude.
03:52All right, I saw what I need to see.
03:53He's good.
03:54And he left.
03:55That was me yesterday.
03:56I happened to watch the whole game.
03:57But about five minutes in, I thought, I came here to see a thing.
04:01I have seen a thing.
04:03Break out my Sharpie.
04:04This is the real deal.
04:0590 percent.
04:06I mean, you already said the level of advancement that he is in terms of a sophisticated offensive game.
04:11I would say 90 percent of guys that are that age that come out, when they go left, they're offhand.
04:19Probably 75, 80 percent, it's going to result in a pull-up jump shot.
04:22The ability that he has to get all the way to the rack is, I think, is rare.
04:26The ability he has right now, and it's a skill, make no mistake about it, to draw fouls.
04:30I know everybody rolls their eyes at that when they think of SGA going to the free-throw line or
04:34Harden.
04:34And you can hear chants of free-throw merchant.
04:36He is drawing contact and finishing through contact because of his angles.
04:41His offensive aptitude is really, really high without having a great shot yet.
04:46And I really do believe that's coming.
04:47I think last night, to your point, about being not a lot of practice time, not a lot of lead
04:51-in time,
04:52I think he was kind of pulling the string a little bit on some of those jumpers.
04:55You could see the stroke from the foul line.
04:56And because of those quirky summer league rules where it's one shot to make two,
05:01or if you're attempting a three, it's one shot to make three, or if it's an end-one, it's just
05:04one shot.
05:05It says he went to the line eight times.
05:07He would have attempted 15 or 16 free-throws last night, kind of given that.
05:11And again, part of that summer league, and teams are sort of figuring stuff out.
05:15I mean, Jameer Watkins, I think, had seven fouls in the first half trying to guard Darren Peterson.
05:18But you can see the level of his offensive game now, and you can easily dream as he's getting to
05:27those moves
05:27where guys are sprinting 15 feet away from him, and he's turning around, shooting that Jordan-style fallaway.
05:32When he stops on a dime to kind of turn around, he left all those short.
05:36Those are buckets as we go forward.
05:38Some of those step-in threes are going to go in as we go forward.
05:41I'm telling you, he is special.
05:43So I'm trying to not do the thing that I make fun of, and that is so cliche and over
05:50-the-top, right?
05:51Where it's like, it was a summer league game.
05:53It was 25 minutes of basketball.
05:55But I really do believe what I'm about to say.
05:57If he turns into a quality shooter from the outside, he's going to be unstoppable offensively.
06:05Like, he will have one of those games where he's 25, like, getting out of bed,
06:11and he might be able to average 28, 29 points a game if he can develop as a shooter.
06:16That's going to be the next phase.
06:17There's no reason to think that he won't.
06:19DA was saying this yesterday, and this is how I've always kind of felt.
06:23Guys get better at shooting.
06:24Unless your shot is broken.
06:25Unless there's some mechanical flaw.
06:27Yeah, but it's a Markel-Fould situation.
06:29Exactly.
06:29We knew that guy would never shoot.
06:31That's why I didn't want him 1-1 at that point in time.
06:34You know, if I had that pick.
06:35But, yes, if you're broken, and you think about, like, baseball,
06:37you have a mechanical flaw in the swing, you're stepping in the bucket,
06:40or you drop your hands down and bring them up.
06:42Like, there's a hole.
06:44You're never going to hit.
06:45But for most guys, you're going to improve.
06:48And I think if he gets to a point where he's knocking down open jumpers from the outside,
06:53it's going to be a fairly flawless offensive game.
06:58But I am so over the moon excited for this season after seeing that.
07:01And it's not just DeBonta.
07:03DeBonta's the lead.
07:04Correctly.
07:05But, dude, Trey Johnson looked great last night.
07:07Yep.
07:08Great.
07:08Like, I have chills thinking about right now what is possible with this team.
07:13Johnson was 11 of 20 from the floor, only at 2 of 8 threes.
07:16But he looked more aggressive.
07:18He looked more capable.
07:19Stronger, for sure.
07:20Absolutely.
07:20Taking the ball to the rim and with more assertiveness.
07:23I thought it was a different-looking guy.
07:25There were moments where we saw Will Riley do his thing at 6'9", where he's dribbling
07:30around, leaves a guy behind him, gets to the rim, nobody there.
07:32He scored 18 points.
07:34There was a lot to like with this team.
07:36And, oh, by the way, in the crowd last night was the veterans who just decided to come show
07:42up and watch the kids.
07:43What a great cultural indicator that is.
07:47I loved that so much.
07:48That was my favorite part of it, honestly, was, you know, Trey Young and Anthony Davis
07:51and all these guys with the level of buy-in that you don't normally see.
07:56This is a couple weeks you could have your feet up on the beach or you could be training
07:59with your personal guy or whatever.
08:00And here they were to cheer on the youngsters.
08:03And now I'm going to say something out of both sides of my mouth here regarding Will Riley
08:07and Trey Johnson.
08:08That's what should happen for guys that got the minutes they did as rookies going up against
08:14the roster that Utah put out there last night.
08:16Now, so I'm not belittling that, though.
08:19I'm saying they did what they should be doing.
08:21Like, Trey Johnson, after a year in the NBA as a sharpshooter, should have been in the lab,
08:25should have gotten stronger, should have done the things that you saw manifest last night
08:29where he's like, I'm going up against kids.
08:31I'm a man now.
08:33And that's exactly what it looked like to me, getting to his spots that he probably couldn't
08:37have done a year ago today.
08:39That's both, yes, that's correct, and also evidence of the work.
08:43Look, that's what happened.
08:44It is so clear and obvious that he wasn't satisfied sitting on his laurels.
08:50There's not a culture of complacency there with this organization that, quite frankly,
08:55was there forever under previous regimes.
08:57It just was.
08:58Whether one guy individually would work at it, I think Bradley Beal continued to improve
09:02over those years and constantly worked, and a couple other guys have kind of risen above
09:06that culture.
09:06But this is now a culture of effort and a culture of relentless improvement, even in the face
09:12of losing a lot.
09:12And I think that's admirable, and I think that this front office deserves another tip
09:16of the cap for that.
09:16You know what else I liked last night was it was important to some of the guys that were
09:23tasked with defending Darren Peterson to hound him and play him hard.
09:26I love that point by you.
09:27You could tell that they knew what was happening.
09:31Like, this is one against two.
09:33This is about the Bonsta versus Peterson.
09:35There's going to be a lot of trash talk one way or the other when this thing's done.
09:39And specifically, Jameer Watkins, who I think is a dog.
09:42Like, I don't know what his game is eventually, offensively, how much he's going to be a part
09:46of the rotation and factor into things.
09:48But he's one of these dudes who's drafted a little older as a defensive hound coming out
09:52of college who has a decent resume.
09:54And from the jump last night, you would have thought it was a playoff game in the NBA postseason,
10:00the way he was all over Peterson.
10:02He ended up with nine personal fouls, I think, because you're allowed to have ten in the
10:07summer league, but didn't it feel like it was important to them to not only help the
10:11Bonsta look good, but to shut down Peterson, who they gave fits to?
10:15And I got to say, you know, I was joking yesterday about the back and forth with jazz fans over
10:19the last month and let's not worry about Peterson.
10:22Who cares?
10:23Let's just focus on the Bonsta.
10:25He gets the better of matchup number one between the two here in the summer league.
10:28But I did find myself, hypocritically, very interested in how Peterson was playing and
10:34watching him.
10:35But specifically, I'll just throw flowers at Jameer Watkins, but I think the list is longer
10:42than that of guys who obviously took it personally that they wanted to make sure he didn't get
10:47going last night.
10:47I love that.
10:48Yeah.
10:48And again, to me, I think it's perfectly fine and funny even to talk about it because it's
10:54the story, right?
10:55Last night in sports, right?
10:56There's no Team USA to worry about because they lost and it's Spain, Belgium here in
11:00a few minutes.
11:01That was the number one sports story last night were those two guys going at it.
11:04So I didn't think Peterson handled pressure at all.
11:06There was a he was off the ball at Kansas, right?
11:09They tried to do that to limit some of his exposure because of all the injury questions
11:14and concerns.
11:14And, you know, there's a million reasons why they did.
11:16But the thought the thought it was at the NBA level, OK, he'll be on the ball.
11:20He'll play the point guard spot.
11:21Well, he didn't respond great.
11:22I didn't think to physicality.
11:24I don't want to make that like a huge take away.
11:27It's not a judgment.
11:28It was an observation.
11:29I'm going, oh, that's interesting.
11:31I think that's true.
11:32There's still some work to be done there as evidenced by the turnovers.
11:34But you saw when he had space, you go, I get it.
11:39This is a scorer.
11:40This person was put here to put that round ball into that hoop and he will be great at
11:44it.
11:44That was his second eight turnover game in three games so far in the summer league.
11:48Exactly.
11:48I think that's going to be the growing pain for him.
11:50If you want him on the ball, if you want him at point guard, I think you're going to have
11:53to deal with some of that for a little while.
11:55But again, that's that secondary.
11:56But I wanted to see that compared to how they were going to use the Bonson.
11:59This is why I bring it up.
12:00They initiated talking with the Wizards pretty much the majority of their offensive sets
12:05with the Bonson out top.
12:07He was the initiator.
12:08And you saw also a couple really heady, smart, excellent passes out of a double team.
12:13Kind of when he went to his left once where they cut him off.
12:16How about his first assist?
12:17That bounce pass that split two defenders?
12:20Took the words out of my mouth.
12:20Into the seam right there.
12:22Again, there wasn't a ton of space.
12:23He did that.
12:24I thought there was a pass.
12:25Ended up not going for an assist.
12:27But where he got clobbered down low for no call, which I thought was absurd.
12:31But whatever got clobbered.
12:32I don't know how he got that pass through.
12:35I can't remember who it was to.
12:36I can't remember whom it was to.
12:37But he had a beautiful couple of dishes in there just to remind you that he can play
12:42make a little bit as well.
12:43And I think that's an underrated part of his game.
12:44So if you remember like three weeks before the draft, you and I were talking about how
12:49I never understood.
12:51Everybody likes to comp him.
12:52Every person we had on comps him to Tracy McGrady.
12:55Yep.
12:55And I was like, I don't really see that.
12:56I don't get that comp.
12:57I don't think the body types are that similar.
12:59I don't know that the games are similar.
13:01I definitely saw that last night.
13:03Do you see it now?
13:03Yes.
13:04Yes.
13:04Now, when I watched him in college, it's not like I never saw it.
13:07I mean, this is not a knock.
13:09I mean, he was unbelievable.
13:09He's the guy that I would have wanted 1-1.
13:11I just didn't see the actual comparison, but there was a couple of those takes to the
13:16rim where he's hanging.
13:18The shot he made when he got fouled twice on the end one, if you remember, early.
13:24It would have been first quarter, first five minutes or so, where he like, it's almost
13:27a fadeaway.
13:28He gets fouled and then knocked into from behind.
13:31That was McGrady-ish, essentially.
13:33So I got the comp more.
13:34I'm still not sure if that's my favorite one or if there's a better one.
13:38I think he's unique, though.
13:40It's going to be hard to find the perfect comparison, but I don't know how a Wizards
13:45fan could have watched last night based solely on DeBonsta, but also what you got out of Trey
13:50Johnson and what you saw out of Will Riley in some moments and not be really, really looking
13:58forward to this season.
14:00We can open up the phones at 800-636-1067 on that next.
14:04What were your initial thoughts on DeBonsta after his debut?
14:07800-636-1067.
14:09What did you think about last night?
14:11By the way.
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