- 6 weeks ago
AJ Dybantsa had an exciting debut for the Washington Wizards. It's just the summer league debut, but Grant & Danny say it's okay to overreact a little bit.
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00:00I'm scheduled to be joined by Matt Moore, the Action Network, here in a moment.
00:04We're going to go over A.J. DeBonce's debut, GP.
00:06That's kind of the lead story in the world of D.C. sports last night.
00:09I can't remember this much attention being paid to a summer league game, and the kid delivered.
00:15Deservedly so. We were out at the draft party.
00:18I think the line that I liked most that night was,
00:21that was not something you and I have ever experienced for the Wizards.
00:24And we've had nights like that for some of the other organizations in town,
00:28but there were thousands of fans.
00:30The anthem was packed to the gills, and everyone was there hoping that DeBonce would be the pick.
00:35Remember, they showed him on screen a couple times well before they drafted him,
00:38and the place went bonkers.
00:40Clearly, he was the guy that Wizards fans wanted.
00:43And so your first glimpse at him was last night in a game head-to-head with the Jazz and
00:47Peterson,
00:47who picked second.
00:48The storylines wrote themselves, and you could not have asked for a better debut.
00:52And it wasn't like he eased into it and eventually broke out.
00:55I mean, within the first seven, eight minutes he was on the floor,
00:58he had done a couple things that the Wizards haven't had players capable of doing for a long time.
01:03So 27 points and seven rebounds sounds good.
01:06That does not tell the story.
01:07If you watched it athletically, he's just gifted beyond anything we've seen around here in a while.
01:12What was the thing that made you the most excited?
01:14Like the one element or the play or just, you know, the skill set that he demonstrated,
01:20just kind of the one thing when you've got ten seconds in the elevator with somebody.
01:24Hey, how was it last night?
01:25It was this.
01:26What was it?
01:27This is simpleton stuff, so I'll apologize in advance.
01:30I think when he went to the rim and he dunked on top of a couple of defenders,
01:34not just because of the physical ability that that shows,
01:37but also just the stones to try to pull it off,
01:41the aggressiveness with which you're attacking the basket
01:44and then being able to actually get there and make it happen, right?
01:48That was big time.
01:49I thought his original take and the basket he scored on his second shot of the game
01:53on the little reverse layup checked a lot of boxes for me as well.
01:58But I'll tell you subtly, like non-box score maybe, something I really liked,
02:02the bounce pass he threw between two defenders in transition early in the game as well
02:08showed vision and kind of an old school, like not everything has to be highlight reel.
02:12I got some fundamentals in my bag too.
02:15There wasn't a lot I didn't like.
02:16I mean, there are going to be things he has to work on.
02:18We talked yesterday with Hall of Famer David Aldridge about the defense
02:22and where it's at, where it's got to go, and how it's going to have to develop.
02:25I think the dribble's going to get a little bit tighter around the perimeter,
02:29especially with guys that are going to be D-ing you up and trying to get a body on you.
02:33The shooting is going to be a big storyline early in the season for him from the outside,
02:37but the stuff that you wanted to see you saw last night,
02:41I mean, you can't ask for a better first impression.
02:44To me, I know this is nerdy, boring, whatever you want to call it,
02:49but it was the, like, he can do that too.
02:54Does that make sense?
02:55Like the three shots, I think maybe even four shots that he ended up missing
03:00where he's already driven by his man multiple times,
03:03and he showed you that if you don't respect that 100%,
03:05it's a bucket and probably an and one, where he's able to stop on a dime,
03:10use footwork under control, and get that kind of mid-range fallaway going.
03:16Now, he missed all those shots.
03:18I'm aware of that.
03:19But that process, that look, that's available.
03:22So we were talking about this again.
03:24I think one of the times while you were roving around Nats Park talking to players
03:29is right now, even without a consistent three-point shot,
03:32he's going to be able to score 20 a game just from 15 feet and in,
03:36just from attacking, just from getting to the foul line,
03:39and just from that mid-range.
03:40And I was talking to an old dad, a guy that called in, you know,
03:43who was in his 60s, and I was like,
03:45my point is the three-point shot at one point was seen as a fad and as a gimmick.
03:50Guys would dominate this game.
03:51Think of Jordan in that triangle.
03:53But from that mid-post area where Devonts is set up a couple times,
03:57where he got to a couple times, when the drive was cut off,
03:59you could beat him to that spot because he's 6'9".
04:01You put a smaller eye on him as Peterson was matched up that one time,
04:04and he's got all the space in the world to hit the brakes, do that spin.
04:10That fallaway is unblockable.
04:13It is unguardable.
04:15And to me, he missed those shots.
04:17I'm aware of that.
04:17But it's like it's a reminder that even without the completed toolkit,
04:20that will be completed in the not-too-distant future, in my view,
04:23I have no doubts in that kid, that he could do that right away, GP,
04:27and walk in as a 20-point-per-game scorer.
04:29Yeah, I think that's kind of the point to be made here is we are looking at him
04:36in his infancy as a prospect, but he is a plug-and-play, NBA-ready scorer right now
04:42without adding anything to his game, as flawed offensively as you're going to be
04:48as a teenager playing in the NBA, which is what he is, right?
04:52When he adds to the toolbox and he's able to develop the jump shot a little bit,
04:59when he adds some pieces to the portfolio, I do believe this is going to be an
05:04uncheckable player.
05:05I think he could be a 27-30-point-per-game scorer if that's ultimately what they need.
05:10The question is going to be what is the ceiling?
05:13And it's impossible to know that after one summer league game, who knows?
05:17But I know just in talking to people the night we were at the draft party out at the Anthem
05:23from the organization, their hope is that they drafted a player that night
05:28who ends up being one of the best players in the NBA, which is not something we've had here.
05:32You flirted with it with John Wall deep down the All-NBA team roster,
05:37but they haven't had a guy that was first-team All-NBA or legitimate MVP candidate.
05:41And I know that's a lot to put on a teenager and a young guy.
05:45It's probably not fair, but he has that type of potential.
05:48And it's hard not to get excited after watching him last night and just dreaming on
05:52what he could become because I don't think there's anything offensively
05:57that he won't be able to do.
05:58Maybe everything doesn't develop how we want it to, but there's nothing you can say.
06:03I'm covering the draft tomorrow for Major League Baseball on Sirius XM,
06:07and there's certain guys that, like, this guy doesn't really have power, okay?
06:11It's not going to be there.
06:12This guy, he's a 45 runner.
06:14He's never going to steal a bunch of bases.
06:16There's no tools on a 20-80 where DeBonce is not a 70.
06:19You know what I'm saying?
06:20So if there's a disappointing element where he doesn't put it together here, that's fine.
06:25But he has the capabilities of being special in almost every capacity.
06:29So I think of – they're different players, so bear with me.
06:32But I think of Dwayne Wade, right, who when he first walked onto campus at Miami,
06:37talking about in the NBA, was this Crash Bandicoot-like character who could get to the rim.
06:43He was so explosive, so strong, so tough, and you go, this is a badass, right?
06:49Average 16 a game for a Miami team that was retooling.
06:52Got to the point where he was an MVP candidate almost every year.
06:55There was a year, in fact, I thought he got robbed and should have been the MVP,
06:58where they gave it to LeBron.
06:59But he turned into that mid-20s, upper-20s per-game scorer
07:04without ever really being a three-point shooter, right?
07:08I mean, even in this era of space, he's coinciding with Steph Curry,
07:12doing the Renaissance thing as everybody else is looking for threes,
07:14looking for space, looking for space.
07:16It was never really better than the occasional took-a-couple-a-game
07:18of a 33% three-point shooter.
07:21That was never really his game.
07:22And he had the array, the arsenal, inside the three-point line as a power guard.
07:29That's Dwayne Wade.
07:30He's 6'4".
07:31AJ Devonts is 6'9".
07:33By the way, I don't know if you guys got to talk about this while I wasn't on yet, Danny,
07:37but I'm interested to get your thoughts on this.
07:39Something you and I brought up quite a bit going back to the draft time
07:43was how many times did Will Dawkins refer to Devonts as a guard?
07:47Yes.
07:48Do you remember that?
07:49I do.
07:49Yeah, Strobes and I were throwing the ball around on that a little bit.
07:51I think it's interesting.
07:53Well, didn't he look like one last night?
07:54To a degree, yeah.
07:55Now, that is the summer league and him being kind of ball-dominant,
08:00as he should have been, with this group and him at the perimeter.
08:03You talked about some things going through him.
08:05I don't think it's going to look like that at all when the regular season starts,
08:08when Trey Young's on the floor and he's dominating the basketball.
08:12But that was the vision, I think, for Will Dawkins, right?
08:16I mean, when he's talking about him as a guard, I'm going, okay, I guess.
08:20Well, he kind of looked more like one than I anticipated last night.
08:25So, Strobes and I were kicking this around again while you were over at Nats Park for a minute.
08:31And I think part of that is I need to get out of my old-school basketball mind,
08:38which is this person's the punt guard.
08:40That's the shooting guard.
08:41He'll come off a couple of pin-downs on the small forward.
08:43You see what he does?
08:44And then the power forward.
08:44I think they basically want an army of interchangeable wings.
08:49Yeah, they want four dudes that can play four positions in a big.
08:52And that's yes on defense because switchability is the name of the game.
08:56Being able to guard one through four, two through five,
08:58or whatever is essential in this modern NBA.
09:01You can't put a two on DeAndre Ayton very much,
09:05but those guys don't play in the important minutes.
09:07It's a bunch of, you know, it's four small forwards now.
09:11But switchability is key on defense.
09:12That's obvious.
09:13But I also think some of the responsibility on offense has to fall to a guy.
09:19And if you want to call that a guard, you know, in my day,
09:22I know I sound like an old person, that was a point forward.
09:24That's what Scottie Pippen was doing for those Bulls teams
09:27so that Jordan could play off the ball.
09:29And, you know, the point guard had to get it up with some pressure.
09:31You get to Scottie, now you initiate the offense.
09:33And I think there's going to be part of that.
09:35So if you want to call it a point forward, you want to call it a two guard,
09:37you want to call it – because you saw what they did with him last night, Grant.
09:40He was the initiator always, every time down, whether he brought it up
09:44or they got it to him in that top of the key spot.
09:47Everything was him beginning the offense.
09:50And I think that was by design just to say, throw you into the fire,
09:53deal with as much stuff as possible, just be aggressive,
09:56and we'll deal with some of the real stuff.
09:59Come to any camp time.
10:00But I felt like that's going to be part of it.
10:03Again, I don't know that he's purely a two or purely a three
10:06or even purely a four.
10:07I think the answer is yes to all of them.
10:09No, I don't think he will be.
10:11And my point isn't necessarily that they're going to ask him to do that.
10:15I just think he could probably handle more of what is the traditional guard load
10:21right away than I anticipated.
10:22And I think it's why Dawkins was carefully saying that.
10:26I don't think that was an accident.
10:27But I think he's going to get a chance, and you're right,
10:30it's probably by design in the summer league to do a lot of that,
10:34to improve in that area.
10:35The main thing for me is going to be to watch the maturation of the jump shot
10:40from the outside and his defensive awareness and willingness
10:45probably isn't the right word because I'm sure he's going to be active
10:48as a young guy that knows he's got to earn his keep there.
10:50But just the subtleties of defense, you weren't asked to do a lot of things
10:54at BYU that now you're going to need to.
10:56Or for high school, yeah.
10:57Ever, yeah.
10:59But that, on that side of the floor, and then the jump shot from outside,
11:03this has nothing to do with last night going 0 for 5 for 3.
11:06This is something we've known before the draft.
11:07I mean, he's spoken about this.
11:09This is an area where he's going to have to keep improving,
11:11and I think he will.
11:12I don't have any problems with how his mechanics or his shot look.
11:16But to me, that's going to be the difference between is he really,
11:19really good or is he one of the great players in the NBA?
11:22I mean, you mentioned LeBron, but if he gets to a point where he turns into
11:26a guy you can't leave open from 3, what are we talking about?
11:30Then what are we really talking about?
11:31Yeah.
11:32He could win a scoring title.
11:34I mean, he's that kind of player.
11:35I think that's well within his grasp within a handful of years.
11:38I mean, again, in any given year, it could be Anthony Edwards' year to average 33,
11:41or he could run into that year that somebody else decides to do it.
11:44But he is absolutely capable, in my view.
11:47I mean, again, right now, setting foot in the NBA to score 20 points a game
11:50without outside shots falling.
11:52I think that's an underrated, remarkable thing at this point where that's just
11:56not in vogue, and he can do that.
11:58Again, getting to the foul line, I think, is going to be such an asset
12:00he'll be able to do for minute one.
12:02But I want to take people's reactions to this.
12:04We haven't done this in a little while.
12:06800-636-1067 is the number.
12:08800-636-1067.
12:11There's some excitement here.
12:13There's some legitimate buzz.
12:15And I guess the question I'll pose to you first, Grant,
12:17then to everybody else is we caution everybody, right?
12:21We said, let's say hypothetically it was bad last night.
12:24We'd be doing the don't worry about it, don't overreact.
12:27It's just one summer league game.
12:28Remember, Sar went over for 15, and now he's turned himself into something
12:30pretty good.
12:31It's the beginning of a process.
12:33I'm basically violating my own rule, and I am dreaming on all sorts of things
12:37for this superstar.
12:39And I tried to justify it a little bit ago, but I wonder, like,
12:42is it okay today to let your mind wander?
12:45Is it okay to dream big based on one summer league appearance that went as
12:49good as advertised, if not better?
12:51Why not?
12:53I think this is the time to do that.
12:55He was so entertaining and so impressive last night that Wizards fans got
13:02exactly what they wanted, and they waited years for this.
13:05The tank, however long we're going to track that back and say it was going on,
13:09but really, since the day that they decided to operate correctly, which is when they hired
13:15Michael Winger and Will Dawkins in this front office and said, we're tired of spinning our
13:19tires and trying to win 39 games.
13:21Since the moment they made that decision and they opted to build this thing up from the
13:26ground floor and tear everything down to the studs, it was all leading up to DeBonsa.
13:32And so in some way, it was all leading up to last night and finally getting to see
13:35the prize jewel on the floor.
13:37And it went better than any of us thought it was going to.
13:40So why shouldn't we talk today very proudly, positively, and with some hope?
13:46You know, this looks like it's coming together exactly how we all dreamed that it would.
13:51I think it's fine.
13:53And the justification I gave GP was when it, and part of it's your own bias here, but if
14:01it confirms the priors, right?
14:05Like if he had shot, just making this up, seven for eight from three and had made every
14:10mid-range jump shot, I would go, well, it's not all of a sudden now he's a great shooter,
14:14right?
14:15Because that's not possible.
14:16That's a hot hand.
14:17That's a nice game that happened.
14:18The same way Darren Peterson is not a one for nine three point shooter, which or something,
14:22whatever he was last night, he'll be much better than that.
14:24It'll settle.
14:25But because the athleticism testing, because he led the nation scoring as a freshman, because
14:32of the, you know, the explosion, because of the heady game that he's got, because of all
14:37these different things that were written down in scouting reports manifested themselves
14:42right there.
14:44I mean, you just saw them on display.
14:47And again, it's a summer league game.
14:48I understand.
14:48It's not real competition.
14:50It's not, it's not, you know, a guy who's going to be an all NBA player that you're doing
14:55this against, et cetera.
14:55I understand that.
14:56But you saw all of the things that you thought were there.
15:01And because that's confirmed, I'm going, oh my God, there's still room for improvement.
15:06And he's already nasty.
15:08I guess that's kind of my reason why I'm like, you know what?
15:10If it was bad, I wouldn't overreact to it.
15:12I'm doing the thing.
15:13I'm falling in love.
15:14But it's not like I'm falling in love with second round Sam that was taken at the back
15:17of the board.
15:18Who's 24 years old.
15:19Who spent six years in college.
15:21Who's getting buckets on G League guys.
15:22This is a different animal.
15:24I feel like.
15:24And I'm, I'm just, I'm just looking for a reason to justify my joy today.
15:28Well, I want to go even more basic than that for a second.
15:34Wizards basketball is going to be interesting this year in a way that it hasn't been in
15:38so long.
15:39Think about the number of people last night that were at seven o'clock looking at their
15:44watch going, all right, come on.
15:46Yep.
15:46Summer league.
15:47Let's go.
15:48I mean, that was a legitimate must see event for a lot of casuals that I wouldn't, I don't
15:55think I watched more than five minutes.
15:57I watched Trey Johnson's debut of the summer league last year.
16:00He had a cool play where he threw the ball off of a defender.
16:03I was really excited about him.
16:04They got him six.
16:05I still think he's going to be very good.
16:06And by the way, he was excellent last night.
16:07He was.
16:08That's kind of the co-storyline I thought was he looked a lot different, improved, better,
16:12more aggressive with the basketball.
16:14But regardless, this is so abnormal for you and I to be chopping it up and kind of have
16:20the excitement in our voices about the Wizards in July.
16:23I don't think we are properly gauging how different this fall is going to be at the arena in terms
16:29of people tuning in both to shows like this one and television to watch Chris Miller and
16:33company.
16:34The Wizards matter.
16:36And this player is the biggest reason why.
16:37The NBA is about stars.
16:39Players get marketed in a way that they don't in other sport.
16:42And we've got a guy that, if it goes how I think it's going to this year, I mean, the
16:47Wizards are going to live on national TV in a couple seasons.
16:51800-636-1067.
16:52Let's take some calls about A.J.
16:54DeBonson, his summer league debut last night.
16:56We've got plenty more good content.
16:57You can hear the music in the background where Grant is.
16:59He's at Nats Park.
17:00He's got a couple player interviews.
17:02He caught up with some guys on the field.
17:03We'll have those for you as well.
17:05But I want to talk summer league debut for round one.
17:07Pick one.
17:08Washington Wizards young superstar.
17:10A.J. DeBonson debuted last night, and it was a smash.
17:13Is it okay to let your imagination run wild today?
17:15Grant and Danny here on the family.
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