2025 NBA Draft Media Availability: Will Dawkins | 06.25.25

2025 NBA Draft Media Availability: Will Dawkins | 06.25.25

good evening everyone um appreciate you all staying a little later than normal on this two-day draft process first um I want to say successful draft night for the Wizards we added two players but more importantly two people who we feel fit us and where we are going secondly we were blessed to have a tremendous draft room tonight in this facility so thank you Cisco Jim Van Stone our partnership group for making sure we had our ability to do the draft with Cap One where we normally do it going under renovations we found a beautiful home to do the draft and it made our job a lot easier tonight and we look forward to it moving forward so as you guys know each night in the draft is different every draft is different tonight we walked in with six and eight were able to kind of move a little bit but acquire two players in Trey and Will who we feel are really skilled wings skilled basketball players who know how to move the scoreboard and we’ll continue to get better at doing that but players who have a a real passion for the game these dudes are hoopers they’re workers they are serious craftsmen they care about getting better and they wanted to be here and that’s important to us adding those type of players so I think we’re we’re happy with night one um picked up a a pick to get back in the draft tomorrow night in round two so all the scouts and strategy everybody’s still downstairs trying to figure out what we do tomorrow um but I wanted to make sure I came up here spoke with you guys first and can answer any questions that you guys have i will um just how good of a shooting prospect is Trey Johnson really good um obviously one of his bigger strengths Trey when you look at how well he shot the ball off the dribble and as well as off the catch 41% catch and shoot 39 that’s impressive at his size i think pound-for-pound if he’s not the best shooter one of the best shooters in the draft but that’s not his only skill and he’s someone that can make plays make plays for others averaged 19 points a game in the SEC led the whole conference in scoring as a freshman like in conference play that’s hard to do um and he did it with pretty high level efficiency shooting the ball so we’re excited to add that to a team like ours
and he said that it was very memorable that you showed him highlights of plays that he took off and it motivated him and uh he’s still thinking about it has continued to think about it so can you kind of tell us your side of that story
i got to get in front of him and tell him stop sharing house secrets first off um I don’t know if it was highlights low lightss or what it is but when we bring guys in we make sure that we get a feel for who they are um they get a feel for who we are and spend a lot of time here and we’re not going to sugarcoat everything michael and I it’s important to be transparent there’s a lot to like with Trey um but there are some areas he’s got to grow in just like every other 19-year-old player and we’d rather address it on the front end see if he can improve upon it see what his answers are and it was just fun banter conversations i’d say he had a film session with BK and the coaching staff was probably a little nicer than mine um but in both of those he showed his IQ and that’s what really stood out his ability to remember plays his ability to say “What could you have done differently?” During the workout we throw him in positions and offense and the plays that we run and see how quickly he picks up on it and the guy’s a sponge he has a high IQ so the film sessions were fun but he’s got to keep that to himself next time
hey Will back here uh good to see you all the way back here obviously you’re focused on building the Wizards today but the Thunder did just win the championship you were a big part of building what their team has done and you’re building a young similar core that was like at the early stages there here so in terms of building that young core how good do you guys feel about where it is adding these two guys to the young people you’re already building with here right now
yeah first off congratulations to the Thunder um good to see the city and everybody that I work with get an opportunity to celebrate that um my family back in Oklahoma was definitely proud and happy and at the parades and all that stuff but I think every every rebuild is different um every timeline for each team is different and we’re running our own race and that’s the most important thing for us and for everybody to understand here in DC and through the first three drafts it’s only been two years and a couple weeks since myself and Michael have really been here we feel confident in the players that we have to just grow at their own time and adding Trey and Will they’re like-minded players they have some versatility they’re compete they’re going to get after it and we’re going to give them the same runway that we’ve given all of the other players that we’ve drafted to work on their craft and when it’s time for them to play they’re going to play and get a lot of minutes here
thank you hey Will how are we doing
good um the Will Riley pick uh number 21 originally had 18 felt comfortable making that trade to move back um was Will Riley always your guy in that range and you felt confident that he was still going to be there at 21 or overall what was the uh reasoning behind that deal
yeah there’s a lot as you can imagine that goes on um we’re fortunate to have a deep staff that can have multiple conversations with agents multiple conversations with other teams and we’re just tracking our guys throughout the draft will’s someone that when he first came in we knew he kind of fit our profile we spent a lot of time on the grassroots watching and seeing who he is as a player there he was different than when he was at Illinois i think towards the end of the season when they had some injuries they put the ball in his hands a little bit and you could see who he was back when he was playing with you play and playing in Canada so we knew the type of player he was he was someone we were looking for and again it’s our job to be strategic as possible get the most value we can for the future but also try to make sure we get players that we like and that deal presented itself and it was probably the best deal at the time that we felt very comfortable with
with Will you said he fits your profile what specifically do you like about his game
size versatility um high processing speed he’s again like I said he’s one of those guys who works he had a massive growth spurt and you just look at his face and his body the way he’s built he’s still growing um so he’s somebody that we feel confident is going to come in the gym and push people and develop at his own time but he has ball skills he can make plays his assist to turnover ratio and he’s probably a better defender than people give him credit for but we’re going to test that out right away in summer league and make him guard
will you mentioned um already that you know you’re going to give these guys a runway to work on the craft and they get a lot of minutes here so that probably answers to why they wanted to be here um but during the pre-draft process do you do you sell them on the Wizards or do they have to sell themselves to the Wizards
yeah I think it goes both ways it’s a partnership um what Michael and I are trying to do with the organization we’re pretty direct with that and we’re probably not for everybody like what we’re trying to do is different and you got to want to be here and a part of that and we bring guys in and they meet with different people within the organization to get a real feel for what it’s like like not only what’s your job but how do you help players if I were to be here how would you help me so they know exactly what they’re getting into and it’s not the right partnership for everybody but I think players who are serious about basketball and want to work and bet on themselves and use the resources that we’re going to give them we’re typically good matches for that hey Will you talked about the two wings that you guys drafted today with Trey do you see him as more of a guard or as a wing
can you repeat the first part I missed sorry
when you talked about Trey and Will originally you called them two wings so I was just curious do you see Trey as more of a guard or do you see him as like a big guard or more on the wing side
yeah these guys are versatile like you see Bub you see Kesha and you see Balo like get the ball rebound you see Alex rebound the ball bring it up and then we’ll play from there so we see them playing different positions one two three maybe even some four smaller lineups but they fit the type of mold we’ve drafted where you have multiple decision makers multiple handlers and now guys who can spread the floor again you talked about being honest with them about where you want the players to improve when they come in what are the things for Trey and Will that you’ve kind of pinpointed as hey here are the growth opportunities for you guys
we were pretty direct on some of that stuff mostly used our analytics to kind of back that i don’t want to give the summer league scouting report away on their weaknesses but both those guys are young they got to get better on the defensive end and just get more efficient where they can but a lot of stuff is just really for first year players catching up with the speed of the game working on their bodies improving their habits things like that it’ll go a long way but fortunately these two guys they eat the gym like they’re in there they’re workers and it’s in their DNA so I feel pretty good about whatever their weaknesses are them at least shoring those up
what were the things you saw with Will in the grassroots evaluation that might have only shown up later in his time in Atlanta
more on the ball play more on the ball play his confidence um when he is on the ball and kind of in that AAOU setting he knew what he can do with the ball and score and get places but also find guys when there were some injuries with KJ at Illinois like watching those games watching how he competed and really went at guys in the Ruckers game like that’s a highlevel game with multiple first round guys in it and the way he kind of attacked that game is kind of what we saw in EBL play i’ll ask you a question sure why not um you you mentioned that this is your third draft obviously this roster’s been flipped
it’s not finished I know but you’ve got a lot of your guys in position now i don’t know that you can talk about other moves that you’ve made that can’t be announced until July 6th but it would seem to me that you are now in a position where the young guys are going to get the bulk of the minutes going forward that you’re not going to try to pair them with veterans and have them have the veterans bring them along is that am I reading that right
um probably not completely on that one i think you’re right i can’t completely comment on everything we did yesterday i will say that days like that those are challenging decisions for any organization um especially one when you’re in a rebuilding process so you have to always remember to keep the main focus on the main focus and put ourselves in position to maximize where we’re trying to go and for us that’s long-term success that’s kind of going to be where we’re at and we wanted to stay on track with that while creating flexibility and what you’re saying playing time for some of these young players but I thought Brian did a tremendous job last year having three rookies five of three of them were all five top minutes per game so like we’re going to play those guys even when we had some veterans and I still think we have some pretty high level veterans who can play and help and mentor so it’s going to be tricky to kind of mix it all in but I think it’s a good thing to have um but again we’re going to invest in the guys we drafted tonight give them every opportunity to play and find that balance but we’re we’re trying to keep it strategic trying to stay flexible you know the new rules the new aprons like that’s probably as important as having high level players so we’re going to take our crack develop our guys and stay flexible but on our on our timeline we’re not rushing that uh in terms of Bub again knowing that you may not be able to talk about that other people that were at that position is it fair to say that Bub’s gonna get the ball now i know it’s I know you’re everybody gets the ball but somebody has to play the one is he going to be the one going forward
yeah I think there’s a lot of room to kind of talk about that but we feel confident when Bub has the ball and we want to make sure that we’re playing a style where everybody touches it but he’s going to take a step this summer he’s been in the gym with Key with Alex with Justin with AJ like these guys have been back since May 1st it’s pretty impressive the work that they’ve been putting in and they’re ready for the challenge and they’re ready for more opportunity and we kind of like saying “Hey go get it go earn it everybody’s going to get a chance.” And that’ll take care of itself we’d rather have people do it that way than just give things out to them but I think he’ll be ready for summer league hi Will
hi
hello in talking with Trey and Will they both use words like familyike connectedness to describe the environment here during their visits what does that say about the values you and your staff have been able to instill and is that something that you want them to walk away with
yeah I think that’s who we are at our core um we’re a playercentric building we’re a people first organization and I can’t tell you the the effort that Amber Nichols puts into planning these draft workouts and spending time and dinner and really getting to know these people um Anna Lee Jaylen like the experienced people that just make sure that guys have a great experience when they come here because these guys are traveling they’re going workout to workout they’re staying in hotels you want to make sure that they’re comfortable while they’re here but we don’t want to just roll the balls out for the workout coach Keefe and Cody like specifically building workouts to answer questions that we have about them so it’s more intentional they get to touch the PPE departments they get to sit down to talk with analytics to learn about themselves but also how we look at things like it is a family atmosphere and when I call them it’s not like “Hey thanks who am I going to be working with?” They’re like “Hey I can’t wait to see this person again can’t wait to come in and I know where I fit.” Like we feel better about that um but again it’s about actions not about words we care about people we care about the community we want it to feel like a family and we want these guys out in the community and I think once you get to know these guys our fans are going to love them well we know that Trey is a really good shooter particularly accomplished college shooter but what if you were to break down his shot what makes him the shooter he is the ball going in a lot um and I expect it to continue if you watch him go through a workout the repetition it’s the same shot every time he can speed it up he can mid-range deep four-pointers like I’m not gonna oversell his shooting like this guy does that for a living and he’s gonna get paid to do it it’s a repeatable shot every single time i’m not asking you to compare Keshan’s game to Will Riley’s game but do you see similarities in maybe how the rest of the league didn’t quite value them in the way that the Wizards valued them and their feel for the game i’ll say this it was a deep draft um it was really hard to make some of these decisions when you’re going through and looking at the players that are available and the different picks that are being moved around i think when you go and study this draft that people drafted for them they drafted for their fit and for us you talk about Keshan who I think is going to be someone that you see the work he’s really putting in and how his year two is going to look you guys are going to be excited to see the gains that he’s making hopefully you do that with every player um and with Will he again is someone that’s big that’s stall that’s versatile probably wasn’t known as much for being a two-way player who we’re going to harp to continue to do that but he he’s got some special skills with the ball that I didn’t get to unlock and for us being on the grassroots circuit being on that stuff early gives you a head start and that’s why we have our grassroot scouts out there early i’m telling them like make sure I don’t skip EBL like I got to go see those dudes because that’s important the game is different when you’re drafting these dudes off one year six months on campus so we think there’s more there to unlock it’s why we had him as high as we did and we’re happy to have him happy to have Keshan because those guys will be in the gym all night i can guarantee that
hey Will uh so you mentioned earlier that you liked what you saw when Will got the chance to get more on ball due to some injuries uh it was kind of a similar story for Keshan at Miami and Bub too sort of moved on and off the ball at pit how much do you value getting actual tape from these guys in real game situations that they can play both on and off the ball
it’s invaluable um I I also want to say that we have a very deep scouting department like Ted Michael allow us to have a deep roster and and really use resources to travel and see a lot of these guys live go to their practices because you don’t just want to see them in game situations and obviously we watch film as well so Amber kind of leads that group make sure that we have full coverage we have people in the analytic department that flag like “Hey higher usage this game someone’s injured try to go watch that stuff.” So it’s all connected we try to make sure that what we’re seeing is connected with what we’re reading through the numbers and obviously the intel when you’re talking to all the people around them that you’re drafting your type of people but finding those type of games when other players are injured and they get to do more that’s gives you those little glimpses to study um but again there’s different ways to evaluate but that’s just a piece that we look forward

Will Dawkins spoke to the media following the conclusion of the first round of the 2025 NBA Draft.

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