Washington Wizards: Kyshawn George, Alex Sarr & Bub Carrington! | NBA Summer League

Washington Wizards: Kyshawn George, Alex Sarr & Bub Carrington! | NBA Summer League

Let’s see any other guys for the Jazz that you need to that we feel like we need to talk about before we get on here. Uh like I’m good without any of the like I I love Adamaogo but like I I don’t need to dive into the Adamaogo hive here. Yep. I’m good. Okay. The next team here is the Wizards. Le let’s talk about the Wizards. And I’ll ask you, we we kind of previewed this a little bit in our conversation that we had on the rookies, which you know, if you want our thoughts on the rookies, again, you can go back. That is beautifully timestamped by producer Andrew GMAC. Uh you will be able to find everything that you need uh in that rookies uh summer league breakdown. Let’s I know where I want to start. Who who was the player that impressed you most? Uh I don’t know about his overall play, but Keshan George on the defensive end. Like if if I was going to say you if you told me Bryce you can say one thing about the Wizards non- rookies at summer league, I would be like, “Hey, Keshan George really got after it on the defensive end.” Yeah, I thought Keshan was really good. I thought he was great on both ends, honestly. Uh the passing, you know, out in a real way. He had six assists against the Nets. He had three in the game against the Suns. uh obviously was just everywhere with his arms and hands. I I mean, look, man, I did not like his defensive tape at all at Miami. I thought he was like genuinely pretty bad at Miami defensively. Even this year in like the real NBA in his rookie year, I thought he was pretty good on defense. Like I thought that he gave real effort. There’d be moments where he’d get like a little bit lost out there, but that’s like normal for a rookie and I wasn’t that concerned about it. I I thought that Keshan was really like for a rookie quite good on defense this year in a really bad situation in Washington. And yeah, like again, it’s another guy where how does he score is going to be the ultimate question. You did have 24 in the game against the Suns to open summer league, but you know, I didn’t think that the game against the Nets was good at all on offense. It’s going to come down to the shot like does he really shoot the ball at the level that he needs to shoot the ball? This year he shot 32% from three. I don’t really think he has the burst or the wiggle or anything to be able to consistently get into the lane at all. But man, like I thought that I thought that he was like really really good at summer league in terms of the two-way play that I saw. Uh even with the poor second offensive game, he was still really good defensively, I thought. Yeah. I mean, it’s funny how often we end up with the same conversations and this one is revolved around making shots, especially from the three-point line because he took eight and a half a game, so obviously willing to do so. Can he do it consistently? Um, he was big on the boards. You mentioned the passing. We mentioned the defense. Like somebody at his size with the skill level he does have, if he’s also making shots, like that’s a real wing rotation player. And so like like that was my big takeaway for him was just like the defense because I knew he could pass a little bit. Yeah, 100%. And that is exciting. 100% really really exciting for him. Uh I mean do you want to go Alex Sar next? Sure. What did you think? I I’ll kind of ask I’ll give you the floor on SAR before I kind of jump in. Um, so I I I have the same worries, Sam, right? Like it’s like you don’t necessarily do the big man things on the offensive end and then you’re not doing the crazy skilled things still. Um, you like even the short roll stuff, he had a couple nice passing decisions out of the short roll, but in the one game I watched, he missed four short roll attempts, whether floaters or whatever. you know, he was under 50% from the field in summer league. Like, I love that he can go euroep floater and do some things that look cool, but eventually, and we’re not quite there yet, but eventually he’s got to start putting the ball in the basket. And I thought the defensive rebounding, which was a major concern, was a little bit better, but he still averaged less defensive rebounds than Keshan George. Um, but at the end of the day, he still showed some real high level rim protection and rim deterrence- which is important. Um, but I I’m still concerned like I I wish I could feel better coming out of summer league like, oh, he shot the ball really well or oh, he was doing big man ball screen paint relocation type of things better. So, I thought he was impactful around the basket defensively. Like he averaged five and a half blocks, you know, in the two games he played a summer league. Like he was everywhere defensively on the interior. Like he really really blocked a ton of shots. The rebounding in the second game was encouraging. I thought like he did consistently rise up and like get his hands on the ball. That is one thing that has been a bit of a worry for me has been his rebounding ability. Again though, like just offensively, he doesn’t do the big things, right? He the things that are just non-negotiables for big men. Finishing around the rim, having a little counter on the interior like that little floater that you mentioned. It still didn’t look great to me. And again, like this is another conversation where continuing to maximize what he can be physically is going to be the key where you don’t allow him to lose that athletic coordination and fluidity that already makes him so special, but also you have to add weight. Yeah. like he he is the player in the NBA like may maybe above all that has to add weight in order to be impactful and effective and finding that balance I think will be an interesting moving target. Uh the good news is that like he’s represented by WME. WME has a long-standing relationship with P3 over in Santa Barbara. Like those guys are literal geniuses in figuring this stuff out. Like I I I think the world of the guys over at P3, you know, shout out to Adam, shout out to Eric. I think that, you know, Marcus as well, like those guys are all absolutely freaking brilliant uh when it comes to, you know, figuring out frames and bodies and everything. And like he’s already clearly gotten stronger and has added weight and it’s still almost feels like it’s not enough to me is kind of my worry. Yeah, I mean, he definitely has to. We’ve talked about it with him. I I’m I’m interested to see like I look at that roster and it’s like he’s playing 100% of his minutes at the five next year, Sam. Like totally. Um and so like that for the most part this year too. Yeah. So like it’s but I I’m just like there’s no there’s no relief there for him. Like he’s you know he’s going to have to go through and figure it out and and fig he’s going to get an opportunity. He’s going to get the minutes to do that um at the five. And you know, sometimes you have to feel it a little bit and it’s it takes time. Like that’s the other thing like to your point, we can want him to be stronger, but understand that you may not be able to do it in I mean you don’t even get 12 months, right? Like these guys get drafted, they have a few months, then you hit an NBA season where like when you’re actually playing the way Sar was, I’m sure there’s like it’s impossible to actually be, you know, putting that on during the season. Now he’s had a couple more months. you know, he could put a little bit more on before camp, but this is a process for him. I I just want to see I was so high on Alex Sar. I think the defense has been what I thought it was going to be, Sam. I I was higher on Alex Sar’s offensive skill level based on the flashes, and those flashes have not become consistent enough um where I’m not out, but where I’m like, okay, I’m I want to start seeing it be a little bit more consistent. You know what I mean? So, Okay. So, the next guy here will be AJ Johnson. Let’s go with Okay. Do you want to go Bob or AJ next? I’d rather talk I mean I don’t have a ton on AJ. I would rather talk Bub. So, so yeah, I thought Bob’s first game was really bad. Like just really across the board quite bad against the Suns. Uh the second game I thought against the Nets was pretty good actually. I thought that he stayed within himself. I actually like that like it felt like he was consistently able to like get paint touches in a way that was a little bit better than what we had seen previously from him. I felt like he was just an entirely like perimeterbased player last year. Like really struggled to consistently get into the paint and be able to break down defenders in the way that you have to to be an effective NBA player. Part of that strength, part of that is just his game in general. He loves to pull up from the mid-range and be able to get to his spots, right? Um, but like this is the craziest number to me. Do you know how many free throw attempts he he played every game last year, Bob Carrington? Like he played every single game, 82. Do you know how many free throw attempts Bob Carrington took last year? Um, I mean, I would say he took at least one. So, let’s go. Well, let’s go 120. He took 85 free throw attempts in 82 games last year. Wow. At the point guard position, like handling the ball very regularly. 30 minutes a night, too. I mean, that he played 2500 minutes. Wow. That’s crazy. Like, that’s genuinely crazy. He has to get better at getting into the interior, being able to, you know, navigate bodies on the interior, take bumps. Well, that’s the that’s where it has to get better for him. I thought the second game was a little bit better in that regard. Like he took five free throw attempts in that game. Like that’s I don’t know if he took five free throw attempts in an entire NBA game like through his rookie season, right? So in that respect, I really liked the growth. Like I thought that that was better. I thought like first game was like a total write-off. Like it was a mess and he did not really play well in any way uh in my opinion. But I do think that the second game was a little bit better, a little bit more efficient. And you know, look, he’s really young. Like I think he just turned 20 if I remember correctly. Like I I don’t think he was 20 at summer league even. Put it that way. Like literally just turned 20. And I think it’s just going to take time. Like he he is he’s another guy where like physically he has to get stronger. Washington takes a lot of these guys that are like upside bets physically more than anything and they hope that they can fix them in some way and you know allow them to get stronger and then add to what they’re capable of being. They always draft really really young as we’ve seen. So I I’m interested to see what it looks like with Bub. Uh I I want to be very clear. We This is a very proBub Carrington podcast and we love him very much. How many games last year and I think this might have preseason games. How many games last year you think Bub Carrington did not shoot a single free throw? I would guess 50. It is right around 50. It was like 49. 49 cuz he cuz he had to question he had two four seven games where he shot five or more. Um. Oh, okay. I wonder if that actually and I think the game he shot seven. This may have been a preseason game. I think real GM still has preseason games, but yeah, like to your point I can look this up real quick to see how many games he shot free throws. He shot Oh, 40 46 games. 45 games this year. Where’d you do it that fast? What What’s that? Uh uh I did it on basketball reference. Oh, the splits. Uh, I used uh the game log and then sorted by filter and then it counts it for you. Perfect. Um, yeah. So, what I do like about Bub, I think he does the little things like it was summer league and he’s like getting rotation box outs and rebounds on the defensive end. That’s something that like just I really love about perimeter players. The dribble jumper, you talked about that. I thought he controlled the game. Again, we don’t share notes, but a lot of times we see a lot of the same things. I thought that was impressive, especially in the second game. ends up being a rotation player at the very least. And then I just want to say like the start of the second half of that game, he had an assist, attacked a rebound, hit a pull up three, almost forced a a turnover at the point of attack, and then had a shot fake into a mid-range pull-up jumper. Like it it just when he’s in control, he can really provide some real things while also acknowledging there’s some real concerns about like the high-end outcome of what he could be for the Wizards. I mean, that’s what’s interesting about both of these teams we started with, Sam. We’ve done this with the Jazz. I guess we’ve done it with the Wizards a little bit as well. We like a lot of these guys individually, and I feel like the thing we keep saying is rotation piece, potential starter, like like the the issue with those teams in general is none of these guys have we said number one option face of the franchise, right? And that’s big picture for them. That’s what’s a little concerning, but as individual players, this is still really exciting for them. Yeah. And like I’ll give a couple notes on AJ Johnson here. You know, played better as summer league went on when some of these guys started to sit, right? Yeah. Uh had 25 against the Jazz, had 20 against the Sixers. I still think he like people think of him I think almost as like this combo like point guard. I don’t think he’s that. I think he is a scoring guard. That that is just what he is. Again, physically he’s just going to have to get stronger. needs to get just way bigger and way more powerful at the end of the day. Like I I don’t know that I saw anything that makes me think that he’s ready to consistently play in the NBA this year. I would guess he will be a summer league again next year, honestly. But there are real flashes. This is why like I ended up a little bit higher on him than what I expected last year. Like I had him in the 30s last year, even though he did like genuinely nothing in the NBL the year before. I there are flashes where you see just the fluidity, the coordination. He is explosive athletically. Like there there is some stuff there that he can do. And from an overall skill set perspective, like if you give him some freedom to be able to go out and really create shots and, you know, handle. I thought his handle looked a little bit stronger at summer league. Like just dealing with ball pressure, right? Being able to handle when guys like get into his a little bit. I thought that that was really a positive sign, but you know, at the end of the day, like he it is clear that like he was coming off the bench behind a lot of these guys and I would expect that that will only be exacerbated when he gets to the NBA and you know, you add Chris Middleton, you add some of these other guys like CJ McCullum to the equation. Yeah, I mean that that’s what’s interesting about that roster in general is you got to play those two vets. We’ve talked about this. you got to play Cory Kisspert and then you have this plethora of other players in terms of Bal Koulabali, Cam Whitmore, um Keshan George, you have other rookies, you know, like just a lot of guys. So, it’s going to be interesting to see and I not not all of those are overlapping positions. I understand that. But just in terms of there’s only so many minutes regardless of of that. So, it will be interesting to see how Washington hashes that out. You know, he’s a guy that I remember the first time I turned on the film, I was like, “This dude moves different, you know, than a lot of like there was an explosion that not everybody else on the floor had.” It was just about harnessing that and figuring it out. And he’s a young kid and he still has the potential to do so. at 37 minutes in. The theme of the pod even for non- rookies right here has been like physical profiles matter and whether they come in with it or whether they’re able to develop it, this is an important part of this, excuse me, the very physical game of the NBA. [Music]

Washington Wizards: Kyshawn George, Alex Sarr & Bub Carrington! | NBA Summer League

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Sam Vecenie, a Senior NBA Writer at The Athletic, talks all about basketball. From the NBA, to the NBA Draft, to college hoops and even some high school, Vecenie has you covered in this show.