But I just kind of want to begin here with – What's up with the Wizards? How would you describe what their offseason's been like?

Well, first of all, Danny, I just want to say I'm honored that the Wizards were included on this list.

It feels like I finally got invited to the kids' birthday party.

And now the Wizards are part of the Cool Kids Club, even though it's just top 10.

But it's good to see some recognition.

But it's been an interesting offseason, to say the least.

We expected that a deal would get done eventually.

What do you think we're going to see out of them this season?

How do you feel about that? Is it, because I'm not sure at this point, is that who you would start? And positionally, would you have the Bonds at the two, George at the three, if that's where you'd go?

In all honesty, I don't think two through three really matters that much to this team.

I think they've made this entire, the entire point of the players they've drafted and the way they've developed them is to be versatile and do a lot of different things on the floor.

So everybody's kind of positionless.

Obviously you have your front court players and Alex Arne, Anthony Davis, and I think Michael Winger said as much that Davis is going to play.

at the four and you know whether or not it's a traditional four or wherever they have him playing uh they say that that's where he prefers to play sar has played the five throughout his career so far in two seasons so that's where he'll continue to be and it comes up to interpretation i really looked at this as just one open spot pretty much in this starting lineup where you can have a different conversation about who's starting because aj de bonce is the number one overall pick they want this guy to be their franchise piece, I find it very hard to believe that he wouldn't be starting in some capacity.

But then you hear Will Dawkins refer to him on multiple occasions this offseason since they drafted him as a guard.

Not only who do you think comes off the bench, but how many guys do you think Brian Keefe utilizes in this rotation?

But do you think that there is a price out there that a team could potentially meet?

I think it's probably the latter because i- if you get a, a godfather offer or something that you just simply can't turn down, like there will have to be a point in time I think where the Wizards would be saying, "Hey, like we gotta listen to this offer.

This is something that we don't think even if he played well we'd be able to get in a trade return considering what the value was." And it's funny you brought it up saying, you know, supposedly teams want Anthony Davis now or teams might just want him because of the services of LeBron James.

I- it's interesting because when the trade happened to DC you, you saw what he went for.

It, it wasn't much.

There wasn't indication that there was much of a market because of the salary and maybe the notion that he'd wanna get an extension as well.

And the Wizards have said publicly that they will have extension talks with Anthony Davis.

And that is the next one that the Cavs can trade.

But, I mean, other than that, I mean, it was an A++++ debut for me.

If you think about it, for a guy that just scored 27 points and lit the world on fire in the first 10 minutes that he played on an NBA floor, and it was considered a relatively rough shooting night, considering that he only went 2 of 13 on shots from outside of the painted area, that's about as good as you're going to get.

for a performance like that.

And it's still electrified in every way possible because I think exactly what you needed to see was as advertised with A.J. DeBonsa.

We talked the entire draft process about how this dude was going to just take names when it came to getting to the basket and living at the rim in the free throw line.

And early on in the game, you could see the way Utah had to adjust their defensive coverages just based on what they were throwing at and having a big hedge come out three feet behind the three-point line because they simply didn't have an answer for his first step and his driving ability.

It impressed me so much that he didn't shy away from any type of contact early on in the game.

Where do you stand on that? I want you to go one way or the other.

What do you envision the starting lineup to be and then the guys coming off the bench? Because they're going to be a very deep team with this young talent playing so well.

Right.

It seems weird that a team that just won 17 games last season all of a sudden is talked about as a team that has incredible amounts of depth.

But Will Dawkins has said multiple times since they've drafted A.J. DeBonta that they view him as a guard.

Now, I wonder how that really plays out in the regular season.

You just inked Trey Young to a four-year, $212 million contract, so he's going to have the ball in his hands a ton, and DeVos is going to have to learn to be a basketball player, play off the ball a little bit.

But you could see last night, they had him playing point guard for a ton of the night.

Where do you stand on that? I want you to go one way or the other.

Is there anything that you do not like from this Wizards off-season in terms of trades and free agency?

It's interesting, because I, I don't love Trey Young's contract, obviously.

I think there was a sticker shock effect to it when you got the news that it was gonna be four years, $212 million, but this was a situation where they needed somebody who was going to be capable of running their offense for the next couple of years here with your number one overall pick in the fold.

So I understand it.

Do I like the money? Uh, not necessarily.

I don't dislike the player, I just don't really love the contract, but that's really the only gripe that I'd say I have right now with the off-season, is m- maybe that Trey Young is making a little bit more money than I'm comfortable with at this point in time, and we'll see how the contract ages down the road, because it is a four-year deal with a player option tied to it at the end as well.

But I really loved the addition to go and get DeAndre Ayton in the trade market.

Should the Wizards extend him this off-season?

Ben, when you look at how much money they have in cap space, when you look at the roster right now, when free agency begins, what do you think Will Dawkins and company should be targeting?

I think the priority should be finding this backup big depth piece or whatever that may be, and even a guy that is quality enough to start games.

Because I think if you have Anthony Davis in the fold on this team, which I think we've expected at this point, unless Portland gets insanely desperate and throws a godfather offer that way, if they come up short in the Jalen Brown sweepstakes, I think you're going to see Anthony Davis playing for this team on opening night.

But with that being the case...

He'll miss games, not necessarily because I'm saying he's going to get hurt, but I think they're going to manage his minutes properly to keep him healthy.

If they're truly invested in trying to bring his value up to what they think it can be by the trade deadline or next offseason, whenever it may be, I think they're going to have to manage his minutes pretty carefully.

So if you're bringing somebody in as a center option, I know you just took Felix Okpara at 46 overall or technically traded for him, but they're going to give him plenty of time in the capital city go-go to develop his game.

Your

So how does their eventual number one pick, A.J. DeBansa, how does he fit into this new look Wizards team compared to how Cameron Boozer would have slotted in on that roster?

It's interesting because in terms of overall fit day number one, maybe you could make the argument that Cameron Boozer would have been the better overall fit.

But when you're picking first overall, you're banking on the upside, and you're trying to project which of these players will be the best when it's all said and done or at least five years from now.

And for Washington's case, drafting a 6'9 athletic wing out of BYU and A.J. DeBonsa you're banking on the scoring upside that he has.

And I think truly his ability, one, to get to his spots to the mid-range, to put pressure on the rim, something the Wizards have not done very well in the last couple of years, get to the free throw line, is something that was really difficult for them to pass up on.

It might take a little bit of time to maybe mold the roster, construct it a little bit around the bots as he kind of elevates his game.

Because right now the biggest question a lot of people have had is, what does that dynamic look like? with Trey Young on the floor, typically a very high-usage player in the NBA throughout his eight-year career.

way.

What would you have preferred?

I would have preferred three years on the deal as opposed to four, which has that player option tied to it on the final year as well.

The money is the money, and I guess my first reaction when I found out what the deal was is, wow, that's a lot more money than we anticipated because this three years, $120 million thing was thrown around for what felt like months, what we thought this extension would look like.

I think to me this indicates there was some sort of market form because I feel like this front office... would be smart enough to understand that 53 million annual for Trey Young is a lot for him at this point in his career.

But you do run the risk of losing him altogether completely, which at the end of the day, they didn't give up anything really to get him.

They had an expiring deal they cut off of in C.J. McCollum and Corey Kispert, whose contract was not the worst, but kind of looked at as a negative asset at this point, not somebody they had in their long-term future plans.

But then you miss out on your floor general for this team the reason they brought him in was to be more competitive they think he can elevate the young players around them currently so if you run the risk of losing him altogether and having to look elsewhere you might end up overpaying on somebody else that's probably not as good because this notion that Trey Young is not a good basketball player is completely false in my opinion.

Number two is, do you have any idea who those teams may have been that would have come with a true Max offer, because it would have been Max from those teams, not from the Wizards, but with something resembling 4-for-2-12? Who were those teams, do you think? To

What would you have preferred?

I would have preferred three years on the deal as opposed to four, which has that player option tied to it on the final year as well.

The money is the money.

And I guess my first reaction when I found out what the deal was is, wow, that's a lot more money than we anticipated because this three years, $120 million thing was thrown around for what felt like months.

What we thought this extension would look like.

I think to me, this indicates there was some sort of market form because I feel like this front office is, would be smart enough to understand that 53 million annual for Trey Young is a lot for him at this point in his career.

But you do run the risk of losing him altogether completely, which at the end of the day, they didn't give up anything really to get him.

Number two is, do you have any idea who those teams may have been that would have come with a true Max offer, because it would have been Max from those teams, not from the Wizards, but with something resembling 4-for-2-12? Who were those teams, do you think?

What would you have preferred?

I would have preferred three years on the deal as opposed to four, which has that player option tied to it on the final year as well.

The money is the money, and I guess my first reaction when I found out what the deal was is, wow, that's a lot more money than we anticipated because this three years, $120 million thing was thrown around for what felt like months, what we thought this extension would look like.

I think to me, this indicates there was some sort of market form because I feel like this front office... would be smart enough to understand that 53 million annual for Trey Young is a lot for him at this point in his career.

But you do run the risk of losing him altogether completely, which at the end of the day, they didn't give up anything really to get him.

They had an expiring deal they cut off of in CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert, whose contract was not the worst, but kind of looked at as a negative asset at this point, not somebody they had in their long-term future plans.

But then you miss out on your floor general for this team.

Number two is, do you have any idea who those teams may have been that would have come with a true Max offer, because it would have been Max from those teams, not from the Wizards, but with something resembling 4-for-2-12? Who were those teams, do you think?

Ben, do you think that that's a realm of possibilities, that this is just positioning from Trae Young's camp and his agent, maybe leaking something to the media to be like, hey, we maybe want to try to milk Washington for slightly more per season?

Yeah, that seems reasonable.

I think obviously an agent's job is to get their player the most amount of money.

So a great avenue for getting things done typically is through the media.

I think we've seen this in other sports.

We see this happen all the time in the NBA.

And I think Fisher has kind of just become the source that has a lot of intel coming from Trey Young's camp.

But also, there's another aspect of this, which is the just Trae Young walking for free, because that was what Ben and I were talking about in the beginning of like, what is this something that was just put in place by Trae Young's camp to sort of make the Wizards feel like they have to bid against other teams when they thought seemingly they would bid against no other teams? How real is that possibility, Ben, that Trae Young just walks for free?

Mm.

There's nothing better about picking first overall because you have the first choice.

Like, it's pretty self-explanatory, right? Whoever you think is the best possible player in this situation, whether or not it's AJ Dybantsa or Darren Peterson, or do they shock somebody and go with Booze or a Wilson, it, it doesn't matter.

Because if you are the front office here, you have the power to pick whoever you think is the best player.

Who do you think has the highest potential of becoming your franchise cornerstone superstar player? That's obviously what the Wizards need the most to kind of complete and make this whole rebuild thing make sense that they've been doing for the past couple of years here.

But if I had to lean one way, if you think about Dybantsa and what he brings to the table, measuring in at, you know, 8, or 6'8.75" or whatever it was barefoot, just the positional flexibility that you would get with this guy coming off the wing, I think he fits in perfectly for what Washington likes to do.

'Cause positional flexibility has been really important to the Wizards.

How much do you expect the Washington Wizards, they've already started to play the game, how much do you expect them to try and take advantage of that and see if they could get s- get a little something out of Utah who might try to move up to one to scoop AJ?

So anywhere in the top five, doesn't matter, one through five, you'd be disappointed if they picked this player.

It's hard to say because I really like Darius Acuff.

I love his offensive game.

He was so good in his freshman season at Arkansas.

But the archetype of player is what becomes a little bit concerning.

So I wouldn't hate the pick because I think finding a long-term solution for a guy when Trae Young is not here anymore, even though the expectation seems like he will get extended for at least two to three seasons this summer, I think you do ideally want to find somebody that's going to fill that gap for you and become the lead guard of your team.

Just the archetype of player, because Acuff is under 6'3", he has the limitations.

What do you make of all of this Anthony Davis stuff, the various podcasts, the various interviews he's doing? Is he implying that he'd like to be trade? Is he just playing games? Is he just not super thoughtful in his answers? What do you think he's thinking in terms of whether or not he wants to be here? And then what do you think the team's response to that is?

Who's number two after D'Monsta for you?

It's pretty easily Darren Peterson, and I think the race to number one is, is closer than a lot of people might give it right now.

I really like Darren Peterson.

I think him next to Trae Young would look incredible as well.

And I know for Peterson coming out of high school, he was tabbed as this guy that was gonna be a prolific on-ball creator at Kansas, was explosive, had a ton of bursts.

But I think the hamstring injury kind of kept him down a good amount in his freshman season.

Obviously, he had the full body cramp stuff as well that caused some of the off-court controversy.

You know, is he implying that he'd like to be trade? Is he pl- is he just playing games? Is he just not super thoughtful in his answers? What do you think he's thinking in terms of whether or not he wants to be here? And then what do you think the team's response to that is?

you?

It's pretty easily Darren Peterson.

And I think the race to number one is closer than a lot of people might give it right now.

I really like Darren Peterson.

I think him next to Trey Young would look incredible as well.

And I know for Peterson coming out of high school, he was tabbed as this guy that was going to be a prolific on-ball creator.

at Kansas, was explosive, had a ton of bursts.

What do you make of all of this Anthony Davis stuff, the various podcasts, the various interviews he's doing? Is he implying that he'd like to be trade? Is he just playing games? Is he just not super thoughtful in his answers? What do you think he's thinking in terms of whether or not he wants to be here? And then what do you think the team's response to that is?

Does that change much in their plans moving forward? Because I actually think both of those guys fit pretty seamlessly into what they're building.

I don't think it changes much.

When it comes to Peterson, the thing that's interesting to me is whoever picks him will have a decision to make whether they want to slot him as an off-ball two-guard for his career.

Or do they try to develop him into this creator role? Which is something I think is interesting to think about here in D.C.

Because, yeah, we feel like the Trey Young extension is something that's looming this summer.

And I'm fine with that.

I feel like extending him to have here for the next two to three seasons where they're trying to really increase their floor as a team and move up a little bit as an organization.

Do you still have Acuff as that top guy, or where would you go at five?