The Wizards

I discuss the Wizards' offseason, including roster additions from free-agent signings, the draft, and trades, as well as coaching changes. I share my overview of what I believe the Wizards' floor and ceiling are. Additionally, I address the early discussions about AJ versus DP and all the controversies surrounding Trae Young.

Transcript

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Welcome to another episode of Overacting Since Kickoff, your place for DMV Sports Talk. In this episode, I'm going to talk about the Washington Wizards, what they've done in the offseason, what I think their outlook is moving forward, and my general sense on the Washington Wizards as a whole. And I know for the most of us, you would almost have to be 50 or 60 years old to have a memory of the Washington Wizards being successful. And actually, you wouldn't have a memory of the Washington Wizards being successful because when they won the championship in uh 78-79, they were the Bullets. So for the most part, they've been a joke franchise. They had a couple spurts in which they were good. I know the last one was with John Wall and Bradley Beale, and the closest they got is game seven in the second round. And Kelly O'Linnick ended that run for the Wizards. So it's really hard for anybody to really jump in and be happy and root, want to root for the Wizards, and I get that. And it's also not helpful that the Monumental Sports Network has not worked. Nobody, no cable has it. I can't get it. My brother can't get it. My parents can't get it. We all live in the DMV. None of us can get it, and it's not worth $20 a month. You don't get any value for it because what are we going to watch outside of Wizards games and I guess Caps games? There's no other programming, so it's not worth the money to sign up for that. In addition, there's always stories coming out that Zach Leonsis, I believe, runs the network, that none of the talent can say anything negative about the teams. So you just get homers talking about the team on the few other shows they have. So he's really not making it easy for fans to jump on in. Thankfully, he has hired competent front office. Will Dawkins has done, I think, a masterful job of tearing down and fixing, or at least trying to fix, all the mistakes that the Ernie Grunfeld error set up and whatever that stupid Tommy Shepard error was. And he sort of brought everything down to the studs, and he's slowly been rebuilding, adding assets, moving assets around, flipping second-round picks, hoarding second-round picks, getting pick swaps. I mean, the fact that he was able to trade Bradley Beal for anything is amazing. And we think we still have some pick swaps coming up for uh with that trade. So that could be helpful in the future. But I just think that the Wizards have done a really good job, and I'm sort of hopeful for this upcoming season that they can actually make some improvements and actually sort of look like a competent team. Now, I don't believe they're going to, you know, they're not making the Eastern Conference Finals or anything like that, but I think they could be a playoff team if AJ Debonsa, who they drafted number one overall this year, actually plays up to his talent level, and they've added some nice pieces too. I know everybody has hated the Trey Young contract, and I don't know why they've hated the Trey Young contract so much. There's a lot of reasons, and I'll get into the reasons in a second why I believe that the Trae Young contract is fine, that yes, it's an overpay, but we'll talk about why there's an overpay. Wizards also have Anthony Davis on the roster, and I think I know he doesn't want to be here. I get it, they're not ready to compete, and he would rather, I mean, obviously anybody would rather be put on a team that can win today as opposed to a maybe. But if he wants to go to a team that's can win, he needs to demonstrate to the t other teams that he's still capable of high-level performance and he's capable of playing more than five minutes and then getting injured. And so this is going to be a big half season for him if he wants to get traded to a quote-unquote better team. And we also have other players that have been stepping up. Keyshawn George has been stepping up since he was drafted. Blau Kulabali hasn't really demonstrated the ability to shoot, but he's a great defender. Um, Bub Carrington, and this is part of the reason why I think that the Wizards really went out and got Trey Young. Bub Carrington is just not a starting point guard, and so you have Trey Young there. He's a good spot-up shooter. Trey Johnson, same thing, spot up shooter. So they do have the pieces to compete. And then you throw in DeAndre Ayton as a great backup center. You definitely have the pieces to be a successful team. So let's talk about the Trey Young contract. I know everybody went bonkers when they traded for him. Somehow that was the dumbest trade in the world. Oh my god, they gave up CJ McCollum, who's too old to want to be on this team when his contract's up, and Corey Kispert. Corey Kisbert's a good player, but he's not game-changing. So they really didn't give up anything. And there is no way that CJ McCollum would have signed an extension with the Wizards. And I don't know if they wanted him to sign an extension, anyways. He's an older player. He's at the twilight of his career. He is not going to will you into the playoffs. Trey Young, on the other hand, has made this all-star game four times. He has demonstrated the ability to score at will, and he's also a very good passer. I know the narrative was, well, if he's such an amazing player, why did the Atlanta Hawks want to get rid of him? I think the Atlanta Hawks wanted to get rid of him because they have a backlog of younger players, although 27 to 28 is not that old, but they have younger players on their roster that fit into the same role as Trey Young, and there is no way they're going to pay him a max contract and then have to pay everybody else. They drafted Zachary Reichescher. They have a bunch of younger guards, so he didn't fit in with anything. And I know everybody else would say, well, they played much better when he was not playing. Who cares about that? That has no impact on his ability to be successful on another team. So the trade wasn't a bad trade. I think the trade was fine. I think the trade was good. And once they made the trade, you knew that he was going to opt out and try to sign a new contract. And you had this feeling that there was no way the Wizards were going to trade for him, doesn't matter what they gave up, and somehow let him walk at the end of the year. So it just didn't make any sense why. So with the Trey Young coming here, you knew that he was going to get paid. I know we all saw the analytics bros come out there with, oh, he's worth this much and that. And sure, I guess if you throw it into the computer algorithms and all of that, yeah, he's probably not worth $212 million for four years. I guarantee you, no player is going to be worth the max contract. There's always going to be reasons why they're not going to be worth the max contract. And yeah, it's far better not to give somebody the max contract, but you kind of thought you knew they were going to have to give him the max contract. And they also didn't give him the max contract. They gave him the max contract that a team that didn't have his rights could give him. The Wizards could have given him, I think, $80 million more. And so it's not the worst contract in the entire world. I know all of the SPN pundits said it was the worst contract ever. It is not the worst contract ever. And the reason it's not the worst contract ever for the Washington Wizards is one simple reason. The Wizards cannot get free agents to come and sign here. There is no big name free agent that will sign with the Wizards. Full stop. The only way they can get somebody potentially to come here is the Trey Young style contract. Somebody who wants to resurrect their career, they're young enough to resurrect their career and be okay with coming from the ground floor. And that's Trey Young. Nobody else is coming through the door that is quote unquote better than Trey Young to this franchise right now. It has the narrative around them of being a dumpster fire franchise, and that's all ESPN talks about. So obviously, all the players watch ESPN, they listen to all the pundits and stuff talk about. There's no free agents coming through the front door. So you're going to have to overpay. You're going to have to give more years than you want to. You're going to have to give more money than you want to. I liken the Trey Young contract to what the Nationals did when they were trying to be successful, and they gave Jason Worth like a seven-year contract for I think it was like $120 million or so. It was a lot of money, a lot of years for an above-average player. But they needed to demonstrate that they're willing to spend money and that they're ready to compete. And so they needed to target somebody who's on the fringe of an all-star, and that was Jason Worth. And that's pretty much the same thing you see with Trey Young. And so that's why it's a good signing. They're not going to go, it doesn't matter if this brings them to the apron. It's not like Giannis is going to sign with them, or Wembiamba is going to sign with them, or LeBron James is going to sign. It doesn't matter. They do not need the cap room for these players because they're not coming here. Maybe in four years, free agents will want to come here. But right now, they are not coming. So this contract will not impact the Wizard's ability to sign players because those players do not exist right now. You need to win in order for free agents to want to come here. And the only way to win, I believe, is with someone like Trey Young. There is also no point guards, real realistically, on the free agent market. So when you put all of that together, it makes sense that they gave somebody who probably is only worth $140 million, kind of crazy saying how much somebody's worth, $212 million. It makes perfect sense. If he plays up to 78, 75% of what he was a few years ago, the signing will be good. It will be a good signing. The team will be very successful. And that's what you want. You cannot have a team that has a top five point guard, a top five power forward, a top five center, a top five shooting guard. You can't have top five in every position. You're going to have to have mediocre to above average players in addition to your superstars. You're not going to have, and it's never been successful when they have all super team. It's just not the way it works. Alright, so there's other reasons why you are going to have to potentially overpay for players. And I always liked how everybody was, oh, there was no market for Trey Young. There's definitely a market for Trey Young. That's the reason why he signed the 212 wind on a contract with the Wizards, because that's what other teams were going to give him, and the Wizards match that. Okay. The other thing with Trey Young is yes, I know his defense is terrible. Who cares? Can he score? Can he distribute the ball? If the answer to those questions are yes, then who cares about defense? It doesn't matter. They have other players who can play defense. They can move Trey Young so that he is not covering the number one offensive threat on the opposing team. We see this all the time in other sports. Offense is more important than defense. You see that in baseball. Juan Soto is a terrible outfielder. He is actually horrific in the outfield. But he can hit, he can get on base, and randomly he can steal bases. That is more important. There are plenty of players who are great defensively in baseball. If you're a nationals fan, Michael A. Taylor was great. He's a fantastic defensive player. He was amazing. He couldn't hit. Not really that worth on a team if you can't hit. It doesn't matter. You can cover up bad defense. You cannot cover up bad offense. You just can't because then you're going five on four when you're on offense. On defense, you can. You can get more creative with your defensive sets. You can do a lot more switching. There's so many things you can do on the defensive side of the ball to cover up defensive inefficiencies that you cannot do on the offensive side of the ball. So I don't really care about his defense. The only thing I care about his defense, is he a willing defender? If the answer to that is yes, he's a willing defender, that's all I need to know. Because you can work with somebody who's a willing defender. If you're an unwilling defender, it doesn't matter. You're not interested in playing defense, you'll never get good. But if you're a willing defender, you might get to be meh. And that's fine, meh, defensively. Again, I'm going to throw another example that we're all well aware of. The Commanders in 2024, not last year, but two years ago, their defense was terrible. Absolutely garbage. And yet, where did they end up? They were one game away from the Super Bowl. So if you just take that defense and make it mediocre, you can go places. Offense is always more important than defense. So it's okay if you have one bad defender. You have plenty of other defenders on the team that can cover up for this. So I don't care about his defense. Nobody should care about his defense. You should care about is he still able to score as he used to? Can he still distribute the ball? Can he shoot and drive and make baskets? If the answer to that is yes, then that's all we need, and then it would be amazing signing. Okay? Don't worry about the defense. The defense doesn't matter. Okay? Defense doesn't matter. It's all about the scoring with Trey Young. All about the distributing with Trey Young. That's what we want. And so every time I hear some of these pundits say it, it's I almost wonder, do you even know anything about basketball? Do you know anything? Like, it's just it's just mind-boggling listening to them. Because they'll have these takes and then they'll switch to another team and it'll be the same thing and be like, oh, it's good because he can score. Again, it's all that matters. The other thing is, I know we see a lot of AJ DeBonsa talk, especially since Darren Peterson apparently had a couple good summer league games, and apparently because he had a couple good summer league games, the Wizards fumbled it and they should have drafted Darren Peterson. That has to be the dumbest take I've ever seen in my entire life. It's a summer league game. Who cares? Who really cares about a summer league? All you really need is not to look lost and confused. That's it. If AJ DeBonsa doesn't look lost and confused, he looks like he's working on his craft, he looks like he's making baskets, that's fine. He doesn't need to outcompete Darren Peterson. It doesn't matter. Also, Darren Peterson had way more to prove than AJ DeBonsa for a couple reasons. One, Darren Peterson was supposed to be the number one overall pick. I don't want to say he fumbled it because a lot of things happened. But there were a lot of red flags that popped up during his freshman year at Kansas that prevented the Wizards from drafting him. And so he had a lot to prove this summer league, where DeBonsa doesn't have to prove. And I know if AJ DeBonsa doesn't drop like a quintiple double, everybody's going to say they made a mistake. And they should have drafted Darren Peterson. Which doesn't make any sense. Because in the summer league, you're not playing against NBA players. You're playing against first, well, you are playing against NBA players, but you're playing against rookies, first and second year, and maybe a few journeyman players. So it doesn't matter. And what if, during the summer league, what if he's working on his defense instead, or he's working on his shot, or he's working on something else. You do not know what he is being told by the coaching staff. We don't know. It's the same thing we see in preseason football. I don't know how old you are listening to this, but if you remember back to the Steve Spurrier days for the Redskins, there was a preseason game where they went to Osaka, and my lord, they unloaded the playbook. I think it was against the 49ers, too. They looked amazing. Like we were all hyped for the start of the year that we were just going to cruise through the season and make the Super Bowl. And when the season started, couldn't do anything. Nothing worked. And the reason nothing worked is because the other team didn't care, because it's preseason, and it's preseason. Like you're not playing against the starters. So you can have amazing Summer League performances that will not translate into the regular season, and vice versa. You can have bad Summer League performances. When Bianca had a terrible summer league introduction. I think he was like two for 13. Does that mean that he was a bust? No. I know Alex Starr went 0 for 15, and everybody was like, oh my god, what a bust. Doesn't matter. He was working on his shot during that time. And he had a pretty good year. He's like a borderline all-star. He needs to work on a few things, especially his ball handling. He's a little sloppy on it, but it doesn't matter the Summer League. I know it gins up, you know, eyeballs on the TV when you have this, and I know that's what all the pundits and things are talking about, but it doesn't matter. Although the funny thing I've seen on social media about the Wizards making the mistake, you see a lot of tweets from from jazz fans saying, oh, it uh Darren Peterson should have been the number one overall pick. Look how this look, Darren Peterson is so amazing. Wizards screwed up, they should have been the number one over pick. So it's kind of funny. Like, do you did you want the Wizards to take Darren Peterson? So you got stuck with AJ DaBanza? Though they should have phrased it, their mistake is our game, but it's all about just trashing the Wizards. And there's there's no rivalry between the two. I know they played each other. They shouldn't be. Two different players, two different positions, one's on the East Coast, one's on the Western Conference. Doesn't matter. I know it's sort of like randomly set up. I don't think it was randomly set up that Utah would be playing the Wizards. I think I think they scheduled that just when they knew the Wizards would pick one and the Jazz would pick two. But let's calm down about whatever happens in the Summer League. It doesn't matter. As long as AJ DeBonsa doesn't look lost, like Johnny Davis looked lost a few years back when the Wizards draft him. And if you look at the Summer League MVPs, there's nobody quality. Alright? It's just not. Because that's not the point of summer league. The point of summer league for a player like Darren Peterson and AJ DeBonsa is just to get their feet wet against kind of NBA level talent. Just so you can see what they do in a real-time situation against another team. So they can run and try different things that you can't really try when you're scrimmaging against yourself. And so that's what the summer league is for AJ DeBonsa, Darren Peterson, all the rest. Additionally, summer league for the fringe players is to get that two-way contract or to get that minimum contract. That's what it is. Full stop. It has no bearing on anything. Okay, so let's just let that one go. AJ DeBonsa will play well this year, regardless of his summer league performance. So it also brings up some of the annoyance that we see with the uh national media in terms of discussing the Washington Wizards, and I want to talk a little bit about that. Gets kind of old listening to them. Like, I understand that they really only want to talk about five or six teams. They have no interest in talking about the undesirable teams, the quote-unquote poverty franchise teams. I get it. It's a lot easier just to talk about the Lakers, San Antonio, Knicks, and Celtics, and maybe sprinkle in the Pistons and the Cavs every once in a while. But it's getting kind of old listening to them, and I really think their takes are stupid and lazy. Like I really don't think they pay attention to anything other than the few teams that I mentioned. And I think that feeds into why the teams are dismissed like the wizards and other teams and it's really annoying listening to them do that. So I'm very hopeful for this season for the Wizards. So what I really want the Wizards to do is obviously be the sixth seed, so they don't have to do the play-in. But realistically, I think I would almost I would be happy if you told me right now they're gonna double their win total from last year. I know 16 wins and now it's 32, but 32 is you you can see improvement. So my hopefulness, my I think my floor is 32 wins. And honestly, 32 wins, you're probably getting close to the 10 seed over there. My ceiling for them is the six seed and maybe win a game or two in the playoffs. And that's probably where I see them in between those two. And I think if they do any of that, obviously if they're closer to the ceiling, I definitely think you're going to see the narrative around them change. As opposed to right now, the narrative is they're idiots and they don't know what they're doing, and it's the same old wizards, and I understand it's really difficult to shake that narrative. And just if you're a casual observer, you definitely haven't seen an improvement. You've seen this forced tank that the wizards have been doing, and they should have been punished for it, and things like that. And I know you also have the narrative that Keith is a terrible coach, and why is he still there? And I really think that Keith is still there for a couple of reasons. The first reason is he's there because they could not find a better coach. I know they didn't interview and they made it seem like they were always going to keep him around, and maybe they were, but I really think they made some preliminary outreach to some of the coaches and they were rebuffed. And so they never got beyond, hey, are you interested? And they were told no. The other thing with Keith is we don't know if he's a good coach or not. When he was brought on, he was told to do one thing, lose. And that's it. He wasn't told to be competitive, he wasn't told to have smart rotations, he wasn't told to have players play the correct minutes, he was told to lose. And so he was doing a fantastic job at that. They lost. You know, they was told to develop the players. And did he develop the players? We'll find out this year. Whereas now, he's being told to win. So you're going to see much different lineups, much different rotations happening. Whereas you'll see a player play bad, and if this was last year, trot them back out in the second half, continue on, learn from your mistakes, go free, shoot the ball, do whatever you want. This year it should be different. This year should be a situation in which if they're not playing well, they're going to get benched. If it's the end of the game situation, you're not going to see Champagny on the bench. You're going to see these players get put into situations in which they can try to win the games. Because getting the eighth pick would have been disastrous because that would have gone to the Knicks. So you needed the number one pick, and this was the last year they really realistic could have done this. You also see the changes that they made to the coaching staff recently. Also an indication that I don't want to say he's on the hot seat, but indications you do have a coach, veteran coach in Steve Clifford, who could be moved up pretty quickly. And also I like the hire of I like the hire of uh Ewing a little bit more than the Steve Clifford. Steve Clifford sort of seems like a backstop, you know. Maybe if things go bad, we can bring Steve Clifford in and maybe he can give us some ideas, because I know he's more of a consultant than an assistant coach. But I think with Ewing, I think Ewing's Ewing. Alright, so we all know that Patrick Ewing was a horrific coach at Georgetown. I'm not sure if he was a horrific coach because his coaching was bad, or was it his interpersonal relationships? So I I don't really know the two because you definitely saw a lot of players transfer out and not say nice things about Patrick Ewing. But we don't care about that part with them, even if he's still not a jerk or things like that. He's not the head coach. He's there. Well, he took this job, obviously, so he can get back into coaching, but he's, I hope, and I'm my my thought is that he's there to work with Alex Tsar, make him a better defensive player, make him more confident with the ball when he gets the ball down low, improve his defensive abilities and his offensive ability, at least around the rim. Because if we can unlock that with Alex Tsar, I know he's a little slight of frame, but if we can unlock more of his offensive abilities and make him more, I don't know if it's a confidence thing, I don't know what it is, but he's sort of a little, it seems to me, at least on not the defensive side too much, so he'll go for the SWAT. But for the offense, he seems a little timid with the ball, and he's very sloppy when he's handling the ball. There's so many turnovers you can see with him, it's just losing control of the ball. And I think Patrick Ewing's job is to work with him on that one. Honestly, you can even argue DeAndre Ayton should be able to help him. He is a former number one overall pick, and I think that was a great trait to put him there as a bench player. He's not starting. I know you hear the pundits saying, he's not starting. The only way that DeAndre Ayton's starting is if something bad happened to Alex Tarr. He's not starting. Okay? You could potentially see some lineups in which he's playing next to Alex Tsar at the beginning of the game, but he's not a starter. Okay. Same thing with Chris Middleton. I saw that today that apparently Chris Middleton is now a starter. He's absolutely not a starter. That also is a really good trade because Chris Middleton's a great vet, and he could help AJ DeBonso. He's a good player, Chris Middleton. He's played 14 years. He helped the Bucs win the NBA championship. It was not 100% Giannis. He helped him. He can shoot the ball. He is a good player. It's a great vet presence. And apparently he wanted to come back here to Washington, so that's pretty nice. And like the contract that he got is nothing. Like they dumped D'Angelo Russell's contract. And yes, it's a three-year contract, but this year it's guaranteed like five and a half million dollars or so. Next year it's only guaranteed under a million, and then year three, and it's not guaranteed. So this see they're done with him after this year. So that's a great, that's a great trade for them. They gave up nothing. They dumped D'Angelo Russell's contract. So that's a good, and you can see that they're sort of building some vet presence. That's what the end of the bench is for. It is for vets. As much as I liked Anthony Gill, great vet presence. He just did not have the talent or the experience as a winning team on a winning team. So he's the Anthony Gill. I think that's so helpful to have a big vet presence on the team. It's more helpful than people realize, but he's not starting. He's not going to be playing meaningful minutes. Sure, he might get into the game every once in a while, but he's not doing meaningful minutes. Just like DeAndre Ayton could get 20 minutes, but he's not starting. Alright, so they didn't trade for him to start. They traded to add him to the roster to be a backup center. Because the backup center, Tristan Vuvichic, there's nothing there yet. And so you don't want to have Alex Sarr and then Vuvacic. We saw how that worked out last year. And by the way, that's why they didn't sign any vets last year for backup centers. Because they wanted to lose and not do what the Jazz did and sort of just really tank. This was more just oh look at that, we got bad players. So I think we we can all look at the roster that the Will Dawkins has set up. We can look at the coaching moves, we can look at the trades, and we can see that there is a huge difference between Ted Leonsis with Ernie Grunfeld and Tommy Shepard and Ted Leonsis with this new crew. And I really think we're going to be surprised in a good way this year with the Wizards. I think you're going to have a really good player in AJ DeBonsa. I don't know if Darren Peterson will be better. I don't really care if Darren Peterson will be better. Darren Peterson is not on the Wizards. There is no point talking about it. He's not coming to the Wizards. Neither is Carlos Boozer. It doesn't matter. What matters is can he make the Wizards better? If I were to give you two choices, let's say AJ DeBonsa is a good player. Not great, good player, and Darren Peterson's killing it, but the Wizards win the championship. Do you care that Darren Peterson is better than AJ Debonsa? No. So that's how we need to look at it. How can AJ Debonsa help the Wizards be successful? It's all we need to worry about. And I think he's going to help them. I think he provides them everything the Wizards need. And one of the things that he provides is a vocal leader. I know it's kind of crazy talking about a rookie as a vocal leader. He has the swagger that Darren Peterson doesn't have. Darren Peterson is not vocal about anything. He said in interviews he's not. He's quiet. Which is fine for some teams, but the Wizards, they don't have anybody like that. They need someone with a mouth. You know, they need somebody to trash talk a little bit. They need somebody just to be a vocal leader, and they don't have that. But I think they might have that in AJ DeBonsa. And that's what you need. That's what the Wizards need. And so I don't think you saw that in Carlos Boozer. That's just not his game. So I think in totality, AJ DeMonsa had everything the Wizards needed. Whereas maybe Darren Peterson is a better scorer. Maybe Boozer is a better, I don't know, rebound, it doesn't matter. So I think on paper they picked the best player out of the three. Now just keep in mind, if A.J. DeMonsa and Carlos Boozer weren't in the draft, Darren Peterson would have gone number one. If Darren Peterson and Carlos Boozer wouldn't be there, AJ DeMontsa is a slam dunk number one. If AJ DeMontsa and Darren Peterson were in the draft, Carlos Buozer would have been the number one guy. So all three of them are number one worthy. So all three of them are probably gonna have really good careers. But at this point, I know pundits want to talk about comparing. There's no point. For us Wizards fans, I don't care about Darren Peterson. It's not what could have been, would have been. You don't know what would happen if the Wizards drafted Darren Peterson. The whole timeline changes if that happens. I just know if they did draft um, if the Wizards drafted Darren Peterson and the Jazz drafted AJ DeBonsa and AJ DeBonsa drop whatever type of points that Darren Peterson did in the summer league, they would have said that the Wizards made a mistake. Because always remember when you're listening to National Pundits, whatever the Wizards do has to be the wrong decision and the stupid decision. That's sort of where everybody starts with the Wizards coverage. Keep that in mind. I know I'm sounding like a Homer through this, because I kinda am, but I just listening to sports for as long as I have, that's where the narrative is. But I think, as I wrap this up, I think we're really hopeful with the Wizards. I'm looking forward to Summer League. I'm looking forward to watching some of the games coming up this season. We should be a little bit easier to watch the games, figure it out. They will get some prime time games just because of AJ Devonza. I think they would get more primetime games because of AJ DeBonsa than Darren Peterson. AJ Devonta is more marketable than Darren Peterson. I know that has nothing to do with quality of play or anything like that, but he's way more marketable. And I think that's another reason that he's more helpful for the Wizards. Get more butts in the seat, get more eyes on the TV, get more primetime games that are not pushed onto Peacock, which is a whole other thing when they did that last year for the Wizards. But overall, I'm really hopeful for the Wizards. I think the moves that they've made in previous years, I think the moves that they made this year, has really demonstrated a commitment to actually being successful, a commitment to not just, you know, doing the middle build that uh Ted Leonces likes to actually progress and, you know, maybe in a few years make it to that Eastern Conference final that we've been hoping for. You know, there's other teams and time will tell, but I'm I'm more hopeful than I have been in previous years, and I think we all should be. I think uh the DC area, the DMV, is an untapped potential for basketball. I think we have a really good fan base here. It's just we it there's been no reason to root for them. So there's this huge untapped potential. So I am looking forward to the year. And with that, sign off. Hope you enjoyed. As always, five stars. Great. Till the next time. Take care, all.