AJ vs Summer League

In this episode, I discuss AJ Dybantsa's summer league performance and compare it with Darryn Peterson's. I explain why I believe the Wizards made the right selection. Tre Johnson and Will Riley came to play, and Jamir Watkins is locking down DP. 

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Welcome to another episode of Overacting Since Kickoff, your place for DMV Sports Talk. In today's episode, we're gonna talk about AJ Devansa and his summer league debut. And I must say what a sigh of relief I had when he came out there and looked so comfortable playing basketball. I was a little worried. You listen to all of the ESPN pundits, you listen to all of those noise, and you start to get a little worried that maybe a little thought creeping in your head that maybe they're right. Maybe this is going to be a disaster because this is the Wizards after all. And once you started playing on the court, you just had this feeling that nope, they made the right decision. Obviously, we don't know who's going to be better. It doesn't matter. We also don't know if AJ DeBonte is actually going to be a great player, but we do know that he was comfortable in his role on the Wizards. He looked good. He looked a little rusty. Let's just keep that in mind. He also mentioned that in his post-game interview that he hadn't played since March, so he's going to look a little rusty. And I know Trey Johnson also mentioned during an interview that a lot of his shots were short, and if he just got some of those in, it would have been a whole different ballgame. And I think that's good. I think there's some things to work on moving forward with him, but you definitely saw the confidence, you saw the swagger that the Wizards need. And you also saw the versatility of AJ DeBons. And I think that's the one thing that really put him over the top compared to Darren Peterson or even Carlos Boozer was his versatility that he can play in all facets, meaning he can be in the you know in the rim, dunking layups, mid-range, and then if he just works on his three-point shot, so you have that huge range, and he also got to the foul line a lot. I know people were complaining that he sort of was flopping like SGA. Look, those are the rules of the game, and that's the way the game's officiated, and it would be silly and stupid not to tailor your game to the way it's being officiated. And if he can get to the rim and the foul line, it opens the door up for other players around him to be open. It opens the door for them to have a great offensive set. He also played decently uh defensively. There was that one moment at the beginning of the game where he stole the ball, and you could just see he looked up and he saw this. Nobody near him, he could run into a monster slam and he just lost the ball. So you can sort of see that he was looking for that game stop, you know, game show dunk. He had one um late in a possession as well, and and so you could definitely see that he's good. And that's what we really needed to see. The discourse was stupid, but what else are they gonna talk about on ESPN? What else are they gonna talk about on the other shows? There's no sports going on right now. ESPN has cut all the major league baseball, they only talk about baseball, you know. Uh there is the World Cup going on, but USA is out, and they don't really have any talent that's gonna talk about soccer. Football obviously is the moneymaker, but there isn't too much going on right now because training camps are gonna start in a couple weeks, so they don't have anything. So this is it. And so obviously gonna talk one versus two, and so they've been hyping it up and they've been talking about it. But these are two different players, they play two completely different positions, but I do understand it. We have the baggage of low wizards, they're terrible, so every decision they make is awful. But you clearly saw the reason why he was picked number one, it's just the versatility. You don't have that versatility with Darren Peterson. Doesn't mean he's not gonna be a good player, doesn't mean he can't be the best player ever, but he doesn't have the same versatility right now. And also, you definitely saw one of the deficiencies with Darren Peterson. Again, summer league game completely meaningless. All you need to do to be successful, in my mind, in a summer league game is just look like you belong. Don't look lost, don't look confused. Turnovers don't really mean much. Missing shots don't necessarily mean much. Fouling doesn't necessarily mean much as long as you look like you belong and you're comfortable, and both of those players did, but you did see something that can be exploited for Darren Peterson that you didn't see with AJ DeBonsa, and that is with Jameer Watkins, and he locked Darren Peterson down. He it got uncomfortable for Darren Peterson, and I think when he runs into teams that have better defenders, although I know people are saying that Jameer Watkins, you know, he's a great defender, but you run into teams that have a couple of those guys on him, it's gonna be a game changer for that team because Darren Peterson looked very uncomfortable. He didn't play very well when he was locked up like that. Also, Seth Tremble locked him up, and Seth Tremble's a little guy. So you could see that there is reason to be slightly worried about Darren Peterson if he's manhandled like that. But again, it's Summer League. He can grow into this one. This is his third game, he hasn't played in a while, so I don't I wouldn't look at it as anything other than you could clearly see why the Wizards drafted AJ Debonsa over Darren Peterson, and that again is that versatility, is that swagger, is that chirpiness that he had. You need that on your team. You need somebody willing to do that. You need it. And I definitely saw a huge change in energy when he was on the court with the other four Wizards players. A hundred percent difference when he's on the court than when he's off the court, and he brings some energy. People were excited, the players were excited to play with him. I think that is also the reason why they wanted to draft him because of that. Additionally, Trey Johnson looked like he was on fire. Like he he came out to prove something. Huge bright spot. Um, you could definitely see that he took a couple shots away from AJ DeBonzo because he wanted to show everybody, hey, I'm still here. I know I was the sixth pick, but I'm still here. He's going to be a good player in the NBA. He was a good player last year for the Wizards. Will Riley played pretty well too. Um I'm ignoring all the sloppiness that you saw with the players for a couple reasons. One, they haven't played in a while. Two, these Summer League teams are sort of cobbled together. I know the Jazz were saying they just got the player this morning, and the coach just met him a couple hours ago, and they inserted him into the lineup. So you can definitely see that these players are sort of figuring out how to play with each other. So that's why the sloppiness and all the fouls you can sort of just ignore. My my thinking is when you look at the summer league, it comes back to, as I said before, are you comfortable on the court? Do you look like you belong on the court? And can you do a little bit on what you're expected to do in the regular season? And you definitely saw that with Trey Johnson, Will Riley, and H.J. DeBonsa. And you saw a few of the fringe players playing pretty well. I know uh Jameer Watkins is uh already on a two-way contract. Um, we need his energy on the defensive side to be given to the other players because he was given the assignment to lock up Darren Peterson and he did. And I know it's different in the summer league. Instead of fouling out with five, six fouls, you get ten, and I think he had nine fouls at towards the end of the game, and actually Darren Peterson also had nine fouls. But you you I mean, it's built in that it's going to be sloppy. It's built in that these players aren't going to be as comfortable playing with one another. So there's other things you look at when determining whether they were successful or not, but it was a fun game to watch. I was excited to watch it. I was nervous at the beginning to watch it, but I definitely came out thinking the Wizards could be good. They have a good young core. The other thing I really liked was that pretty much all of the other players on the roster were at the summer league game. I definitely saw just about all of them. I think Balal Kulobali was the only one not there, but he's playing in the FIBA qualifiers for France, so he wouldn't be there. But you definitely saw Alex Sarr, Anthony Davis was there, Trey Young was there. They were there watching, which is great. It is really good to see these players here rooting for their team, just showing solidarity with their team. And I think that's something that's been missing for the past few years, and it was really good to uh to see that. So I'm hopeful. I and the only little tweak that we had towards the end of the game was I hope it was just cramping from AJ DeBonza. He seemed to dismiss it and saying it was nothing, which is good. Um, but you know, that that always is on the back of your mind. You don't want to have like a stress fracture or anything like that for a player. But it I I could imagine it was cramping. He was doing a lot on the court. He was running up and down, he was driving to the basket, and if you haven't played since March, it doesn't matter how many hours you spend in the gym. It's not game. You're not playing a game, so that definitely could have been an issue. But he seemed chipper, he seemed fine in his post-game interview, so I'm going to chalk it up to cramping, which is pretty common, so I'm not worried about that. None of us should be, but it always creeps in the back of your head. Oh boy, is there something wrong? But uh hopefully not. But I said overall, I think it was a very successful introduction to the league for the Wizards this year. Definitely AJ Debonsa looked the part, and he should have quieted all of the naysayers, but they can always find things to say about it. Um, the other thing that was really annoying watching the game was the commentators, every time they mention Trey Young, it was always Trey Young, $212 million contract. Like it was the first and only contract that's ever been given out to an NBA player that was over $200 million. And it's almost like they've never even watched Trey Young play recently, and they're talking about, oh, I don't know how AJ DeBons is going to be able to play with Trey Young hogging the ball all the time. It's so maddening to listen to this. But as I said, it's the Wizards. The Wizards be Wizarding, so we're going to have some of that. They always have to find reasons to drag the wizards down. I get it, the wizards have been terrible. But I think we're in a good spot right now moving forward. I think we are in a very good spot, and I'm really hopeful. I still stand by what I said in a previous episode. The the floor for the wizards is about 32 wins, which is close to the 10 seed, and I think my ceiling for them is the six seed and maybe winning a game or two against the the three seed. I think that's where we're going to still see them. But the bigger thing we need to look at is will this new team, will this actually get free agents to want to come here? I mean, that's really what it comes down to. You you you can develop players all you want, you can trade for players all you want, but you can't, that's not sustainable. You need free agents, you need quality free agents, and so that's the bigger thing that's gonna come. And I think if they are put on national TV and we don't have the same type of narrative floating around with them that you definitely hear from the uh media types, I I think we could get free agents. And you know, I know we Brian Winhorst had this story that apparently the Wizards cut a deal with Trey Young as they were trading for him, like, oh, you don't play this year, even though he did play Games of the Wizards, we're gonna sign you to a mega deal. Look, I don't know what his sources are. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not. I tend to think it's not. It seems kind of dumb. It seems kind of lazy reporting on that. And what's I just but it's the same old, same old. You can't have a positive with the Wizards without having like a negative sandwich thrown into it. I'm gonna stick with the positives. I thought it was a good movement. I'm curious to see how many minutes he gets in the second game. Honestly, if he doesn't play another game in the Summer League, I am fine with that. He doesn't need to. He showed what he needed to show. He showed his versatility, he showed that he had length on the defensive end, he showed that he can get to the rim, he showed he can get to the foul line, and he showed he can make some free throws. Which also brings me to one other thing. The new free throw rule in summer league has to be the dumbest thing I've ever seen in my entire life. And if you don't know what that is, if you are taking a if you get fouled shooting, you miss the shot, so normally in that situation you would have two free throw attempts. You miss, you know, you miss the first one, you get the second one. Not anymore in the summer league. You get one free throw attempt and it's worth two points. And so if you miss it, you're done. And the same thing if you were taking a three-point shot and get fouled and missed it. You have one free throw attempt for three points. It's just mind-boggling, stupid. I know they were saying that it speeds up the game, but it Oh my god, it's so bad. It was really dumb and awkward to watch them do that. So you can't get an idea on the free throws. So it just so when you look at the box score and you look at free throw attempts, you have to keep in mind that it's not going to match anything because some free throws could be worth one point if it's an and one, some free throws could be two points, some free throw attempts could be worth three. And it's just like, I don't know what they're doing. If this ever makes it to the NBA, this is gonna be this is so stupid. It's just I I can't tell you how idiotic that was. But yeah, so I think the Wizards, yeah, I think we're good. I I think the Wizards are in a great spot right now. I I can't imagine anybody looking at this game and saying other than positive things about him. Sure, he can work on some of his shots. He missed a couple shots that should have gone in. Sure he missed his three pointers, definitely should have made one or two of them. Yes, he had that great steal and then he fumbled it because he was thinking, what am I going to do when I dunk the ball? Those are minor things that you can work on and get better at. But he looked comfortable, and that that that's all we need to see from him. And I think that was great. I I just I cannot say how happy I am and how more relieved than happy because there was always this fear just based upon what you were hearing all the pundits saying that, oh my god, maybe what if? What if they really made this mistake? What if? But definitely I like the coaching that they did on Darren Peterson, and it's I don't believe they were trying to make Darren Peterson look bad. I don't think it has any malicious intent on that one. I think because they did interview TJ Sorentine, the uh Wizards summer league coach, by the way, it's a great point card from uh Vermont, uh, and he said the focus was defense, the focus was all on defense, and I think that's what you need. They played terrible defense last year, and so you need to work on defense. And as I mentioned before, defense really comes down to effort, and so if you see a guy like Jameer Watkins just locking down somebody, it's going to make the other players play better on defense, and it's also another indication on why when I was saying about Trey Young in a previous episode, his defense doesn't matter. I don't care about his defense because look at Jameer Watkins, he is not the number one scorer, he is not anything on the team other than a role player, rotational guy. So you can take that rotational guy when he's in on the rotation and put him on someone like Darren Peterson, and then you can move Trey Young on somebody else. So you don't have to worry about, oh no, Darren Peterson's gonna blow by Trey Young. It doesn't matter. Trey Young's not gonna be on him. That's why defense doesn't necessarily matter for all of these players, as long as you have a handful of players who can play defense. And the Wizards do have another player who plays really good defense, Belal Kulabali. So you do have a way to hide Trey Young. And if Trey Young plays a little bit of defense with effort, it's going to be fine. You don't need to be top five defense. Alright? So this whole narrative that, oh my god, because Trey Young's on defense, they're going to always score because the number one score is going to blow by Trey Young. The number one score is not going to be covered by Trey Young. It doesn't matter. So that's another good thing that you can look at this game and be like, huh. Defense does matter, of course, but you have more flexibility on defense to change up how they defend. It's a little different on offense. You of course you have flexibility on offense, but if you can't shoot the ball, it doesn't matter. I can't manufacture a small guard getting the ball and scoring if he can't shoot the ball. But on defense, you can move them around so they're not on the number one score ever. And that's fine because you have other players. You have 15 men on your roster. You have other players who can play defense, so you can put them in the game. And, you know. So that's why I keep saying defense doesn't matter for Trey Young. What matters for Trey Young is if he stays healthy. Can he score about as I said, I think I said about 75% of what he was a couple years ago. Can he distribute the ball? If Trey Young is dropping 17 points and 12 assists, well, let's say 12, 10 assists a game that averages that, that's perfect. That is good. And you'll have games that have a lot more points, you have games that will have more assists, but that's good. And I know you'll look at that and you say, oh my god, 17 for 10 assists, that's not worth $212 million. And you're probably right it's not. But the Wizards needed to do this signing to show the rest of the league that they are ready to spend and compete. And that's the point of the Trey Young signing. Now, the AD signing that we keep hearing about, that he wants a max contract, and everybody's oh my god, he wants a max contract. Of course he wants a max contract. You want a max contract at your job. I want a max contract. That doesn't mean he's going to get it. I don't think he should get it. I would be really upset if he does get a max contract because that's going to be about $280 million. Not because he's not great, he is, but he's older. And I think that's going to be a problem. I think we're running into the aging star where they sign like a five-year contract and they're really only good for two years, and they're sort of saddling you for the other three years. And I think we will run into that with AD. And I think A D is more tradable in his third or fourth year of that contract. But I I just don't think they need AD beyond this year and next year. And I think that's where the sticking point is, because he's gonna, you know, he has opt-ins and things like that. So I think he's really a two-year contract, we're not gonna sign that. So I don't think he has any leverage whatsoever to sort of demand the max contract. Of course he wants it, of course he's gonna ask for it, but I don't I don't believe they should give him the contract. If he was younger, but say again, if he was younger, he would not have been dumped by the Lakers and he would not have been dumped by Dallas. So we wouldn't be in this situation. So I really I would really be annoyed. That one I would say is a bad signing. I I won't homer this that contract up like I've been homering up the Trey Young contract. And also the Chris Middleton contract. I don't know if I mentioned the Chris Middleton contract. It looks like a terrible contract on paper, it's an awful contract because he is older, but again, it's only really this year. It's only guaranteed like five and a half million, and then the other two years are guaranteed for nothing. So it that that's a good contract. And again, he wanted to come here. He wanted to come back to Washington because he was on the team last year. The crazy thing is he was traded for Anthony Davis, and now he's back with Anthony Davis on the same team the Wizards. But it's really good when a player wants to come to the Wizards, and so I think he could be really helpful in working with AJ DeBonzo on the mid-range shot because that's that's his game. He was really good at that, and he has a good vet presence. He won a championship, he was instrumental in the Milwaukee championship that they won. So I think that's a great vet presence signing that they got with him. And yeah, I think we're I I just really think that they're setting themselves up to be, at least on paper, a competent team. And I think that's the start. I know everybody wants them to be horrible and then all of a sudden they're in the championship. It doesn't work that way. You gotta sort of rebuild, and I think we're starting to see that happening right now. And I I believe that I know I sound homery, and maybe in a few weeks I'd be like, oh boy, but I I really think that Dawkins and crew have done a masterful job of taking just an awful constructed roster and turning it around into a competitive team. So I'm I'm really hopeful for that. I I just uh it was a great game to watch. AJ Dubansa play. It was really good to see. I know I I felt I I don't like doing this. I felt great when I when I saw Jameer Watkins just man-handling Darren Peterson because you could just see that, yeah, that's why. That's why he wasn't picked number one. He has a really good floater, Darren Peterson. It's silky smooth, and the shot he made at the end of the buzzer is really good too. So you can definitely see there's a lot of pieces in Darren Peterson's game that will translate fantastically into the NBA. But he's not ready to be a point guard yet, so he's sort of sort of this tweener at the moment, but he definitely has a good shot. He definitely can get to the rim, but you you put a lockdown defender on him, Ludort will crush him if he ever has to defend him. So you can definitely see that there's some deficiencies in his game, which you're not necessarily going to get with AJ Debonsa because of AJ Debonsa's length. Now, AJ Debonsa probably needs to put sa put on some size, but I I just think though, again, I've repeated this like 15 times and I'm gonna keep saying it. It was the versatility. And that versatility was shown last night. So I'm hopeful, and this was a great game. This sh we should all be excited. It's fine. If you're a wizard fan, you should be excited. You should be happy that they played well in a summerly game. Hey, they gotta win. You know, none of this matters in the long term, but it's okay to be excited, it's okay to be happy, it's okay to look at this box score and then be like, hey, they played great. It's all of those things that you can be happy for. It means nothing in the grand scheme of things, it means absolutely nothing. But it's good to actually have like a happy moment with the Wizards because we haven't had that in a while, a really long time. And so, yeah, let's enjoy it. I'm enjoying it. I'm waiting for the low wizards moment to come in a little bit, but right now I'm happy. AJ DeBonsa played great, the all the real Riley played great, Trey Johnson was on fire. So I think, and he also put on bulk. I did not recognize him. I was like, oh, okay. So he meant business, he came out on fire, and I think, you know, as I as I said before, they have a great team moving forward, at least on paper. So with that, I think we're gonna call this to an end. Hope you enjoyed it. As always, please rate five stars. Don't go any lower than that. It doesn't matter. Have a great rest of your day, and I'll see you next time on the Overreacting Since Kickoff podcast. Take care, all.