Wizards Next Move Revealed...

With a lot of questions looming about the final roster spot for the Wizards, a recent report reveals exactly which position they're going for, and while we already discussed former Wizard Russell Westbrook and the odds of him coming back, there was another name linked to the Wizards that honestly makes a lot of sense. We're going to dive into this recent report, the player we're talking about, but also a couple of extra notes here. One about Will Reilly and what he had to say that is so great to hear about the organization, and an update from Sam Amico on the whole Anthony Davis situation, just to hopefully put a bow on that for now, all of that and more coming up on this episode of Wizards Digest. And while you're here, make sure you are subscribed because we have the latest news, rumors, reports every single day. We are the fastest growing Wizards channel in the world, and we are getting close to a thousand subscribers. So if you want to help us, we'd love if you hit that sub button, but we share hype like this from Will Reilly. This team's ready to win, baby. Will Reilly on the Wizards via 7 News DC, quote, it's great coming in with the mindset you're going to win. We're in a good winning environment. I feel like we're going to be really good. Will Reilly said he's been stacking days and been in the gym locked in. Exactly what you want to hear. And look, Will Reilly himself, Nick, of course, has been a big subject of conversation throughout this summer. Of course, after that unreal, albeit two game, Summer League sample size, that 32 point performance versus the Kings Summer League squad was unreal. The G League stats, again, not a massive, massive sample size, 28 points a game there, three and a half assists, three boards, two steals. Something about Will Reilly is really interesting. Look, we're not really here to talk about his position in the organization, certainly going forward. We've talked about that in a few videos. But I love how the one thing I take away from this is that there is a mindset right now we saw from AD a bit before. We're seeing it from Will Reilly, from Trae Young, that this team is ready to win games. And it's going to take maybe a bit of getting used to after the last couple of years. But I love that all these guys seem to have that one common goal in, admittedly, what's going to be a very tough Eastern Conference. Yeah, obviously, Will Reilly is going to be a very interesting young player. Obviously, last year was fantastic. When I say interesting, there's a lot of young guys on this team that are going to have to perform because this Eastern Conference is absolutely loaded now. And LeBron James, of course, him going to the Sixers, things are looking very busy. But you want to hear these comments. Obviously, we're both very high on Will Reilly here on the channel. But for him to come out and say this, it's exactly what you want to hear. But also, he backed it up in his very brief summer league performance, and it's going to be about mindset for this team because you just had the standings up there. They were really bad last year, and now there's a shift with not just obviously them playing against really, really good teams, but also there's a bit more expectations now. And obviously, it's not going to be winning 50, 60 games, but there's a lot more expectations than there was last year. A lot of those guys are, you know, young and a lot of the guys are young on the Wizards now. They don't have that experience. It's going to be very, very interesting to see. Yeah, I'm excited for it. And look, just the fact that we're talking about, you know, wanting to win games like Anthony Davis earlier now, he did say, I hope we get 40 wins. That is maybe modest, but I know how high we are on the Wizards. You're seeing these graphics too, by the way, it feels like there's a bit of slander going on out there. You know, people saying, oh, maybe not slander, but not including the Wizards in these graphics of, oh, great teams in the East this year. And like, I get it on the one hand, right? It's a new team, sort of, where you haven't seen what's happening with Trae Young, Anthony Davis, AJ DeBonta all together. There are a lot of question marks about health, maybe about defense from Trae Young's side. Who's going to get the minutes? A lot of young guys that might need to progress. Fair enough. But look, the Wizards are ready to go. And I wanted to highlight this as well from Sam Amico, from Hoopside, who talked about this kind of whole situation. So the Wizards just acquired Davis at the February trade deadline and fully intend to see what develops with Davis, Trae Young, number one pick AJ DeBonta, and former number two pick Alex Sarra on the roster. Davis has predicted that normally woeful Washington, I mean, come on, I mean, I get it, but come on, we'll win 40 plus games and the organization seems aligned with that thinking. Yeah, the organization definitely seems aligned with that thinking. And Nick, I know we're still seeing, like, maybe some stuff, oh, maybe Anthony Davis is at Villanova today. So like, maybe he's going to get traded for Joel Embiid. I think we're done with this now. I think all these Davis trade rumors, until we're given a reason not to think he's going to get moved, then maybe we'll have to put a bow on that. But I do seem to like the fact that it's being reported pretty much everywhere now, especially after the LeBron signing, that the Wizards organization, the Wizards players, it just keeps going with this theme of wanting to win. And they're going to have to put in a lot of hard work to prove it this year. Yeah, stem from the report about LeBron wanting to try to pry Anthony Davis or Kyrie Irving around. He's since signed with the Sixers. Is there a world really trade Anthony Davis? Yeah, but I don't think, I mean, it's not going to be for Joel Embiid. And I don't think ultimately now there's much of a chance that that 80 gets traded going forward. So I don't know. We'll talk about the conversations at bed for now. And if he does get traded, maybe the deadline, maybe he gets extended. But I think they're happy internally with how he is going to fit on this team, especially with all these conversations about trying to win as many games as possible for what feels like the first time in a while. Yeah, for sure. And, you know, to win games, you've got to have a nice, deep roster. Well, if you want to win a lot of games and the Wizards certainly do have that right now, of course, Trey Young, Keyshawn George, this could be the surprise, the probable starting lineup, George, the bonds, the Davis and Sar. And then off the bench, guys like Carrington, Trey Johnson, Kulibaly, Middleton, Champagney, Riley, Aiton, and Vukcevic, like a lot of guys that can play a lot of minutes. But there is one little need here for the Wizards, and it sort of is a backup, maybe pure point guard. But Carrington can bring the ball up a bit. And hey, he had a solid year last year. There is kind of that desire to have someone right behind Trey Young. And we talked about this report in the Russell Westbrook video, or I guess I did. The Wizards are trying to sign a backup point guard via Mike A. Scott. The Wizards will look to add a backup point guard behind Young to round out the roster. Talked about this before. But I want to dive deeper now, not into Westbrook today, but into Aaron Holliday. Because the Wizards, we have a lot of great shooting talents. I mean, Trey Johnson, when he's on, my goodness, that dude can hit it from the parking lot, right? And there's a lot of other guys that have hovered around, you know, high 30s, 40% from three. We talked about, you know, like a guy like Chris Middleton will hopefully get a bit more back on track, but, well, back on track, I just mean, you know, back where his career normally is, like right there in that high 30s. But Aaron Holliday is a very interesting option because he can shoot the ball. He has been a near 40% three-point shooter for a number of years. He's not a traditional sort of playmaking backup point guard, and he's a guy that is sort of a low usage guy, which in my opinion is not a bad thing, especially if you want to get other guys like Harrington, maybe like Will Riley, some reps at carrying the ball. He carries that veteran presence. You can see his career stats here. The three-point percentage has been really solid, 39% last year, 40% the year before, 39, 41, 38. He's only six feet tall, but he's 29 years old. He can come in in a lower usage situation. I actually think he's not a bad guy to bring in. The assist numbers have never been gaudy by any means, but Trey Young can more than make up for that. What are your thoughts on a guy like Aaron Holliday can come in, knock threes down from the corners, and kind of just serve as a nice ball handler in a few minutes if you need him to? Yeah, very, very low usage. You can see his minutes per game, never been above, or at least in a very long time, really never been very, very high at all. Obviously, with the Wizards, you mentioned, you named a ton of players. There's not a lot of minutes to go around, which is why I don't think a lot of targets make sense. But for Aaron Holliday, he's used to playing in that role anyway, and to add some veteran presence, someone who can shoot the lights out from the corners, they do need shooters and continue to add shooters to surround Trey Young, and obviously, there's some rookies that can shoot. We talk about him at nauseam. I don't know. Aaron Holliday's a guy who can shoot the ball very, very well, will provide some stability, and it would be a little bit tough. I mean, you've got to hope that every single young player on the Wizards works out right, and they're playing really, really well. We also have to have the contingency plan here. Having Aaron Rodgers, Aaron Rodgers, imagine, Aaron Holliday, if you can play like 10, 15 minutes a game, maybe even less or maybe more, depending on the situation and what it brings. There's no real downside here. It's not going to cost a lot of money. I know some of you guys might be thinking, is there enough room on the team? He's not someone who needs a ton of minutes. You can kind of slide him in anywhere. And this team does, I don't want to say necessarily needs more veteran presence. You have Trey Young. You have some guys, obviously, in Anthony Davis, but it definitely wouldn't hurt off of the bench. Then your bench isn't a bunch of extremely young guys in a season that, like I keep mentioning, the Eastern Conference is going to be very, very tough, and you do need some veteran presence off the bench as well to pair with a lot of the young guys. I mean, the minutes are going to go very, very, very quickly, and it's going to be very, very tight, which is why I do think, ultimately, here, adding a veteran could be useful. Yeah, and even though he's not even 30, he still has a decent amount of NBA experience, and he also doesn't turn the ball over very much. Like, yeah, I said the assist numbers are low, but he's just kind of reliable in the minutes he gets, and that's something that is not always a given for a team in the position that Washington is for the guys that they would want to have carrying the ball when Trey Young is off the floor, right? So it's good to have some stability, and on young teams, too often, I think you see that lack of stability start to get to the guys, and again, that's part of why they brought in Trey Young and Anthony Davis and even brought back Chris Middleton, right? So that is important, but to have a veteran ball handler there on the bench, I don't totally mind it. I mean, is he the most glamorous target? No. No, like, no. No, he isn't, but it just kind of makes some sense, and we'd love to hear your guys' thoughts down below. Is Westbrook maybe Aaron Holiday? Is there another target that you would prefer? Maybe not even a guard. Maybe some of you would want another big man to go along with the team. Hey, I wouldn't necessarily be opposed, but we'd love to hear your thoughts. That will do it for this episode. Make sure you are subscribed to this channel for all the latest news. Thank you for making us the fastest-growing wizard show on the platform. All 10% of you that are subscribed, thank you for watching. I'm Josh Goss. My co-host, Nick Goss. We'll catch y'all later.