Wizards Admit Players-Only Meeting Was Likely UnproductiveThe Washington Wizards recently had a players-only meeting that several players finally spoke about publicly.
“We had our team meeting,” John Wall said Friday. “A couple guys took it the negative way and it hurt our team. Instead of taking it in a positive way like we did in the past and using it to build our team up, it kind of set us back a little bit.”
“It was tough. I try to keep all our stuff as personal as possible but I think in a way not everybody got a chance to speak whenever they wanted to,” Bradley Beal said. “They didn’t want to bring up an issue or something they had a problem with on the team. Regardless of what may be going on, as men we’ve got to be able to accept what the next man says, be respectful about it and move on from it. I think it was one of those situations where we didn’t necessarily get everything that we wanted to get accomplished.
“Honestly, it was probably — I won’t say pointless,” Beal continued, “but we didn’t accomplish what we needed to accomplish in that meeting.”
Jason Smith was less hopeful that the team issues had been solved with it becoming unproductive.
“Sometimes you need those moments to just get everything out in the air,” Smith said. “Just like any family. You got to let things out. You can’t hold it in and let things fester.” at times.
Scott Brooks said he never knew about the meeting.
Wall also suggested the Washington front office has work to do as well to help out the situation.
“Upstairs,” Wall said. “Front office got to figure it out.”
Honestly this is kind of surprising. That core has been together quite a long time, you would figure they would at least get along at a basic level from the amount of time together. What can they do to shake it up? Gortat expires next years so may they get something useful attaching a first round pick to him if they have one... Jordan could really help that team out a lot.
Living in DC, this isn't remotely surprising to me. Wall is a talented player, but with an ego that is outsized for even his abilities. He and Beal really couldn't get along for some time, because Beal had the same ego. Then, last year, they somehow patched it up between the two of them, but what it's really become is two egos morphed into one. It is impossible for them to let others onto the team into their orbit. They don't like Porter at all, and so won't pass him the ball in the 4th quarter. They both feel they should be All-Star starters, All-NBA, and I think Wall feels he should get MVP consideration. So they play for stats, and convinced themselves that they were the true challengers to Cleveland last year -- in their collective mind (Wall and Beal, that is), I don't know if they even truly think they lost to the Celtics.
The Wizards are a talented team that can go on spurts, but sooner or later the Wall+Beal ego shows up, doesn't share the ball on the court, and divides the team off the court. Meanwhile they've done a terrible job of managing their salary (over the tax this year, and will be for 2-3 more years, even after trading a 1st last year for salary mitigation).
In one sense, you don't want to face them in the playoffs because they're capable of going on a 5-10 game stretch of elite basketball. On the other hand, when you beat them the finger-pointing starts really quickly.
Topic: Wizards had players-only meeting, now hate each other. "it was unproductive" (Read 3116 times)