Will Dawkins details why Wizards targeted Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly | The Sports Junkies
joined by Will Dawkins Wizards general manager so when is Ted gonna break ground on the Wizards French Hoops Academy or complex in Paris because I me there’s something clearly going on there three of the top six picks this year are French including SAR and last year obviously wemi and kabali who you picked last year like that’s a fertile recruiting ground like I’m not even joking like just like you know major league baseball teams put acmis in Latin America in certain hotpots like is that something that that you guys have had discussions about yeah I think the league has had some discussions on things of that nature um being able to help keep the talent in France but international basketball goes in waves there was times where Argentina early 2000s had that wave and then it probably went to Spain after that and now it’s it’s the turn for France and I think what France is doing is just developing players at a rapid rate at a good young age it used to be just like one or two miies that they went to but now all the professional teams in Pro a are investing in the talent in prob B and their squa league so the coaching is better the resources are better I think they see more examples of themselves in the NBA it’s not just Tony Parker and Boris de anymore you see a big conglomerate of French players and they’re competitive they’ve always been athletic and now they’re learning more and more and the NBA is no longer a Dream It’s a goal and an aspiration for them and once that mindset shifts I think we’ve seen what we’ve seen and to be honest it’s not going to slow down they have more coming well um obviously Camp doesn’t start for a few months but um and I know there’s certain players you can’t really talk about but do you kind of expect or would you be surprised if kabali and SAR were on opening night starting five or do you think SAR just needs to kind of sit behind you know whoever’s at power or baggley or whatever um to kind of get used to the NBA um grit and then he can work his way into the starting lineup yeah I think it’s a little early like you said get to summer league and kind of see that but in talking with Brian and the staff he’s assembling those guys are going to play impactful minutes whether it’s starting coming off the bench they’ll play really really important roles for us and they will get exposure and opportunities to defending the best players on the floor every night and then giving the ball to play with so like we saw bow there was a steady progression to make sure he got to where he was and was better at the end of the year than he was at the beginning it’ll be the same thing for Alex so we know you can’t talk about the Denny deal as we’re talking to Will Dawkins where GM but let’s talk about the other draft picks so SAR goes one bub Carrington who’s a Baltimore native is your second pick fill us in on when he got on your radar and what type of game we can expect from hims sounds like he targeted him yeah so Bob’s the guy again our Scouts did a really good job of this year going out early evaluating players that fit what we created in terms of our style what we were looking for and both kesan and Bub were guys that popped early in their college careers for freshman and I got the the quick report like hey when you get some time let’s make sure we swing through here so I felt like we were playing ahead with those two guys and got a chance to really get a feel for who they are throughout the course of the season and watch their development from young players with Bob being from Baltimore being able to bring him home that was something that I wanted to make sure he was comfortable with so I think a week ago we met one more time just to talk about what that would be and how he would handle that and he completely understood everything that comes with it and wanted to be a part of what we’re doing here in DC and I think it was even more impactful for him to be drafted so close to home so give us a timeline since you mentioned summer league summer league is kind of the next thing will we see Alex playing all of the games all the games I’m not sure I’ll let that stay to the media or to our Medical Group I know sometimes early on there’s a performance plan for every player but I expect them to play a lot yes same with kabali um balao I’m hoping doesn’t play in Summer League he is attending Camp here pretty soon for the French national team in hopes of making the Olympics so we always like to root for our guys and let them play for their National teams and have the civic pride that they have so he’s out in Paris right now preparing for training camp to start I think officially tomorrow and in hopes of making the team and playing in the Olympics in his home country so we have fingers crossed he can make that happen well I’m rooting for him not to get injured playing for his home country I I even play for the Wizards not not for FR for them all to not get injured anywhere they’re playing the summer I can do that for sure true
Wizards general manager Will Dawkins joins the Sports Junkies to discuss why Bilal Coulibaly and Alex Sarr were scouted so heavily, both of their statuses for Summer League and much more.
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Will Dawkins details why Wizards targeted Alex Sarr, Bilal Coulibaly | The Sports Junkies
