Washington Wizards Media Room

Ladies and Gentlemen, the GM of the Washington Wizards

Good morning everyone, thank you for coming. a couple of announcements first, then i'll take your questions

First, we would like to announce that we will not be bringing back Brian Grant, He already signed a very good deal from the Orlando Magic. We appreciate what he had done to our team, the toughness that he brings every night will be very hard to replace, we wish him the best of luck with his new team, and thank him for the championship that he brought to our organization.

We at the front office is very pleased to announce that we have acquired Vin Baker and Jamal Crawford.

Vin Baker is a fierce rebounder, ranking 6th in the league in rebounding, he will provide the toughness inside that we lost with the departure of Brian Grant. Baker is also one of the best passing big man in the game, he averaged 4.2 assists per game last year, this skill sets him apart from other big men, and is also the reason why we choose him over Grant.

Jamal Crawford will become Kobe's backcourtmate for many years. Crawford is an iron man, he have not missed any games the past 3 years, and almost doubles his production year after year. We are very thrilled when we found out that he agreed to the long term deal that we offered him.

We are not yet finished with the free agent signings. we will get more pieces for our championship run

Thank you everyone, we will now take your questions

Is it your goal to compete this year or build momentum for future seasons to be a contender again?

Winning have always been our priority

We will definitely try to win it all this year, we just need to get a little lucky with the free agent signings

Did Brian Grants injury history play in at all when deciding whether or not to resign him?

Is it true that Kobe will not be traveling to games in Denver due to his statewide Colorado ban?

Lol

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Originally Posted by HornetsFaninKY

Did Brian Grants injury history play in at all when deciding whether or not to resign him?

Is it true that Kobe will not be traveling to games in Denver due to his statewide Colorado ban?

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Hallelujah

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Originally Posted by HornetsFaninKY

Did Brian Grants injury history play in at all when deciding whether or not to resign him?

Is it true that Kobe will not be traveling to games in Denver due to his statewide Colorado ban?

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Brian played every game last year, but his production have steadily declined. We also believe that Baker's better rebounding and passing skills will help us more.

Kobe will travel to Colorado, He will beat the Nuggets, however he will be closely monitored and will have 3 police escorts.

Your team has a reputation of playing dirty. Do you feel that reputation is warranted?

We bring toughness to the basketball court. If people think that its being dirty, i dont mind, as long as we are playing by the rules and no fine is being given, we will just play our game

Brian Grant never seemed to be truly happy in DC and eventually left. Was it the city? The atmosphere in the locker room? Is Kobe too difficult as a teammate? With what Grant went through here, will it make it harder to sign FAs?

Brian never really said that he was unhappy, he also never demanded a trade. It was the management's decision not to extend and offer to him. We've had a good run with him, but we think hes not the player that we need going forward

Ladies and Gentlemen I present to you the starting lineup of the Washington Wizards for 2003

http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/M...s723uSqSUl.jpg

At SF Maciej Lampe our 7 foot rookie from Poland. Maciej coming to the league at just 18 yrs old will give us length and athleticism at the SF spot.

http://images4.wikia.nocookie.net/__...tsakalidis.jpg

At center Jake Tsakalidis. We are very pleased by the progress that Jake had this training camp, he improved in rebounding making our front court with him and Baker a very tough rebounding frontcourt

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/J...h7M2nDMtLl.jpg

At the Point Guard position Jamal Crawford, We plan to make Jamal our sixth man but his progress(and Robert Pack's decline) during the training camp forced us to make him our starting PG

http://youbeenblinded.com/wp-content...2/vinbaker.jpg

At Power Forward Vin Baker, our prized recruit in this year's free agency, Vin imporved his handling skills in training camp, making him the perfect compliment to our scoring backcourt, He was also the 6th best rebounder last year.

http://www2.pictures.stylebistro.com...1oqS9Lp15l.jpg

At Shooting Guard Kobe Bryant

Washington Wizards Pre-Season Press Conference

Ladies And Gentlemen I present to you the GM of the Washington Wizards

janjanjanjan3 : Good evening everyone as you all know we made some big moves this off season, and I'm very glad to present to you the new members of the Washington Wizards.

The small forward spot have always been the achilles heel of our franchise, this will no longer be the case because we brought in the best SF of the league last season, the 2003 all-nba 1st team member Grant Hill

http://www4.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/G...Y22yr-8-dl.jpg

We believe that Grant will be the key to winning the championship this upcoming season, he even improved his outside shooting and hall handling this training camp to better complement Kobe.

The next big piece that we acquired is the energetic third year power forward Chris Wilcox

http://www1.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/C...wLGwEp_fgl.jpg

Chris averaged 19 pts and 9 rebs last year as a maverick, but we wont be expecting those stats from him this season. We plan to make him the 6th man of our ball club and he is very excited about it.

Completing our front court is big man Jahidi White

http://t2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:A...cyv97hUp_zYZ1g

Jahidi was a key in the blazers' playoff run last year. And we welcome the toughness that he will bring to our frontcourt

We also got 2 rookies, though unproven we hope that they reach their potential with our team. I present to you Pavel Podkolzine and Sasha Vujacic

http://www.thetallestman.com/images/...lzin%20(2).jpg
http://www3.pictures.zimbio.com/gi/S...vtAUJ9oLIl.jpg

Our projected starting lineup will be :

Center : Jahidi White
Power Forward : Vin Baker (Team Captain)
Small Forward : Grant Hill
Shooting Guard : Kobe Bryant
Point Guard : Jason Hart
6th Man : Chris Wilcox

How concern are you with the PG position? Do you feel like you will have to use Grant Hill alot at the point or even Kobe?

Im not really concerned. Jason, Sasha, Grant and Kobe all have B+ handle. Any of these guys can handle and distribute, even my power forward Vin Baker averaged 4.4 apg last season, so ball movement will not be a problem with my team.

Hi, Will Maukie from BucksNation.com. I pledge allegiance to the flag to the United Bucks Nation. That said, I love D.C. and the feel this city (well technically district) exudes.

Let me just say that I was not thrilled to hear about your trade for Grant Hill. Making a tough team tougher is never a good thing, but I think the Bucks can and will still compete. But between Kobe, Grant, and Vin, who's going to be your go-to-guy? Rumors on Twitter are that Kobe is a little disappointed in not being named captain. Do you think this is foreshadowing somewhat of next season's FA when he could possibly hit the market?

Kobe is still the best player on our team. He will get the ball during crunch time. He is our go-to-guy. But Vin Baker is our leader.

Sports Guy Bill Simmons here, your in the same division as my Boston Celtics and the Philadelphia 76ers. In my biased opinion this is far and away the best division in the NBA. Winning the division basically ensures a #2 seed and homecourt advantage at least through the conference finals. How difficult is it going to be in the Atlantic Division this year?

The Atlantic division have always been underrated even if 2 of the past 4 champions are from this division. As always, it will be very tough to win this division, my team have won an NBA championship but never have I won the atlantic division.

The Celtics and Sixers are still contenders, the Nets got Dwight, the Knicks and Heat have always been talented but young, maybe they can figure everything out this season and become the beast theyre supposed to be. The Magic are looking like a complete team with a young core of Curry-West-Iguodala (did anyone see Ridnour's ratings? Damn).

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Originally Posted by janjanjanjan3

The Atlantic division have always been underrated even if 2 of the past 4 champions are from this division. As always, it will be very tough to win this division, my team have won an NBA championship but never have I won the atlantic division.

The Celtics and Sixers are still contenders, the Nets got Dwight, the Knicks and Heat have always been talented but young, maybe they can figure everything out this season and become the beast theyre supposed to be. The Magic are looking like a complete team with a young core of Curry-West-Iguodala (did anyone see Ridnour's ratings? Damn).

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Will Maukie mutters: "Pssh... No respect."

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Originally Posted by IamQuailman

Will Maukie mutters: "Pssh... No respect."

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Wrong Division. Who let this guy in here anyway????

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Originally Posted by Soundwave

Wrong Division. Who let this guy in here anyway????

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Hey! I was talking on the Raptors behalf!

Washington Wizards janjanjanjan3 gave an interview to Mike Prada of www.Bulletsforever.com. The conversation touches on the past season, the Grant Hill trade and the pending Free agency of Kobe Bryant.

Heres the transcript of the interview

Last season's Playoffs

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I can not really say that we played up to our potential last season. We fell to 5th seed at the end losing our home court advantage during the first round. Luckily for us, we faced a rookie LeBron James, but we still needed 7 games to win that series. You see we went with Kobe at the Small Forward spot all playoffs last year because Maciej Lampe and Austin Crosshere can not guard LeBron and Jamison. The SF spot have always been our achilles heel, we addressed that back in season 2 and we won the championship. I hope we can do that again

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Grant Hill trade

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As I've said, the we havent really been lucky with the SF spot. But that changed when we acquired Toronto's Grant Hill, an All-NBA 1st team member, maybe the best small forward in the game today. He will fit very nicely with our team. I envision our team as the modern day 1st 3peat Chicago Bulls. They have Jordan-Pippen-Grant big three and we have Kobe-Hill-Baker.

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Weak at the PG and Center spot

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I get this a lot. Jahidi, though undersized for his position plays really hard. He have not been given the opportunity to show what he can do if given starter minutes. He will be our starting center, but if that doesnt work out, we may look at putting Baker at the 5 and Wilcox at the 4. Remember we had a 10 game winning streak last year with Baker at center and Eschemeyer at power forward. The PG spot is my biggest concern, Jason Hart like Jahidi White, have'nt gotten his break yet, he has a very good handle and defense. he will also get help from Kobe and Grant with the playmaking so he'll be fine.

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Kobe's contract year

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Well, the guy deserves the max, no one will argue with that. We will give him the max. Grant Hill? now thats a tough one, haha

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Washington Wizards Press Conference :

janjanjanjan3 : Good Morning everyone, welcome to the Washington Wizards Press conference. First of all, we would like to thank Vin Baker and Sasha Vujacic. Sasha, on his brief stint with our team, exceeded our expectations. clearly the best pg in this rookie class. We acquired Vin last season and clearly became the leader of our squad, on the floor and in the locker room. we hope for the best for these two and goodluck in Seattle

We will now introduce the newest members of the Washington Wizards. The first one you already saw play, and hes a perfect fit right from the start. I present to you, Sam Cassell

https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/i...VbNmnmubDHjFiA

The next one is a very good power forward who will bring toughness and athleticism to our frontcourt. Everyone please welcome Antonio McDyess

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3485/...717baed0_o.jpg

We will now take questions.

Mike Prada : Mike Prada, Bulletsforever, The team is doing great and riding a 6 game winning streak out of the All-Star Break. Dont you think trading the captain ball and a fan favorite rookie will not affect the chemistry of the team in a bad way?

janjanjanjan3 : Thats a very good question Mike, we arent worried about chemistry because we are getting veterans who know how to win. Sam have been with us for two weeks now and he is loving it here, I hope that will also be the case with Antonio. Sam, Antonio, Grant and Kobe have been in the league for quite some time now, and they will help each other win it all this year.

Any more questions?

Bill Plaschke here from the L.A. Times. We've seen you agressively build a very formittable team for this year, but a lot of media outlets are saying this move is smart today, dumb tomorrow feeling it will severely cripple you with McDyess' vastly inflated contract. Are you worried about your cap figure with Kobe and Hill coming off the books next year and due to make max money as well?

Winning isn't cheap, we are committed to bring championship caliber teams every season and spending a little more is not a big deal. We still have cap space next season to resign both Kobe and Grant. And we are very optimistic that a core of Kobe-Hill-McDyess will make us compete for the title year after year.