Takeaways From Wizards Exec Michael Winger's Latest Interview

President of Monumental Basketball Michael Winger joined the Ryen Russillo Show from the NBA Combine, detailing his outlook for the Wizards after winning the NBA Draft Lottery on Sunday.

Winger opened the public to perhaps their thinking of what could happen at first overall, how they feel about the top prospects, and what Anthony Davis' role could look like.

Winger made it very clear throughout the interview; minutes should be competitive for Washington. Last year, Washington had 26 different players see the floor at some point in 2025. A number Winger wasn't even aware was that high.

 I think that we had exhausted sort of this never mind wins and losses," Winger said.  "Let's go try to develop these guys, let's give these guys a ton of minutes, let them play through their mistakes, let them play through repeat mistakes, and you're, like, not banging them over the head with a loss. We did that for two years with Alex [Sarr] and three years with Bilal [Coulibaly]. Two years with [Sarr], [George] [Carrington}, one year with Tre Johnson. But we also wanted to see sort of when we draft guys, particularly in the first round. I shouldn't even say first round. When we draft guys that we believe in, we want to give them an opportunity to show what they can do."

Wizards GM Will Dawkins told broadcasters on ESPN that the Wizards already had 14 guys back at the facility training. With the number one pick incoming and new expectations, minutes won't be as easy to come by.

Winger said around the deadline, he and the entire front office met and decided the team was ready for more competitive basketball on the horizon. With that in mind, they surveyed the potential free agent market. After evaluation, Trae Young was viewed as their top player set to potentially hit free agency, according to Winger.

This led to the Wizards having conversations with the Hawks, leading to the eventual trade to bring in Washington's new point guard. Winger said once they got Young in the building, their competitive approach changed slightly.

"We knew that we would be some degree of good with Young," Winger said.

Winger said Young's skillset is exactly what the Wizards were missing. He said they needed someone who could drive their offense nightly because a player with that skillset is what they've lacked.

"He is an offensive engine. We lacked an offensive engine," Winger said. We have great play finishers. We have great athletes. We have great guys who do something great. But we didn't have an offensive engine. And so what we felt was adding him as an offensive engine, he will create space for everybody else. 

Washington decided to trade for Young and Davis because they had the cap flexibility to do so. Despite knowing they'd have 86 million in cap to work with this summer, there's ton of uncertainty in today's free agency landscape.

"I think it's a high risk going into free agency with a tremendous amount of cap space in what could also be a limited free agent marketplace" Winger said. "That was part of our analysis. That pie chart was okay, if we don't do this deal with [Young] and then we don't subsequently do the second deal with [Davis], what are we doing with this cap space?

Of course, plenty of the conversation focused on the Wizards selecting first overall, and what they might do with said pick. 

"I think that there are three or four players in play," Winger said. "I think that by the time we get to pick I would imagine that within the next few weeks, that will change."

Winger said the expectation going into the lottery is never that you'll get the first pick, so for time leading up to it, they did a lot of work to find five guys they felt were their best targets. 

"It's easy to fall in love with guys who are really good basketball players and really good people," Winger said. "There's a good handful of those guys at the top of the draft. It's easy to fall in love with the kid that you think is probably available at 5. It's easy to fall in love with the kid that you think is probably available at 4."

With plenty of attention on who Washington would prefer between AJ Dybantsa and Darryn Peterson, many wonder how Washington will determine who is best for it. Russillo asked Winger if their evaluations of Peterson were any different because of his unique freshman season.

It's the same work with everybody. It's the same work with everybody," Winger said. "It's Just, he has his variables. The other guys have their variables. But you still have to dig into all this stuff. You have to dig into the health, you have to dig into the family, you have to dig into the competitiveness. How good of a teammate is he when things aren't going well? How does he respond to that? How does he like to learn? Is he a visual learner? Is he an audio learner? Is he a hands-on learner?"

Dawkins and Winger have stated on multiple occasions they draft people, not just basketball players.

"We dig into every, every imaginable piece of information we can dig into to help us understand the athlete...on his list of things to dig into; the health, yeah. I mean, you have no choice. As you saw it in real time at Kansas, but it's not at all unique. Every draft candidate has something that you need to study."

The Wizards have over a month to make their all important decision on who they'll select first overall on June 23rd.

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