The Wizards’ challenge: getting the best from the Beal-Kuzma-Porzingis trio

Currently in Cairo as part of the camp organized by the NBA “Basketball Without Borders” aimed at developing the practice of basketball around the world, Wes Unseld Jr. has clearly been busy since the start of the offseason.

We do not know if he will be at EuroBasket, but he will go to Japan for the resumption of pre-season with the Wizards and he has already traveled to Latvia to find Kristaps Porzingis.

The major challenge of the training camp

Travel restrictions due to Covid-19 are much less restrictive and Wes Unseld Jr. wanted to make the most of them to start working on 2022/23 at the earliest.

” I have travelled a lot. We focused on going out and seeing the players.”, he explained. “We had opportunities to come out as staff and the players were also able to come together. I really missed that window last summer, for obvious reasons. I think the fact that these guys have been able to spend time together on and off the court, getting to know each other and developing that level of rapport is going to pay off. We all know that all of this is very important to establish a culture of winning.

After the Euro and before the resumption of pre-season matches, there will be an equally important passage, the training camp. For Wes Unseld Jr, this will be of paramount importance since he will have to find the best schemes to get the best out of Bradley Beal, Kyle Kuzma and Kristaps Porzingis, his three major players.

“I hope it will work wonders. When you take them individually, we all know that they are very good players. We have seen them excel on their own. The combination of these three remains a bit of a mystery, but that’s a lot of the work we’re trying to do over this late summer and into September. We’re going to bring those guys back, get a chance to implement some things and see what happens. “

Unknowns and certainties

Beyond their respective profiles and their individual qualities, the mystery will also lie in their physical condition and the way to optimize it since the three players suffered more or less serious injuries, to the wrist for Bradley Beal, to the knee for his two acolytes.

As for Kristaps Porzingis, Wes Unseld Jr.’s trip to Latvia was also intended to meet coach Luca Banchi to try to steal some tricks from him to make his interior shine.

“It’s a really well-coached team, with a very respected coach. I wanted to ask him his opinion on some things, especially the way they use KP”he slipped.

Even if a few unknowns remain a month and a half before the start of the 2022/23 season, Wes Unseld Jr will be able to draw on the experience gained from his first year as head coach. There is no doubt that he too will have progressed in his approach and will have learned from his mistakes.

“We learn a lot! If you stop learning, that means you have a problem. There are so many unexpected things when you go from assistant to head coach that you don’t even think about. There will always be something going on that will test you. The idea is to analyze it and manage to get out of it. But I feel more confident about where we are and how we want to play.”