Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard vows that the team is focused on making the playoffs despite key players missing the restart in Orlando, Fred Katz of The Athletic tweets.
“Certainly, we’re going there to win games,” he said. “We’re trying to make the playoffs. That’s 100 percent our goal.”
There has been speculation that Wizards would treat their eight “seeding” games as a de facto Summer League. Forward Davis Bertans, a free agent after the season, has chosen to sit out. Star guard John Wall will wait until next season to return from his Achilles injury. Washington trails Brooklyn by six games and Orlando by 5.5 games and needs to pull within four games of one of those teams to force a play-in round for the last playoff spot in the Eastern Conference.
We have more on the Wizards:
- Rookie Admiral Schofield is expected to have an expanded role in Orlando with Bertans choosing not to play, Chase Hughes of NBC Sports Washington tweets. “There’s going to be an opportunity at some point for Admiral to show what he can do,” Sheppard said. Schofield has appeared in 27 games, averaging 3.1 PPG in 10.9 MPG.
- Wall will stay in Miami while the Wizards are in Orlando to work with some coaches that won’t be in the bubble, David Aldridge of The Athletic tweets. The lack of practices during the stoppage of play cost Wall the basketball ramp-up timing he’d been gaining in workouts, according to Sheppard.
- Washington had some interest in signing power forward Dean Wade, Chris Fedor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer tweets. Wade agreed to a four-year contract with Cleveland on Monday.