{"id":3041,"date":"2025-05-01T14:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-05-01T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/?p=3041"},"modified":"2025-05-01T19:58:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-01T19:58:09","slug":"wizards-gm-will-dawkins-sets-tone-for-offseason-we-cant-be-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/01\/wizards-gm-will-dawkins-sets-tone-for-offseason-we-cant-be-off\/","title":{"rendered":"Wizards GM Will Dawkins Sets Tone for Offseason: &#8220;We Can&#8217;t Be Off&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The 2024-25 season was anything but smooth for the Washington Wizards, but for General Manager Will Dawkins, the bumps along the way were part of a bigger, intentional rebuild. Two weeks after the team\u2019s season officially ended, his message remains clear: the foundation is being laid\u2014and the work has only just begun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis season was meant to be one of exploration,\u201d Dawkins said in his end-of-season press conference. \u201cWith that comes a lot of discomfort. A lot of growing pains. But we finished with energy and connectedness, and on a good note.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"#Wizards GM Will Dawkins Reflects on 2024-25 Season Progress\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/AGZOCIcmnIY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>While fans remember the l<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/video\/clip\/_\/id\/44659287\" title=\"\">ate-season heroics of rookie Bub Carrington <\/a>and a few surprise wins down the stretch, Dawkins emphasized that the real progress was structural. It started with a commitment to playing the long game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Wizards opened the season with the youngest roster in franchise history, and by the end of the year, three rookies had logged over 1,800 minutes each, the first time that\u2019s happened in the NBA in more than two decades. \u201cWe\u2019re pouring into the future,&#8221; Will Dawkins explained. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Stylistically, the team also began to find its rhythm. The Wizards finished 4th in pace, marking the second straight year as a top-five team in that category, and shifted toward a more modern offensive approach. Thirty-four percent of their shots came from beyond the arc, and three rookies hit over 100 threes\u2014an NBA first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ball movement was a major priority under head coach Brian Keefe. The Wizards jumped from 19th to 7th in total passes league-wide, signaling a clear shift toward team-oriented basketball. \u201cWe were finding and taking the right shots,\u201d Dawkins said. \u201cAnd we were playing the right way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the front office knows offense is only one side of the equation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Defensively, the team struggled out of the gate, especially with early-season injuries. Still, by February, just before the Wizards seven-game road trip stretch, Dawkins said the team had climbed to a top-15 defense. Strategic <a href=\"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/06\/wizards-shake-up-roster-at-trade-deadline\/\" title=\"\">trade deadline moves<\/a> brought in veterans Marcus Smart and Khris Middleton as well as rookie AJ Johnson. That&#8217;s when the Wizards started to make visible improvements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s when you started to see what Wizards basketball is going to look like,\u201d Dawkins said. \u201cWe\u2019re not close, but we\u2019re closer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He also praised the growth of players like Jordan Poole, Corey Kispert, Bilal Coulibaly, and <a href=\"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/03\/wizards-sign-justin-champagnie-to-multi-year-contract\/\" title=\"\">Justin Champagnie<\/a>, all of whom developed through the team\u2019s \u201czero-zero mindset\u201d\u2014treating each day as a new opportunity regardless of wins or losses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Looking ahead, Will Dawkins issued a direct challenge to his roster: take the next 170 days seriously. \u201cThat\u2019s 46% of the year that we&#8217;re off,\u201d he said. \u201cWe can\u2019t be off. We have to turn that into time where players are getting better, the team&#8217;s getting better, everybody&#8217;s taking a jump. The goal isn\u2019t to be watching NBA basketball in April, May, and June.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For a franchise trying to escape the cycle of short-term fixes, the tone from Dawkins remains steady and measured. No wild promises. No dramatic declarations. Just a vision of sustainable success built over time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wizards GM Will Dawkins reflects on the season and challenges players to stay locked in: &#8220;we can&#8217;t be off.&#8221; Here&#8217;s what that means for the rebuilding franchise.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3045,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[70],"tags":[29,22,125],"class_list":["post-3041","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wizards","tag-features","tag-washington-wizards","tag-will-dawkins"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/DSC2388-Enhanced-NR-scaled-e1746121425235.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3041"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3047,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3041\/revisions\/3047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3045"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3041"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3041"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dbltakesports.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3041"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}