Washington Wizards GM Will Dawkins feels confident that Baltimore native/rookie point guard Bub Carrington is ready to take on the pressure of playing in nearby DC.
(via Washington Wizards):
Reporter: “You mentioned Bub, he’s done some events in the community in Baltimore. And as you may have noticed, Baltimore has its own sports culture. So with him being from there, the Ravens are recognizing him Sunday during their football game, do you think that just his influence will have an opportunity to unlock a different fan base for the Wizards coming out of Baltimore?”
Dawkins: “Well, I have to hit on the first part, for sure. You brought up the Ravens, so that’s a tough one knowing I’m a [Buffalo] Bills fan. Bub & I will be there Sunday night on the field together, we’ve been waiting for that one for a long time. But, Bub’s a special person. I think you see the bubbly, no pun intended, personality and joy that he has for basketball, but he has that for his community as well. His family has been phenomenal, just getting to know them, granddad, dad, mom, the deep roots that they have in that area. Baltimore is a tough place where they know how to compete every single night, and he’s one of the best competitors in our gym already. But I think his aunt is running a school here in DC, and he’s already gone there and kinda spread love to them. So Bub gets it for a younger player who’s drafted (at) 18, finally 19 now. He gets what the impact is in the community.
“I sat down with him before we drafted him and was like, ‘Do you understand what it means to play at home? Everybody can’t do that.’ And he said, ‘Yeah, I do, and I want that.’ I would love to have more fans in Baltimore. I’d love to be able to merge the different communities and spend more time up there. I think Sunday before the game, he’s not just going there for the game, he’s going to spend some time at a children’s hospital and spend some time in the community there. So, he gets the big picture at a young age. I see this as a sports community, and in communication with the different general managers of all the sports around here, and just trying to learn myself on what works here. So for me, I’m excited to go to the game for more reasons than one, but I’ll be with Bub while he’s giving back to his community and hopefully adding more Wizards up there in Baltimore.”
Reporter: “You talked about how everyone can’t play at home, what are the difficulties that make it so?”
Dawkins: “I was never a good enough player to make it to the NBA and play home in Boston, but I can imagine the fans, the tickets. Even Bub was like, ‘Man, opening night, it’s like 150 people already asking me for tickets.’ But, it just means more. There’s more pressure, harder to get away. I’ve asked Saddiq [Bey] about this, too, when I sat down with him. It means more, and at an early age as a rookie you have enough pressures trying to figure it out and things that can take you away. So, you have to be a strong-minded person to really bear that. Learning how to tell people no is a skill, believe it or not, and it’s something that we try to work with our young players. So again, you have different people with more access to you. You weigh a little bit more just knowing you want to turn things around here. Having the patience to do that, invest in yourself. That’s hard to do as it is, let alone with people having access to you that if you were on the other side of the country, they probably wouldn’t have.”
