After suffering their fourth loss in five games. Washington Wizards guards John Wall and Bradley Beal criticized their teammates about having their “own agendas.”
Their statements captured Saturday morning headlines both locally and nationally. During practice on the campus of UCLA ahead of Sunday’s game against the Los Angeles Clippers, the topic carried over into media session with the players. One player in particular Austin Rivers went as far as saying he went against his style of play trying to fit in with his new team.
“I’ve been trying not to step on people’s toes because I’m the new guy, so I’m just trying to fit in,” Rivers said, according to The Athletic’s Fred Katz. “That’s not who I am. I’m not a fit-in type of guy. I’m a guy who goes out there and attacks people’s throats. And that’s who they want me to be. That’s who Brad tells me to be. That’s who John tells me to be. That’s what coach tells me to be. So, that’s what I gotta be.”
Rivers was acquired by the Wizards in a trade in exchange of Marcin Gortat. Rivers has been a bit of a disappointment five games into the season, averaging 7.8 points per game while shooting 39.5 percent from the field, including 32.0 percent from three, in 24.6 minutes per game as the primary backup guard to Wall and Beal.
Despite that Rivers feels the comments of Wall and Beal were unwarranted.
“You gotta understand, guys are frustrated. We’re 1-4, so sometimes, comments can be unwarranted. You know what I mean?” Rivers added. “I think some guys maybe look at another guy who shot a lot and said, ‘Why are you shooting this?’ And you should never be worried about someone else’s shots.
“The only thing we should be worried about is us getting wins or losses. That’s the only thing that matters at the end of the day anyway. We haven’t won – we’ve got one in the five games. So that’s the only thing I care about, not these comments. They don’t matter.”
Otto Porter was also quoted on his thoughts about the criticism from the Wizards’ top two players. When asked if he agreed with Wall and Beal’s comments, Porter said he didn’t.
“I can’t say that,” Porter said per Katz. “But you gotta play together. We can’t have our heads down…So we gotta figure, hey, we gotta play for each other. Nobody’s cheering for us. We gotta be our own backbone. We gotta carry each other.”
Wizards head coach Scott Brooks added “I don’t see that here” when asked about players being on their own agenda. He then quickly deflected the attention from what was said from Wall and Beal while pointing to what the Wizards need to do to get back on track.
“We were frustrated that we lost. Sometimes when you get frustrated, you say things. But I think what our problem is right now is our defense in transition, our switching,” Brooks said per Katz. “Our rebounding, I think we’ve done a pretty good job with that. It’s about transition defense, getting back, sprinting back. And that’s about as simple as you can get in basketball. We all learned that. You get back and match up.”
