The Washington Wizards have always been a popular potential destination for Greivis Vasquez, at least among Maryland fans. The reason for this has a lot more to do with emotion and proximity than it does any sort of level-headed reasoning, but how cool would it be to see Vasquez partner with John Wall in the backcourt just down the road from College Park? Talk about sellin' some tickets.
Anyway, those of us that think Vasquez in the Verizon Center would be cool got a little dose of encouragement, as Greivis worked out for the Wiz today in D.C. We weren't there, of course, so we don't know how he did, but the Wizards apparently gave him a party line after the workout (at least it was an encouraging one):
They're obviously looking at me. Anything can happen. We'll see if I'm going to be up to that pick or not (referring to the Nos. 30 and 35 picks the Wizards possess in addition to the No. 1 overall chioce). They're trying to rebuild the team and obviously he told me I did a good job. It was a great meeting.
Meanwhile, he's still saying all the right things about adjusting to the NBA:
I know my role is going to be different in an NBA team than it was in college. It's not about me playing 48 minutes and taking big-time shots. It's just maybe coming off the bench and being a backup point guard and learning from some veteran guys and getting better until eventually I become the starting point guard of a team. It's going to take me a little while. It's always hard in any process you do at the beginning. So I understand that. I don't have no ego. It's not like I got to go to a team and be the starting point guard right away. No, I got to work my way up.
Greivis has handled himself extremely well in interviews so far in the process, and I can only imagine he's done the same with GMs. I have to imagine taking that kind of attitude could only help.
Craig Stouffer of the Washington Examiner got some more quotes from Vasquez on the workout, every single one of which will only reinforce the idea that he's great.
Now, this may be called the VazTracker, but that doesn't mean it's just limited to news on GV's escapades. That's especially true when Eric Hayes, Vasquez's backcourt-mate for four years at Maryland, just earned a workout with the hometown team, too.
Maryland's Eric Hayes and Morgan State's Reggie Holmes will take part in pre-draft workouts on Tuesday for the Wizards at the team's practice court at Verizon Center.
Hayes, 6-foot-4 and 180 pounds, averaged a career-high 11.3 points per game with a career-best .502 field goal percentage as a senior for the Terps in 2009-10.
Will he get drafted? Probably not. In fact, I'm not sold that he'll stick in the NBA at all. But it'd be great if he got a shot, and it'd be even better if he got it with the Wiz. We know he's calm, cool, collected, and has a great jumper, so maybe he'll end up with a tryout in D.C. as an UDFA. Who knows? The Wiz have usually been pretty good to the nearby schools. Congrats to Eric, and hopefully he can make something out of this workout.
Now that Hayes will be working out in D.C., all three of Maryland's seniors will have shown their stuff for the Wiz (Landon Milbourne worked out earlier in the month). Vasquez holds the best, and perhaps only, chance at being drafted by them, but it's still good to see.
Happy Memorial Day, everyone.