When a team has lost 110 more games than they have won over the past three seasons, saying there are holes to fill is an understatement. Drafting Kanter with the 6th pick as earlier projected in this mock draft fills the void of a bruising big man with low post scoring moves.
Another major area of need is the three position. Trevor Booker is more of a combo 3/4 man and his jump shot would have to vastly improve in order to play heavy minutes at the three (along with his lateral defensive movement). Nick Young has the ability to play the three, but his more natural position is at the two. It’s easier to ask Nick to defend shooting guards. Rashard Lewis is another three candidate, but his age and faulty knees create doubt whether he can realistically hold up for 82 games ever again. It will be interesting to see if signs point to the Wizards bank-rolling the most expensive reserve in the NBA next season.
Dexter Pittman is a big body with soft hands. The Wizards could certainly use a post man who can take up space and Pittman, along with Derrick Caracter, might be options … perhaps not necessarily at 30 or 35, but a possibility should the Wizards acquire a late second round pick. Pittman worked out for the Wizards last Thursday, June 17th. Here’s a bullet point run-down on Dexter along with his post-workout media interview video:
Pittman says he left high school for Texas weighing 388, dropped that to 366 before enrolling in June 2006, and got his weight down to a listed 290 by his senior year.
Below I’ve embedded a video of a good ESPN feature that chronicles the transformation Pittman went through at UT, a school with a renowned strength and conditioning program.
Pittman weighed in at 303 in Chicago, said he was “probably around 300″ on his day working out with the Wizards, and that his ideal playing weight is around 270-280.
He had the highest percentage of body fat, 20.8%, of those measured in Chicago. DeMarcus Cousins was second at 16.4%.
The website of Pittman’s foundation, DexterPittman.org, says that he once weight 402 pounds.
Pittman measures 6’9.5″ without shoes with a 7’6″ wingspan, almost six inches longer than Caracter’s wingspan.
Pittman also had the biggest hands of the Chicago measurements with a length of 10.5 inches. Sure, these are just measurements, but I’m loving the new hand measurement stat. Some of the greatest players, Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Rajon Rondo, and many that I’m surely missing, have had some of the biggest, strongest hands. Kwame Brown was said to have small hands. Enough said.
Pittman made Academic All-Big 12 his sophomore and junior years.
In an interview, he said one of his nicknames is “Sexy Dexy,” given to him by the Texas women’s basketball team his freshman year.
He also said that he “loves phones like women love shoes” and that he’s a big fan of Wal-mart.
He had an impressive workout with the Timberwolves, where he compared himself to DeJuan Blair and Big Baby Davis, but with 3 or 4 more inches in height, says T-Wolves GM David Khan.
In the scouting report video embedded below, I was impressed by Pittman’s footwork/agility when guarding the pick-and-roll on the perimeter.
Says he would’ve been disappointed if Texas went to the Pac-10 because the Big 12 stands for being “big and physical” while the Pac-10 is known for “premature point guards” who don’t want to get hit in the paint.
