As he has done during this week of pre-draft workouts, SB Nation DC editor emeritus and Bullets Forever boss Mike Prada went down to the Verizon Center to check out Michael Kidd-Gilchrist go through his paces. Sadly, that plan went awry, as Mike explains below.
I wish I could tell you more about Michael Kidd-Gilchrist's individual workout prior to the group one later in the day, but we literally saw none of it. The whole situation was very strange, with the Wizards announcing 45 minutes before the workout ended that he would work out alone instead of with [Duke guard Austin] Rivers and Terrence Ross. He had finished up by the time media was given access, and all we got was three minutes to talk to him. I think this was agent-driven more than anything, but I'm not going to speculate about the reasons why ... For what it's worth, I did hear that Kidd-Gilchrist's workout went well, but that's about all I know. I really wish I could tell you more, but we just didn't see anything.
The media did get to see some of Austin Rivers' workout, and here's what Mike saw.
Ten minutes had passed since Austin Rivers looked dejected after struggling with the "7 drill," a Wizards shooting workout favorite. The drill asks players to hit seven shots in a row, but for every miss, they must hit one additional shot before the drill can end. Twenty-five shots and four minutes later, coach Randy Wittman had to cut the drill short, telling Rivers that if he just hit six shots, he could stop. Rivers finally did.
And yet ... these were the first words out of Rivers' mouth.
"I think this was my best workout yet," he said. "I had a great workout shooting the ball."
To read the full piece, as always, check out Bullets Forever. Meanwhile, according to Michael Lee of the Washington Post, the Wizards have scheduled more workouts next week, with Connecticut's Andre Drummond scheduled to drop in Monday, while North Carolina's Harrison Barnes set to appear Tuesday.
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