Washington Wizards center Marcin Gortat spoke with the local media Tuesday afternoon to fulfill his end of season obligation of giving an exit interview, speaking about the loss to Boston to end the season as well as where he sees his role in the future. And like clockwork on social media, stories like the following begin to appear out of no where.
It is mind boggling to me that outsiders think they are able to understand the full context of a story from hundreds of miles away without having interacted with the athlete on a consistent basis or hear the audio to understand the manner in which something was stated. I’m here to paint a more accurate picture of what went down.
Gortat is a prideful player that does feel like he gets the short end of the stick more times than not, which is highly unwarranted. He may look to be shaking it off with ease on Twitter, but at some point he feels like he has to stand up for himself. Some of that came out today.
“I had 103 games this year [including pre- and postseason],” Gortat shared. “I haven’t missed even one game. I had 103 games and I haven’t even missed one practice or shootaround. On top of that, I’m the oldest guy on the team and the most experienced guy on the team so I think this is a huge achievement for me personally. Be available every game, that’s a huge thing in NBA.”
That is a strong first point given one of Washington’s biggest offseason acquisitions - Ian Mahinmi - missed 59 games between the regular and postseason this year. Moreover, Gortat was one of 14 players in the NBA to average a double-double throughout the regular season. That list narrows to a dozen if you limit things to a point-rebound combination. A list that features Hassan Whiteside, Andre Drummond, DeAndre Jordan, Rudy Gobert, Dwight Howard, Karl-Anthony Towns, Anthony Davis, Kevin Love, DeMarcus Cousins, Russell Westbrook, and Nikola Vucevic is nice to be in the company of.
“Finishing the regular season with double-double as one of the 14, 15 guys in the league, is huge achievement also,” Gortat expressed. “I take a lot of pride in what I do.”
Forget about the durability or rebounding, though. Gortat’s biggest contribution of the season came in a department that does not show up in the stat sheet that the ordinary fan will skim over following each game. It comes in the newly cataloged hustle stats of NBA.com: the screen assist. In a short period of time, Gortat tweaked his game that allowed him to be the league's most efficient screen assist man in the regular and post season. He led the NBA with 506 screen assists during the 82-game regular season, a 6.2 per game average, while surpassing that mark in the playoffs with a 7.8 per game average for 101 screen assists in 13 games.
“Obviously, this year was completely different than the last three years with the Wizards,” Gortat said. “New system and completely different position in the team for me personally, a different role. … There’s a lot of ‘freaking idiots’ looking directly at the column with the points telling me that you scored only four, six points, team lost because of you. That’s how people picture that, but people that knows basketball, they know what I bring to the table.”
Gortat sacrificed a lot for this team by not demanding the ball often because otherwise there would simply not be enough shots to go around, but with that comes a tad of the 'maybe I am not needed as much' notion.
“I know how the business works,” the center explained. “I’m the oldest guy on the team. They signed Ian [Mahinmi] also, he’s younger than me and he got a longer contract and I just know how the business works so I’m prepared for everything, just in case. … I think it is too early for me to say something. I’m just going to sit down in the summer and talk to my agent, talk to my people, my closest people, and analyze, if this is the right fit.”
The Polish Machine, to which head coach Scott Brooks agrees is an appropriately nickname given Gortat’s dependability, is always one to have a backup plan because without one you can be hung out to dry, but he also appears to be at peace and happy to return to Washington for another season.
“As long as we winning, we going to playoffs, and we winning in playoffs, then fine,” Gortat clarified. “I’m coming back, I have a contract so it does not mean that I’m not going to come back.”
When Washington first signed Ian Mahinmi to a 4-year, $64 million deal last summer, trade rumors swirled concerning Gortat. While in Poland, the Wizards reached out to him to let him know they were not at all looking to shop the big man to which he said he was not worried about to begin with. With Mahinmi’s recent spell of injuries, Washington could ill afford to have him as a number one option if he misses another long stretch with Jason Smith and Daniel Ochefu as the only legitimate replacements.
A lot can happen over the next four months before training camp in late September, but my money is on Marcin Gortat returning to the team and playing on the penultimate year of his contract that still has two years and $26.3 million remaining.