Hoop District extensively covered the Washington Wizards 2018 media day on Monday with quotes and photos from the availability, but we were unable to speak with backup point guard (and at times wing) Tomas Satoransky. We addressed that by catching up with the 26-year old after the first day of training camp at the MedStar Wizards Performance Center in southeast D.C.
On the new practice facility:
“I like it, I like it. I never practiced in such big arena, having two courts next to each other. Obviously, I saw it in different teams when I worked out there before the [2012] draft. This is great, you have everything you need and as a professional athlete, it’s really something you care about. Like we all say, we don’t have excuse now. We have such a service here.”
On his favorite feature of the new facility:
“It’s good for players to have spacing like that. You can do different stuff [drills]. In our facility [Capital One Arena] sometimes you look for spacing and you don’t want to shoot on a side basket so this is definitely huge. Also, the weight room has a bigger space. We probably have the same machines or things over there, but just the space always makes everything better. Another thing is we have separate kitchen and dining halls. No smell [laughs].”
On representing the Czech Republic in World Cup qualifying games:
“Man, it was great. It was great. Another window of two games where we play against Russia and Bosnia. Russia had a great team, Bosnia with [Jusuf] Nurkic. We were in good position before those windows so we had every player available. It was just huge, me and Jan [Veselý] obviously played a big part there. Just qualifying for the World Cup for our country is just historical and a lot of emotions during those three weeks for our country.”
.@Satoransky with ❄️ in his veins 💯!
@ceskybasketbal 🇨🇿 @WashWizards
📺 https://t.co/yB4gFvW05u
📲 https://t.co/6BBBf6oObD
📝 https://t.co/pBU9D7bidS pic.twitter.com/Dy0AWdql9E— FIBA Basketball World Cup (@FIBAWC) September 13, 2018
On how the style of play is different than NBA:
“The paint is more crowded so you really need to pass the ball. Balls are a little bit different. It’s a shorter three-point line, which is good but with the ball you have to get used to it. For two months before that I was practicing with an NBA ball so I needed a week just to get used to it [international ball] and grab that feeling. It’s the European game I’ve played my whole life so it wasn’t really an issue for me. And I know what my role is on that team, I have to lead them and basically I have to do a lot of things. I still don’t consider myself as a scorer or anything but I still score like 20 points because I’m doing a lot of things there. It was great feeling leading this team to World Cup.”
On what he has worked on this off-season:
“Understanding from last year what my strengths are and just keep improving that. Obviously catch and shoot I improved a lot last year so I want to add to that something like shooting off the dribble. Also working on my spacing, where I want to attack. So basically a lot of things about shooting, which always opens opportunities for me to score. Then defensively, I wanted to get a little faster, laterally quicker so I had my one coach from Croatia come to Prague for three weeks so I was working with him, a lot of hurdles there [laughs].”
On not talking to Scott Brooks about his role:
“I don’t talk about with coach who is the backup point guard or who’s who or how many minutes I am going to have. It’s good that we never talk about it, so many things happen during the season and our team is very versatile. What I know from coach is he wants everyone to be prepared to play different positions. Obviously, he knows that I am playing my best, probably, at the point guard positions and I don’t think Austin [Rivers] is a pure point guard. He can play that, he gives us another versatile possibility, he’s someone who I’m looking forward to play with because he’s a guy who can create his own shot, he’s a scorer, which we didn’t have too much off the bench so I think he can give us a lot of options. Also along with Jeff Green who is also a versatile player who is great athlete. I was amazed how tall he is. I think we have a lot of pieces, but we have to demonstrate it on the court.”
On if he tries to block out that he is entering a contract year:
“Yeah, I’m trying to do that. I obviously know about it like everyone is telling me that, but in my career, I confirmed that whenever you are thinking about that kind of stuff or these things, you not really focusing on your game and that’s what I don’t want to do. I want to still focus what I can do for this team and improving every day. I think if you do that, then you can control what you can control and the other things can come. Now I am focusing on training camp.”
On what fun things he did this summer:
“I went to a couple of [music] festivals and I’m a big guy now in my country. I have much more impact now on the sport obviously because I had a good season here where I showed what I can do so people recognize me more. But I did a lot of cool stuff during this offseason. I went to a movie, film festival that I’m going every year. I went for my belated honeymoon in Bali and Malaysia, Singapore, Cambodia. What was very good was we went to Singapore and there was this Ultra festival, which is house music. It’s very famous. We didn’t know about it, but we went to see it and it’s great just to see Asia from that point of view.”
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