Washington Wizards: Scott Brooks Not Worried About Backcourt Issues

Washington Wizards head coach Scott Brooks has already had to answer questions about his two young stars and their chemistry. However, he isn’t too worried about some of the things that have been talked about during this offseason with Bradley Beal and John Wall.

As many now know, things haven’t been going very smoothly for the Washington Wizards backcourt starters, who at one point touted themselves as the best in the league. Brooks spoke about the situation for the first time since the Beal and Wall were interviewed separately on Comcast SportsNet.

“There’s a lot of things I’m worried about going into camp, and every coach in this league is worried about. That is not one of them,” Brooks said about Wall and Beal’s potential rift. “I haven’t even talked to our assistant coaches about it. Will I meet with each player individually? Yes. Will I meet with the team? Yes. Will I meet with the positions together? Yes. But I don’t see our team having a problem with chemistry.”

Brooks was with the two in Los Angeles, holding a mini-training camp of sorts. He said that things went smoothly and they had a “great workout”.

“Two things I noticed about both of them: They’re very competitive, and they care about their teammates. When you have those two qualities, you will never have problems with me as the coach and you’ll never have problems with your teammates,” Brooks said. “With that being said, they’re like brothers, and you’re going to have arguments. If you don’t have an argument as an NBA team, that’s odd.”

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He also recalled the times that he and his former teammates would argue. Brooks played 10 seasons in the NBA and is 51 years old. He won a championship with the 1993-94 Houston Rockets.

“We’d argue once a week,” Brooks said about his own championship season.

Brooks also talked to the big guys upstairs, upper management, about Wall and Beal’s relationship. To him, things seem like they are overblown.

“Never once did Ted [Leonsis], Ernie [Grunfeld], [senior vice president of basketball operations] Tommy [Sheppard] ever mention that to me. Never once did I ever think about ‘When are they going to mention that to me?’ ” Brooks said, about his conversations that he had had with the team owner and front office.

“I don’t look at it as an issue, I look at it as two competitive players developing their position in this league,” Brooks continued. “I’ve had history of two competitive players, at a young age, [developing] together. That’s not always going to be lovey-dovey, but the respect has to be there.”

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He also doesn’t want to let things go overboard, so Brooks will keep a watchful eye on the two.

“You have to have a competitive group to win. Some nights it’s going to get very competitive, and sometimes it’s going to boil over. That’s my job, to make sure it never goes across that line,” Brooks said. “We have to know that we always have to play for one another and you have to respect one another, and if you don’t have that, you’re going to have a lot of disappointing nights.”