Josh Heytvelt

by Zach Bell on Jul 18, 2009 3:03 PM EDT

Hey guys, I am one of the writers for the Gonzaga Blog on SB Nation, The Slipper Still Fits. The NBA Summer league has four Gonzaga players in it, Austin Daye, Jeremy Pargo, Micah Downs, and Josh Heytvelt. Well, and Adam Morrison but we won't go there. I think if you asked any Gonzaga fan who they thought would have the most successful career out of that group, Josh Heytvelt would have gotten a lot of votes. With that being said, Josh has only played about five minutes per game, and he has largely been an afterthought thus far. He has been by far the least active and successful former Zag and I was just curious if you all had any insight as to what is going on. I'm sure you know that most mock drafts had Josh as a mid second round pick and for him to go from that to barely playing in the summer league is perplexing.

At Gonzaga, Josh was questioned a lot for being lazy and not really committing himself to the game of basketball. I've seen reports here and there about lazy defense by him and other things. I'm sure you guys were pretty excited about Josh being on the Wizards summer league team so if you have any thoughts or whatever on what is going on, I would love to hear them because it is quite a strange thing. Unless, of course, you are keeping him away from other teams and saving him as a secret weapon...then its cool!

This represents the view of the user who wrote the FanPost, and not the entire Bullets Forever community. We're a place of many opinions, not just one.

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I'd rather sign him

or some other rookie free agent rather than Oberto really.

by BayAreaBullet on Jul 18, 2009 3:47 PM EDT reply actions

I'm iffy on signing him -

We have enough young players to develop and we are built to win now at least that’s what I am thinking.

by ooba on Jul 18, 2009 4:04 PM EDT reply actions

Well any vets that we could sign

seem to be pretty bad and they would cost more. With D-Mac being able to slide to the 4 and blatche to play 4 and 5 I feel like every name mentioned would be only getting PT if we had 2 or more big men got injured. So thats a spot I wouldn’t have a problem with them going the cheaper route and getting a young guy. Doubt it will matter much either way.

by BayAreaBullet on Jul 18, 2009 5:44 PM EDT up reply actions

in a nutshell

The Wizards have at best one spot for summer league players that aren’t already guaranteed a contract. If such a player is signed it’ll most likely be a big guy and right now it seems Heytvelt is getting outplayed by John Edwards. So in general he’s at best the 3rd big guy off the bench.

by Johnnie Futbol on Jul 18, 2009 7:33 PM EDT reply actions

The other thing is that they could also sign someone that's playing on another Summer League team

Heytfelt was pretty bad against Minnesota, so that probably screwed his chance when you consider he’s competing against so many people league-wide.

I’d like to see them sign Garrett Siler. Pick-setter, banger, tough guy, etc.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Jul 18, 2009 7:54 PM EDT up reply actions

I take it back

Heytfelt played very good post defense on Blake Griffin today, in my opinion. Maybe he does stick.

You know you'll get devoured by Cheaney, Wallace, and Juwan Howard.

by Mike Prada on Jul 19, 2009 12:32 AM EDT reply actions

I thought Heytvelt played pretty solid all week

I don’t recall him being particularly bad in the Minnesota game, although I do think the entire team playing pretty poorly for most of that game.

Heytvelt hasn’t really gotten a lot of run the first four games, but in the limited time that I saw him he seemed like he plays hard, is active and plays pretty smart.

I was a bit disappointed in his jumper though because coming into Vegas I had read that he had a pretty good touch, but even during the pre-game warmups I saw him miss a lot more than he made.

Overall, I actually thought that Heytvelt was sort of like this summer’ version of Vereemenko!

by formula0 on Jul 19, 2009 2:13 AM EDT reply actions

I didn't

see any of the games, so I’ll defer to those that did on his actual performance. But I will say that at this point I’d rather sign him or another rookie for the last spot. I don’t necessarily agree that we are built to “win now.” Not exclusively. Jamison is the only player old player that we have. Given the vets available to us with the money we’re looking to pay, I’d rather get a guy with some potential upside. It wouldn’t cost as much, so we could cut ties if he doesn’t work out. But if you’re just looking for an 8 minute guy for this year, I think an undrafted rookie trying to prove he belongs is a better bet than a washed up has been/never was.

by CJHutch on Jul 20, 2009 8:44 AM EDT reply actions

+1!!!!

by BayAreaBullet on Jul 20, 2009 3:16 PM EDT up reply actions

also....

What’s the point of having veterans being the 12th and 13th guys on your roster? They cost more and pretty much have no upside. If we have guys there for serious emergencies why don’t we have cheaper guys with a chance(slim) of developing into better players. I never understood why guys sign old farts to the end of their bench. It’s one thing if the vet is in your top 10 players but outside of that they should be rookies/projects IMHO.

by BayAreaBullet on Jul 20, 2009 3:20 PM EDT up reply actions