WIZARDS PRESIDENT ERNIE GRUNFELD
On Dee Brown:
“He is quick and he plays with a high energy and that’s something we lacked last year. He will be a good help to us.”

On what he is looking for in summer league:
“We want to see improvement. We want to see them grow. Summer leagues are always very important to the young kids to go out there and show what they have, show what kind of shape they are in and work on certain fundamentals that they need to improve on.”

On the importance of summer league:
“This is really for our young veterans. Nick Young, Dominic (McGuire), Andray Blatche and (Oleksiy) Pecherov are going to be playing and our first round pick JaVale McGee will be playing also. It is about them getting used to playing with one another and improving as we go along. We want to see how they match-up against some of the younger players in the league.”

On what players get out of summer league:
“I think it is always helpful. It gives them a head start, they get to run the offense a little, they get to learn the defensive concepts, and they get in shape. After the summer league is over we will know what things we want them to work on for the rest of the summer.”

On free agency:
“We are going to explore our options. We do have a little bit of space left. We are pretty deep at every position and we feel comfortable with what we have. If the right opportunity comes up and something can help us we will take a look into that.”

On Etan Thomas:
“Etan looked good. It was good to have him back after seeing him around for the last two or three months working out. It was one of the first times he has gone out there and really had contact and he was very effective.”

WIZARDS CENTER ETAN THOMAS
On participating in practice:
“It was good to go through some drills with coaches. I got my clearance about a month ago and I’ve been training and working out.”

WIZARDS FORWARD DOMINIC MCGUIRE
On the Wizards summer league team:
“I’m expecting for us to go out there have a lot of fun and win games. We have a great team, a great point guard in Dee Brown and I think we can go out there and push the tempo and win some games.”

On what he has been working on to improve this summer:
“I’ve been working on my mid-range jumper, ball-handling, and I am trying to lose some weight, so I could get quicker on defense and be a lock-down defender for this team.”

WIZARDS CENTER JAVALE MCGEE
On today’s practice
“It went pretty good. It was a nice little practice and I think I did pretty well. The coaches have just been telling me to keep running the floor, block shots and continue to rebound the basketball.”

WIZARDS GUARD DEE BROWN
On signing with the Wizards:
“I’m so happy. Actually going through the process my agent called me on draft night and told me they were interested in me. It’s a great situation for me. I know their point guard situation, so I was very excited when the opportunity came to come over here.”

On playing for the Utah Jazz and playing overseas:
“I got the best of both worlds. I played for a great organization in Utah. They are a very disciplined organization with Coach (Jerry) Sloan. Then I went overseas to work on my game. A lot of people thought I was down and out, but I went over there to work on my game and I’m really just blessed to play basketball for a living. I took full advantage of the opportunity to go over there and I got some good experience and now I have the opportunity to play for Washington.”

On his role with the team:
“My role is just going to be play hard, try to change the pace of the game, defend the smaller point guards in the league. It’s all about team and team basketball. Whatever Coach Jordan wants me to do. I’m just going to come out here everyday, play hard, be a professional and do whatever coach wants me to do.’

GUARD JONATHAN WALLACE
On being familiar with the Princeton offense:
“I’m pretty familiar with the overall scheme of things. I know the spacing and overall intentions of the offense. It’s kind of given me a little bit of a leg up and I was able to adapt to the offense in a short time period.”

FORWARD WILL THOMAS
On his play:
“I want to show I can play on this level. I want to go out there and play hard on defense, score my points when I can on offense, and play as hard as I can all the time.”