Manila visitor Kyle Kuzma confident on Washington Wizards future

MANILA, Philippines — With new faces in the team, the Washington Wizards are headed into the right direction, star Kyle Kuzma said, following a dismal year last season.

At a press conference on Monday morning at the Dusit Thani in Makati, the 29-year-old Kuzma said with the addition of No. 2 overall pick Alex Sarr and 24th overall selection Kyshawn George, along with the other young guns of the squad, he believes the team is heading in the right direction.

Aside from the youngsters, the team also acquired veterans Jonas Valanciunas and Malcolm Brogdon in the offseason.

“Really, I think we look like a modern NBA team now. You know, being with the Wizards for four years, you know, I really love the direction that we're in right now,” he told reporters.

“I love everybody on our team, I think we have really high character guys. Talk about Sarr, talk about Bilal [Coulibaly,] talk about [Jordan Poole], these guys love basketball. That’s the number one thing that I’m excited for is to be around people that are really passionate about the game, but also themselves and how they want to be perceived in the basketball world,” he added.

“And I think that's super, super important.”

Despite Kuzma having a career year last season, averaging 22.2 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.2 assists on 46.3% shooting, the Wizards finished 14th in the Eastern Conference with a 15-67 record.

With the forward going into his eighth NBA season, he stressed that he would want to also make his teammates better.

“I think I've had, you know, back-to-back career years. But I wanna help somebody else have a career year, kinda help somebody else get better and improve. And I think that's the true sign of, you know, greatness in a player and you bring other people with you,” he said.

And with the kind of talent the team has, a playoff berth may not be too far into the future.

“That's the goal. As long as we continue to build, we fall in line as a team and cohesively do that. I think anything can happen,” he said.

“When you look at the NBA over the past couple of years, it's been a new champion like you every year and there's always a team or a couple of teams that are better than you think. Why can’t it be us?”