I don't want a Morris twin anywhere near our locker room.
I don't care for the personalities at all, but they would bring some grit and edge that wouldn't hurt this team.
But he’s also been more than that, according to Gortat. In a lengthy podcast with Standig, Gortat extolled Morris’s contributions off the court, with a pretty striking anecdote.
“I think he’s a great human being,” Gortat said of Morris. “First of all he’s a great teammate. He’s a
great teammate. And a great teammate is when you’re on the island, [and stuff] hits the fan. I get you my example. When I had a situation with bench players, call out the bench players and I threw them under the bus, accidentally threw them under the bus, I did make a huge mistake. I felt disgusted with what I said, and I apologized. I feel like I’m going to be apologizing till the end of the season.”
(This, of course, is a reference to
Gortat’s comments in November that the Wizards had one of the worst benches in the league. At the time, the team was 2-7, and the bench was indeed playing awful, but Gortat’s postgame comments caused a mild uproar.)
Gortat continued:
“And that moment when you’re walking into the locker room and nobody wants to talk to you, that moment when everybody’s look at you like ‘Look at this [jerk], what the frick is he thinking?’ That’s the moment when you’re on the island. And that kid right here, [Morris] came to me first —
what’s up, how you doing, how you feel, lets go get a lift, let’s play music, let’s get back to it. You know what I’m saying? He’s the first one who come in, approach, grab your hand. And he’s going to talk to you, make you feel like ‘Hey, whatever, we’re past that.’ That’s the guy who he is. People just don’t understand that. And it’s huge, as a teammate. It’s huge.”
That’s a great anecdote, and more support for Gortat’s months of Morris praise. And also for Gortat’s belief that he’ll be a great personnel man one day.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...kieff-morris-saved-marcin-gortat-this-season/
