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Wizards' Gortat: Markieff Morris 'is what we need'

Brad Mills-USA TODAY Sports / Reuters

Marcin Gortat knew Markieff Morris before all the messiness in Phoenix over the last two years.

Morris, who joined the Washington Wizards at Thursday's trade deadline, made headlines for all the wrong reasons this season, but former teammate Gortat has faith in the temperamental forward.

"In my opinion, it was blown out of proportion," Gortat said of Morris' troubles in Phoenix, as relayed by Jorge Castillo of the Washington Post.

"Listen, this guy is emotional. I’m not saying he’s a quiet kid. Yeah, he’s kind of a spicy kid. Kind of an aggressive kid. From time to time he’s aggressive. But this is what we need. You want to have a good basketball player and you want to have a guy who’s going to go out there and is going to compete. And I think he’s going to be a great addition to this team."

Gortat, Morris' teammate for two seasons between 2011-2013, likes his passion.

"This guy is going to come face to face with somebody else if somebody is going to foul me or John or anybody else. He’s going to go and challenge a guy face to face. And this is what we need. We need this guy, who’s going to stand up for his teammates and he’s going to fight. I’m quite sure Markieff is going to do that."

Morris and Gortat's former Suns teammate Jared Dudley also spoke highly of Morris, who will presumably challenge Dudley for frontcourt minutes.

"When I was there, he had no problems," Dudley said.

The 26-year-old Morris will be looked upon to help the underachieving Wizards climb back into the playoff picture. He proved to be a versatile two-way forward over his previous two seasons in Phoenix, but a tumultuous, and quite frankly, ugly finish in the valley of the sun saw Morris post career lows in shooting efficiency and turnovers.

Morris is averaging 11.6 points, 5.2 rebounds, and 2.4 assists while shooting 39.7 percent from the field and 28.9 percent from deep.

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