A Parade Of Stars Rolls Into Verizon Center

Here's a partial list of who walked down the back hallway of Verizon Center between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. yesterday: Flip Saunders, Vinny Cerrato, Sam Cassell, DeShawn Stevenson, Stephen Curry, Marissa Coleman (on crutches), Jonny Flynn, Brandon Jennings, A.J. Price, Andray Blatche, Lindsay Czarniak, Javaris Crittenton, Chris Miller, Ivan Carter (in a triumphant return), Trajan Langdon, Sara Walsh, ex-George Mason hoopster Jen Daniels, Nick Young, David Aldridge, Alana Beard and Crystal Langhorne. Not a horrible list, all in all.

You could ask, and answer, thousands of questions from a cast like that, but space constraints will keep us to one hand's worth.

Wait, Cerrato?

Sure. He and new Wizards Coach Flip Saunders have been friends for a quarter-century, since they were both assistants at the University of Minnesota and Saunders would introduce recruits to Cerrato's boss, Lou Holtz. They've kept in touch the whole way, and Saunders called Cerrato a month before he accepted the D.C. job to ask about "the city, the area, the whole thing."

"He and I texted back and forth all the time," Cerrato said. "He called me right when he signed his deal. We'd already been back and forth. Then I texted him the day he went to New York for the draft [lottery], I said, 'Don't come back unless you get the first pick.' Then he called me, he said, 'I thought you'd be at the train station with a band when I got back.' "

What did Brandon Jennings learn by spending a season in Italy?

"That over here, it's just great over here," he said of the United States. "Over there, you know, they have a lot of struggles. You know, the economy's not that great, they don't make a lot of money, just the way they live is different from here."

See, I always thought living in Rome would be sort of a dream. I asked him what was different.

"Well, we [didn't] have a dryer," he said. "We have to hang our clothes outside. So that was one thing that was really tough for us, you know, hang-drying our clothes. You know, not having all the fast food. Just the way they live is totally different. A lot of things be closed on the weekends and things like that."

Panda Express, he said, was the fast food he missed the most. Living in Italy. I'm serious.

What class is Stephen Curry taking at Davidson this summer, en route to his degree?

"Young Adult Fiction," he said. "Just finished 'Tarzan,' and what are we doing now. . . . Reading 'The Hardy Boys.' "

That's a new one for me, the crit-lit approach to teen detective tales. Now, I could happily deconstruct the bejeezus out of Nancy Drew.

How is Nick Young getting back and forth to practice these days?

In Gilbert Arenas's '96 Yukon. "His high school car," Young said, who had all his own cars shipped back to California.

How will Jennings handle the physical pounding of the NBA?

"I think it's more physical overseas," he said, spitting in the face of soft European stereotyping. "You know, they don't call anything. You can grab, you can choke a player out, you can do anything." He added, though, that he personally had never been choked out.

"You know, I stayed to myself," he said. "I didn't want to get in none of those fights with the fans or anything like that, because those fans is crazy."