Washington Wizards General Manager Tommy Sheppard said Thursday that Japanese-born forward Rui Hachimura went beyond his expectations in his first season with the NBA team.
"I had pretty high expectations of Rui because I'm real familiar with the player, and the character of the kid and the competitiveness of the kid," Sheppard said in a video posted on the team's Twitter account.
"He did exceed them as a rookie to come in and get the starting job from Day 1, and then he produced the way he was producing," he said.