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"I heard the trade rumor, actually the day I got traded . . .I heard about it that morning," Lewis tells HOOPSWORLD. "But you know, you hear a lot of rumors in the NBA, so you look at it and wonder ‘what if’ and don’t really think about it. There’s always rumors before the All-Star break, before the deadline hits. Then it happened and I was definitely surprised to be going from a team that was definitely contending to a team that’s rebuilding. I was upset about it, but didn’t want to bring negative energy to a new organization, so I had to think about the positive things about it, stay positive and come to the team with positive energy and hopefully we can try to turn it around a little bit."

"He’s had a great attitude," says Wizards head coach Flip Saunders. " I think he understands where we’re at. We set a game plan with what we’re going to do from day one. If we were going to get a veteran player he was going to be somebody that we thought would be a good leader and was going to be here long-term, and that’s what Rashard Lewis is. We knew we were going to have to do a lot of development and that we’d go through some growing pains. Rashard knows that, he’s bought into it, and he’s been a great leader. I think he’s enjoying playing, too, because we’re utilizing him a lot. We’re not just using him as a spot-up perimeter shooter, one-dimensional, we’re moving him around and he’s getting more comfortable with that. I think it was an adjustment early, but more and more he’s becoming a focus of what we’re trying to do."

First and foremost, the Wizards would like for Lewis to turn back the clock a bit and be the more offensively diverse player he was as a member of the Seattle SuperSonics.

"Everybody has their role, and right now I don’t know if he’s going to be a primary option, but he’s a big part of what we’re trying to do," says Wizards GM Ernie Grunfeld in an exclusive interview, the rest of which will run in the NBA @ 2 this afternoon. "We’re trying to get him back to playing like he did in Seattle, posting him up a little bit more to take advantage of mismatches because he does have really good size at the three spot. He has the post-up game, the three, and he also puts the ball down every once in a while. I think we’re trying to get more out of him than the Magic did because in Orlando they had Dwight (Howard) and he’s going to get most of the looks on the inside. We’re trying to get him back to being the player that he was in Seattle."

"It’s something I have to most definitely get back into doing," says Lewis. "Playing in Orlando I was more like a role player, just spotting up, shooting threes while Dwight pretty much controlled the paint. Now I have to get back to being aggressive, posting up, penetrating to the basket, pretty much everything I did when I played in Seattle. I have to break out of how I played in Orlando."

The other thing the Wizards would like from Lewis is help in guiding a very young group of players down their path to being solid NBA contributors. As a veteran who has been a star in his own right and has a trip to the NBA Finals under his belt, Lewis can be a valuable source of advice and perspective for John Wall, Nick Young, and the youthful Wizards.

"I’m a little bit surprised at how vocal he’s been," admits Saunders. " I had him in the Goodwill Games a while ago, so I have some experience with Rashard, and I didn’t know how vocal he would really be with our guys. He’s been very vocal in the locker room and very, very positive even though we’ve had a tough stretch. Win or lose, he’s been very positive and very much of a leader."

To their credit, the Wizards’ next generation has responded very positively to the words of wisdom from their veteran teammates.

{AUTHOR_BOX}"I definitely feel like the guys respect me, they do listen when I speak up," says Lewis. "Not only me, but Kirk Hinrich and Josh Howard, as well, they do listen. They’re all ears when guys like us start talking. … I’m pretty much a quiet guy, try to lead by example. I’m getting there early, working hard in practice, lifting weights, a lot of the little things. I’m trying to be more vocal this time, especially being on a team this young, where we have a bright future. They need me to be more vocal than anything, as well as leading by example.

"I tell the guys we have to keep our heads up," Lewis continues. "Even though we haven’t won a road game, we can’t put our heads down. We have to keep pushing forward. Even during games we can’t put our heads down. Teams are going to make a run and that’s when you have to use positive energy, keep everybody upbeat, and just keep playing. When younger guys make mistakes they tend to put their heads down and it takes them out of the game. You have to keep playing for four quarters. You can play bad for three quarters and explode for one quarter and have a good game. Anything can happen."

It hasn’t been easy for Lewis. It’s never easy to be traded, but being traded from a team that expects to compete for a championship to a team that would do well to sneak into the playoffs. It’s a testament to Lewis’ resilience that he can talk about his new team making the playoffs as a realistic possibility.

"You always have to look for the positives. Of course, we’re struggling on the road, but we’ve played pretty well at home. The biggest positive I was looking at was how many games we had to get to that last spot in the playoffs. Even though we haven’t won on the road and our record doesn’t look to good, we can still make a run and fight for that eighth spot."