NBA’s Washington Wizards show off their footy skills in practice

With the NBA season just around the corner, training camps have kicked off around the league.

And in the case of the Washington Wizards, that involved some soccer-based cross-training as they got warmed up at the beginning of Monday’s practice at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va.

That’s right: The hoops squad picked up a new kind of ball and kicked, dribbled and juggled their way around the hardwood.

Some — especially Jan Veselý, the Wizards’ 6-foot-11 forward from the Czech Republic — showed impressive skills, and others, well…not so much.

Washington Post sports blogger Dan Steinberg has a good rundown of this quirky occasion, including a video clip of Veselý doing some nifty seal juggling, while the Wizards’ coverage team at monumentalnetwork.com has posted a full photo gallery of the Wiz kicks.