<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Opening statement- "We're pleased. Our goal was to make the playoffs. We maintained from day one that that's something we thought was achievable. We'd gone on record and said that was a goal of ours, that we thought this team was good enough to make the playoffs, and we did make the playoffs. We played very well, in particular the second half of the season. And as you know, started out the playoffs and played really well. I don't think our play throughout the playoffs diminished with the exception of Game 7. I think Phoenix got over the fact that they were behind quickly, and their game improved as the playoffs went along. That may have had something to do with the way the playoffs ended, but that's a credit to them. They recovered from being down 3-1 and they played very well. Certainly losing Game 7 in the manner that we lost it was disappointing, and that took a little bit of the glow off of our achievements. But here it is two days out (the interview took place last Monday), we're over the shock of losing a playoff series. But in retrospect, we thought we had a good season and our future is very bright with young players going forward." On holding the pieces together while filling needs the team has and improving it- "The good news really is that this team is together. We don't have that many challenges during the offseason in terms of free agency. Of course Devean George is a free agent. A trusted teammate for this organization for a bunch of years now. In terms of challenges, he's probably the one challenge we have during the offseason. Of course, Jimmy Jackson's a free agent, Devin Green's a free agent, so there are some other issues to address, but basically the core of this team is intact." On the club's stance towards George- "As a staff we haven't sat down and gone through personnel player by player. He is an unrestricted free agent. We don't have matching authority. What that means is that he's going to have choices. I do know, based on my position, phone calls I've received pre-trade deadline this year and in years past that there will be interest in Devean. So we have to sit down as a staff, look and see where he fits in, how much time we think he'll get, what kind of contribution he's going to make, and then try to gauge the market. And look at the other free agents that are available as well and other ways we can improve the team, including the existing players. And then we'll make a decision. At that point, it's really Devean out in the marketplace. And at that point, we're a suitor like anybody else. Maybe we have an advantage because he's comfortable here. I think a big issue with Devean is going to playing time and what kind of contribution he can make to a team next year. I don't know if his role is going to change with us. I would say right now it probably would be the same. Having said that, all that changes when you go into training camp, and that's where you earn your position and where you earn your minutes. But that's something that he'd have to get comfortable with." On what the team needs- "I think we need to stay together and keep the group together. We like our mix of players, we like our youth. Clearly, the second half of the season we played almost as well as any team in the NBA. Certainly not to the level of a Detroit, but we played pretty consistent basketball, and it was fun to watch and very entertaining to watch as well. Losing Laron Profit early in the season maybe made us weak in the backcourt. Although he's had surgery and we're going to talk to him we don't know how his recovery is going to be. So I would look to say that maybe we should look to add a player into our backcourt during the offseason. Whether that's through the draft or free agency or via a trade, it's too early to say right now. And each player is going to get better just because they're going to work hard and mature a little bit throughout the offseason." The last two years have been massive upheaval at these meetings. Does it feel good to have some stability finally? "We don't expect- and I'm not sure I agree with the "massive upheaval"- but we've made some substantial changes in the last two years. Certainly two years ago we did. Last year we made a big trade, that's true. I don't anticipate that this offseason, but you'll know as you get closer to the draft and then post draft into free agency- sign and trades is a period where it does heat up- and if there's an opportunity that makes sense for us to make a big deal to improve the team, we'll look at it. Basically, those are not things you can count on. We're very pleased with our core group, and if that's where we end up a year from now, with some changes and players getting older and getting better, we think we can win a bunch of games and in fact advance beyond the first round." On his pleasure at seeing how well Phil and Kobe's relationship played out- "I didn't spend too much time trying to analyze it. I'm not surprised that it went that way. We felt fairly confident last year when we brought Phil back that he wanted to be here. And based on Kobe's comments to us, which was "Just get me the best coach to win games," we felt confident that he'd be comfortable with Phil as well. So I'm not that surprised, and in fact I'm pleased that it appears as if the relationship has even continued to grow throughout the year. I've read a couple articles in the last couple of days and it seems like there's even a better relationship there than there ever was." On Kobe's comments that this was the best job Phil has done as a coach, and if he'd agree with that assessment- "I've mentioned that several times throughout the year. I noticed in training camp Phil took a completely different approach to the training camp. In terms of coaching this team in particular, when we had a bunch of veteran players, with Rick Fox and Derek Fisher, Robert Horry, Shaquille, Kobe, it was more managing a group of players. They already pretty much knew how to play the game. Their skill level was such that they had established themselves as NBA players. At that point in time it's managing personalities, lineups, motivation. We have a completely different team this year, and in training camp we had a bunch of young guys, and I saw Phil really take a major leap in terms of teaching and coaching young players. And that was apparent in training camp, that he had a plan to bring this group along. You always want to be playing great basketball at the All Star break, but you really want to be playing your best towards the end of the season. In other words, peaking at the right time. And that's what this team did." On gratification received from watching development of Kwame and Lamar over the second half of the season- "I like to see young players improve and get better, yes. Lamar really played very well post trade deadline, and certainly the rumors leading up until the trading deadline may have hurt his confidence a little bit, which is to be expected, but he had a great second half of the year. And he indicated to me that a lot of that had to do with his comfort level in the offense. He just wasn't comfortable. In fact, he commented that this is something that Kobe's been doing for six years, and Lamar's only been exposed to it for three months. You know, "give me some time, and I'll get it." And certainly, clearly, he did get it. Kwame is going to continue to be a work that needs to be evaluated. He's not where we want him to be. He's made great strides, his confidence has improved, but he needs to work during the offseason. He cannot get away from basketball for five months and then come back in October. He has to continue to work, because he's a young player that has to improve. And he's healthy, and there's no reason why he shouldn't be back this summer. But we're very pleased with the progress he's made in the last two or three months, also." What can you do to facilitate that sort of basketball activity for him? "Players have to take the initiative. We can draw up the blueprint, we had it out, we meet with them, but they have to be in the gym. They have to be available for our coaches during the offseason, they have to want to work." And will Kwame fit in to that? <font size=""5"">"My understanding is that he's not put as much time into his game during the offseason as he should. </font> And we're hoping that this season, he does. It's not uncommon for players to get away from the game, and in fact for a lot of our veteran players, we recommend it. But when you're a younger player that's still trying to prove yourself, you have to get away and you also have to get in the gym. So he has to manage that two-part decision. He has to get away and get rest, but he also has to get back in the gym."</div> Source Kwame Brown better dedicate his entire offseason to working out and improving.
Yup I agree. We got a young group of guys who are playing well together. If they do make some drastic changes in the offseason I hope they just bring in KG. It sounds to me like Kwame doesn't have the desire to improve his game even when he's pushed to work harder. I would like to see better work ethic from him.
i hope that since we now have KAJ, it will motivate kwame to work harder. i mean, everyone wants to impress a basketball legend, dont they?
I'm looking forward to Bynum in the new season. He'll be training with Kobe and Garnett so that should be a huge bonus. Hopefully Kobe can persuade Garnett during the off season to request a trade!
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Laker_fan:</div><div class="quote_post"><font color=""Red"">I'm looking forward to Bynum in the new season.</font> He'll be training with Kobe and Garnett so that should be a huge bonus. <font color=""red"">Hopefully Kobe can persuade Garnett during the off season to request a trade!</font></div> if we see bynum next season, then that means most likely no KG. if we see KG next season, then that means most likely no bynum.
Part 2: <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">On Kobe and USA Basketball- "We talked a little about that in our exit meeting. They start towards the middle of July in Las Vegas and they travel quite a bit. They're in Vegas, they go to Korea, they go to Japan. And then once they're in Japan they make a stop or two before they finally get to the finals, hopefully, which is right outside Tokyo. (They have five games of pool play?) That's correct. I saw Coach Krzyzewski in Phoenix two days ago (this would have been around the first weekend in May), we talked for about 20 minutes about what his vision was for the Olympic team. How he hoped to play with the talent that he had on the team. With Jerry Colangelo lurking in the shadows and with Coach Krzyzewski's feel for players, I don't expect to see two-a-day practices that go three hours that players get burned out at. I expect to see a group of players that are going to practice hard, (but) I don't think they'll jeopardize their careers with overpractice and fatigue, and they have a certain vision for the type of basketball they'd like to play as well, which I think fits with what Kobe feels as well going forward." Do you expect Sasha and Ronny to play for their respective teams? "Well Lamar is (going as well). Lamar and Kobe for USA Basketball, Ronny would be for the French National Team, and Sasha would be for the Slovenian National Team. I think it's possible that all four of those players would be on their national teams this summer." Was it hard for you and Coach K to talk? Duke and North Carolina? "Not with this year's recruiting class at Carolina. (laughter) Actually, as you know, we interviewed him two years ago and I have a relationship with him. He's very easy to talk to." It sounds like you're not planning on a whole lot of changes next year. Is that fair to say? '"You cannot predict a major change. There's only two or three, maybe four teams that have significant cap room in the NBA. This is not a great year where you're going to see 8-10 stellar free agents available. So even if you had $10-12 million dollars worth of cap room, there aren't a great number of players to spend it on. And the teams that have cap room are just three or four teams. The other 25 or 26 teams in the NBA are in the exact same boat we are, which is you're over the cap, you have a draft choice, you might have a second round pick, and you have your exceptions, which is a mid-level exception and a bi-annual exception. So we're in the exact same boat that 25 or 26 other NBA teams are in. In fact, I think we're in a better position. We're not approaching the tax, because once you get to the tax you're paying double for a player. So if you think a player is worth $4 or $5 million dollars but you have to pay him $10, then are you making a good business/basketball decision? So we're not even approaching the tax this offseason, so we're in a position where we can spend our bi-annual, we can spend our mid-level, we can spend both. If we can make a trade and bring back more money that we take on, we have the ability to do that. So we have those possibilities. We have a big window two years from now, which we may continue to decide to prepare for, or we may not if something does come up. None of our plans are etched in stone, but we do feel that we have a lot of flexibility with our roster and financially, and we're no worse off than 26 other teams in the NBA regarding the cap." On balancing the big window two years from now with the present, and making an available move? "To be honest, it's actually helpful when making a decision. Because when you make a decision you look at a player- and it was helpful during the period of time prior to the trade deadline this year. We had a bunch of opportunities to take back a player or two players- we could have made three or four deals. But it would have entailed using substantial salary next year and a couple of them would have put us in jeopardy two years down the road. And where we are today looking back on it, we're glad we didn't make those deals. You know, during the season you're not playing well, you have this feeling to improve the team, but to know that you may be giving up a big part of your future by making a deal like that, you give it actually a second thought- which is what we did, and we didn't do the deals and we're happy we didn't. We're very pleased with the group of players we have right now, and then we have all this flexibility this offseason and also going forward." On balancing the need to bring in more experience with making sure the young players have enough court time to develop- "Well I thought we had a great balance this year. Up until three or four days ago, I thought we had great chemistry. Even bringing Jimmy Jackson on- if you watched him during timeouts and during practice, you'd watch him go to the players and whisper something in their ear or pull them aside and show them something. Aaron McKie didn't play a lot due to injury, but he had the same profound effect on our younger players and our less experienced players during the playoffs and during the season, even when he was injured. So you do have to have the right balance. You can't just have ten or twelve really talented young guys, because it just doesn't work. They don't have a pecking order, they don't know where they stand, they're all trying to prove themselves in the league, they're all trying to get their next contract, they're all trying to prove that they belong. So a mix is really important. Aaron's going to be back next year, Jimmy's a free agent, we haven't had time to discuss it, but it's a factor. It's a factor getting the right mix." On having both Chris and Kwame together on the roster, and some of the issues that presents- "Phil and I haven't really discussed it. We spent a minute or two talking about it briefly this morning. The one thing that he did say to me was he's always had three centers on his roster. If Kwame is a center, which is what he's played the last month and a half, and Chris is a center and Andrew's a center, then we have three centers. There's nothing wrong with having three big players in this league. One player's not going to play big minutes, and the other guy's going to play three or four minutes, or he's going to have a mix of substitutions, there's going to be foul trouble. And who's to say that Kwame or Chris can't play some big forward? So at this time, we're comfortable with having a big roster." Knowing what it takes to win a championship, is that something you see in the future for this core group? "If we could have gotten past Phoenix, you can make an argument that hey, we can get to the conference finals. We'd have to get through the Clippers, but we lost two, we won two. So maybe we could have got past them, maybe we couldn't have. So now you're in the conference finals with this group. The group that we have is going to be back next year, they're going to be a little bit older, a little bit more savvy in terms of accomplishment, and experienced in terms of the playoff series this year. I think it's safe to say they'll be a better group next year. If we can make an offseason acquisition, I don't understand why we wouldn't be in a position to duplicate what we did this year in terms hoping to get past the first and second round." And a championship? "A championship run really includes a lot of experience and you don't see teams that average 23 or 24 years of age- at one point in time during the season, our average age was 23.7, I think. You don't see teams that young getting to the finals. Do an average age of the San Antonio Spurs, (or) Detroit Pistons, and you get a better feel for what you're talking about. I wouldn't discount it a year or two down the road, and clearly that's our goal. But to say that we're going to be a championship contending team next year, I'm not prepared to say that although I think it's a possibility." On Bynum, what they hope to see from him this summer- "Well Andrew fell behind the 8-ball a little bit in training camp when he got injured, and then when Chris Mihm went down and we were looking at giving Andrew a lot of time he got injured again. So his progress in the last month or so really fell behind. We've got four to five months off right now. He's going to have to get in the gym. We have a big summer program scheduled that's going to be almost three weeks, he's going to have to play every day and play a lot. I'm sure he'll go to Pete Newell's Big Man Camp in Las Vegas again. He'll have to be in this facility every day between now and the end of the summer. For a kid that just turned 18 years old we're very pleased with his progress, but he has to continue to work and he has to play."</div> link: http://lakersblog.latimes.com/lakersblog/2...tic_2.html#more
