Some fun quotes: "Last year, we had a very quiet team that went about its business. Terry is a great tactician but a quiet guy. We needed Chris (Kaman) to get in there and spice things up a bit." (Are we missing this kinda voice this year? Even Luis as an instigator is gone) "In LA, I was in charge of a large market team that was run like a small market team. In Portland, I am in charge of a small market team that is run like a large market team." "Player retention is key in a small market. You just can't let them walk out the door. And if needed, you arbitrage (Really, Neil? smh) them later to manage the payroll. It's less about how you can afford the payroll and more about how you can get guys to justify that payroll. It's also why the draft is so important. You don't want to be a victim of a situation where you have guys that don't have value and it's hard to justify the payroll relative to the results." "Jake Layman is a rotation player who will help us balance our cap. We really wanted to get into this past draft, and the guy we wanted actually got drafted after the #19 pick. " Hmm. Skal? Zubac? BTW, it's really interesting how Neil doesn't do local appearances, only national ones. Quite the contrast to KP who was so ubiquitous when he was here. You never see/hear Neil with Quick/Freeman/etc outside of the mandatory start and end of season press conferences.
