Portland Trail Blazers
Post by Theodore Duncan on Jul 26, 2016 7:45:36 GMT -5
Q: Hello Theodore. Thanks for taking some time for this interview. How is your first off-season as Portland GM been for you?
TD: Thanks for having me. It’s been blast. It was very exciting to get number 3 pick in the draft and I’m stoked to have Kris Dunn in our team.
Dude is an animal in the gym. He stays after our team practice to work on his handles. I heard Kris refuses to leave before he has broken our point guard trainers ankles at least 50 times.
Q: Nice. Sounds good. How about your second round picks? Demetrius Jackson and Ben Bentil.
TD: Funny story, how I got them. I had thought the draft would be over much sooner, so I had booked a holiday already. I was actually on a fishing trip once it was time to make the picks. LOL.. Luckily commissioner Billy King was nice enough to make the picks. And after I found out who did I get, it was a pleasant surprise to get such promising guys.
Q: How about RFA and UFA? I heard you have not been too active there either?
TD: Well, yes and no. Although I had almost the biggest cap space available, I have been very selective on my offers.
In RFA I obviously made a max offer for Drummond, although it was clear he will be matched. I’m very happy we managed to sign Evan Fournier. I think people didn’t realize he is only 23 years old and still pretty underrated after sort of a breakout season last year.
In general we are after players, who are great on defensive end. I was sort of disappointed that Hassan Whiteside did not consider our max offer more seriously. Image the length of him together with Porzingis guarding our rim. That would have been some proper twin towers.
Q: Any other additional FA targets?
TD: Since the price for getting Aminu got little too high for us, we are still looking FAs who can protect the rim or guard wing players for our second unit, but I’m not revealing any names yet.
Q: Fair enough. Your plan for the team sounds great. How is it possible you have managed to have such a successful start in your GM career without any previous experience?
TD: Well I have always been watching all possible basketball games from TV, so that experience basically makes me an expert on anything related to being a GM. Also my brother Timmy bought me every year biggest TV on the market. Watching the games from a huge screen definitely gives me an edge on anyone who has just watched the games on normal TV.
Q: Speaking of your brother. Now that Tim has retired on playing in NBA, do you have plans to bring him along as a coach?
TD: Definitely. We have talked about it already. Also our mom called me directly after the announcement and asked me to offer him a job. Timmy was always the rascal bad boy in the family, and she was worried he would end up doing some street gang mischief with all that extra time in his hands. It would be great to bring Timmy in the team to teach our young guys some toughness.
Q: Oh that’s so Timmy, hahahaa… Okay. Last question: You have been doing fairly big trades already in your short GM career. Can we expect more of the same in the future?
TD: Probably not. When I started with the team I had Klay Thompson, Noel and Booker as my main building blocks with couple of veterans. It was too much mix of old and new to be a real rebuilding team. After the blockbuster trade of Klay for Blake Griffin and then further Blake for Porzingis, I think we have finally found our team core for the future championship team. Building a great team needs all three: good trading, drafting and free agency. I think we are done with any bigger trades. Now it’s time to be patient and wait for the young guys to turn into stars, while keeping on adding additional pieces via draft and free agency.
Probably though, we will be still looking for a smaller trades to find a new home for our veterans Nick Young and Varejao. They deserve a chance to be part of contender already next year.
Q: Alright, thanks for your time and very nice answers. Hopefully we can talk to you again at some later point.
TD: Definitely, it was fun. I’m always up for an interview if you pay for the coffee and bagels.
Miami Heat