Post by Deleted on Aug 26, 2014 19:39:33 GMT -6
Woody Page cracks a joke over to fellow reporter Will Maukie," I think this guy thinks Pacific time is two hours back of Pacific time." Just as he finishes his sentence, almost on cue, out walks Lakers General Manager Balls O'Hard. He walks by and shakes a few hands and walks over to a trophy which is in the trophy chase behind the table. O'Hard, opens the case and grabs their Larry O'Brien trophy from two years go and pulls it out of the case. In his hands, he holds it away from his body, inspecting it then admiring it. O'Hard has a smile on his face, which quickly turns into a concerned look. He walks the trophy over to the table, sets it down, and give it one last rub on the top of the ball, as if he may never get to touch it again. O'Hard steps behind the microphone and makes a big sigh.
Balls O'Hard: Two. This is the offseason of the two for the Los Angeles Lakers organization. It's been two full years since we've been to the finals. It's year two in our four year plan to build a champion. We lost in round two of the playoffs last year. Two years since we signed our leader, Kevin Johnson to his 5 year deal and promised him we'd get him another ring. And what better way to cap our "year of two" offseason than acquiring what we saw as one of the premier 2's in the league in Eddie Jones.
Balls O'Hard: Two. This is the offseason of the two for the Los Angeles Lakers organization. It's been two full years since we've been to the finals. It's year two in our four year plan to build a champion. We lost in round two of the playoffs last year. Two years since we signed our leader, Kevin Johnson to his 5 year deal and promised him we'd get him another ring. And what better way to cap our "year of two" offseason than acquiring what we saw as one of the premier 2's in the league in Eddie Jones.
Balls O'Hard: I'd like to explain the move for Eddie Jones, but in doing so, I'd like to discuss our offseason mindset and plan. We met as a management group at the end of our unceremonious sweep by our rivals and eventual champions, the Golden State Warriors. We were pissed. We hate those guys and we've owned them for the last 5 years. We had been a mountain that they could not scale. We had to look at what went wrong. We had to come to a very unfortunate truth; the Warriors were just better than us last year and that they weren't going anywhere soon.
O'Hard, with an intense look in his eyes, slams the table with his fist. He stops, looks down at his clutched fist, realizing how loud of the sound his fist hitting the table was and surveys the room. Realizing that the action was inappropriate, he unclutches his fist, gains his composure and sits back. He starts his sermon agains; this time more slowly, more measured, more rehearsed.
Balls O'Hard: We knew we needed something. As a management team, we didn't know if it was time to reshuffle the deck and make ourselves more big oriented, because it was obvious that was a major flaw in our build. We were vexed for some time until we made the decision to bring our team leader, KJ into the fold.
O'hard waves his hand and motions for KJ to come to the podium from the crowd. Johnson waves and walks up.
Balls O'Hard: The management and KJ began formulating a plan to reach our collective goals. Knowing that no man has ever won versus father time we want to make sure as KJ enters his 30's, we surround him with more and more talent. We were in multiple talks around the league, in fact, if there was a star that got traded, we were probably in the discussions. We initially tried to move into the draft to acquire a big, but in the long run we valued a lot of players too much. Feeling somewhat dejected from doing so much and not having anything to show for it, we went back to the drawing board trying to figure out what we could do this season with what we had. Out of the blue we approached the Magic GM who was looking to shuffle the cards a bit and just started talking without direction. We surveyed him on a few of his players, but we had our eye on one guy in particular. After a few strong hours of negotiations we sent over Bruce Bowen and last years Rookie of the year, Jerry Stackhouse along with two picks for Eddie Jones.
Balls O'Hard: We were very excited about Eddie, but we also realize this mode meant we were all in. We just gave up our 20 years old rookie who we frankly were planning on rebuilding around in Stack, and Bowen a guy who was slowly maturing into one of the premier defenders in the league. We didn't have many more players who were considered developing players anymore and needed to complete the puzzle. We approached the Nuggets General Manager who is known to not be afraid to mix it up and threw out a wild idea to him of LJ and Spoon for Campbell. At first it was met with a little resistance, but the Nuggets GM kept his mind open. We both agree'd that this would be a mutually beneficial trade and sent the papers to the league office. The reason i Brought KJ up here is I wanted him to talk about the team dynamic and how everyone will fit in.
O'Hard gets up and shakes KJ's hand and give him the floor.
Kevin Johnson: Thank you Balls. Well, first off I'd like to say how excited I am for the season and the moves this organization has made to really put it on us, the players, to go out and win another ring. Last year we saw what forward thinking did and this staff got us a new teammate in Dennis Scott, and this year we saw them go out and get Eddie and Elden. Now, the tough part and how they all fit in. To be completely honest, i think this is going to be a work in progress. In Eddie we have a 2 way player who can score at the rim and also has the 3 ball in his game. A guy who can play 36-40 minutes and get it done. As Balls said, we also added a big man in the middle in Elden Campbell. Elden bring a rim protecting presence we haven't had since Beniot was here and we won a ring. Elden has a little more rounded game than Beniot did at least on the offensive end. We can throw the ball into him and ask him to make us some buckets and take advantage of the opponent if they're weak down low.
Kevin Johnson: Besides that, I think we have a good bench, maybe not as good as last year where we had 2 6MOY candidates, but we think they can step in and step up and help us win games. Anyway, I'm kind of new to this and am getting tired of hearing myself talk a bit. Does anyone have any questions?
O'Hard, with an intense look in his eyes, slams the table with his fist. He stops, looks down at his clutched fist, realizing how loud of the sound his fist hitting the table was and surveys the room. Realizing that the action was inappropriate, he unclutches his fist, gains his composure and sits back. He starts his sermon agains; this time more slowly, more measured, more rehearsed.
Balls O'Hard: We knew we needed something. As a management team, we didn't know if it was time to reshuffle the deck and make ourselves more big oriented, because it was obvious that was a major flaw in our build. We were vexed for some time until we made the decision to bring our team leader, KJ into the fold.
O'hard waves his hand and motions for KJ to come to the podium from the crowd. Johnson waves and walks up.
Balls O'Hard: The management and KJ began formulating a plan to reach our collective goals. Knowing that no man has ever won versus father time we want to make sure as KJ enters his 30's, we surround him with more and more talent. We were in multiple talks around the league, in fact, if there was a star that got traded, we were probably in the discussions. We initially tried to move into the draft to acquire a big, but in the long run we valued a lot of players too much. Feeling somewhat dejected from doing so much and not having anything to show for it, we went back to the drawing board trying to figure out what we could do this season with what we had. Out of the blue we approached the Magic GM who was looking to shuffle the cards a bit and just started talking without direction. We surveyed him on a few of his players, but we had our eye on one guy in particular. After a few strong hours of negotiations we sent over Bruce Bowen and last years Rookie of the year, Jerry Stackhouse along with two picks for Eddie Jones.
Balls O'Hard: We were very excited about Eddie, but we also realize this mode meant we were all in. We just gave up our 20 years old rookie who we frankly were planning on rebuilding around in Stack, and Bowen a guy who was slowly maturing into one of the premier defenders in the league. We didn't have many more players who were considered developing players anymore and needed to complete the puzzle. We approached the Nuggets General Manager who is known to not be afraid to mix it up and threw out a wild idea to him of LJ and Spoon for Campbell. At first it was met with a little resistance, but the Nuggets GM kept his mind open. We both agree'd that this would be a mutually beneficial trade and sent the papers to the league office. The reason i Brought KJ up here is I wanted him to talk about the team dynamic and how everyone will fit in.
O'Hard gets up and shakes KJ's hand and give him the floor.
Kevin Johnson: Thank you Balls. Well, first off I'd like to say how excited I am for the season and the moves this organization has made to really put it on us, the players, to go out and win another ring. Last year we saw what forward thinking did and this staff got us a new teammate in Dennis Scott, and this year we saw them go out and get Eddie and Elden. Now, the tough part and how they all fit in. To be completely honest, i think this is going to be a work in progress. In Eddie we have a 2 way player who can score at the rim and also has the 3 ball in his game. A guy who can play 36-40 minutes and get it done. As Balls said, we also added a big man in the middle in Elden Campbell. Elden bring a rim protecting presence we haven't had since Beniot was here and we won a ring. Elden has a little more rounded game than Beniot did at least on the offensive end. We can throw the ball into him and ask him to make us some buckets and take advantage of the opponent if they're weak down low.
Kevin Johnson: As far as who gets more touches or who's going to be the leading scorer, that's not something I can really answer. I think that's something that will work itself out.. organically. As the team's point guard though, it's my sole job to make sure everyone's happy and everyone's plate is full. That means if I have to give up a little food to make sure the big man eats, then so be it.
KJ smiles.
KJ smiles.
Kevin Johnson: Besides that, I think we have a good bench, maybe not as good as last year where we had 2 6MOY candidates, but we think they can step in and step up and help us win games. Anyway, I'm kind of new to this and am getting tired of hearing myself talk a bit. Does anyone have any questions?