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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 12:17:15 GMT -6
Welcome to the Boston Celtics Media Days. We had a very interesting off-season that I'll be honest I'm glad to see come to an end. It was a whirlwind and I think we are all ready for Training Camp to get underway and to play some games. We saw quite a few guys leave the team this offseason, something that is never pleasant. We'd like to take this time to thank Doc Rivers, Sean Elliot, & Cadillac Anderson for their time here in Boston. They were all great players and we are sure will be major contributors with their new teams. Let's get started with the introduction of new players, because there are quite a few: We were very lucky to hit the lottery this year and with the #2 overall selection we chose Alonzo Mourning out of Georgetown University:  We couldn't be happier with Alonzo being the anchor to our defense. We made the determination to not stop at Zo. We wanted to surround him with talent and realized we had a lot of picks in the upcoming draft. But felt a good mixture of young guys and older veterans are vital to a teams success. We decided to trade Doc Rivers, recently drafted Clearance Weatherspoon and a valuable 1993 draft pick for Mitch Richmond  It was a long negotiation and an even longer internal discussion on whether or not to move in this direction. But in the end we felt lucky to win the lottery once and weren't going to rely on it again to build the type of team we want here in Boston. We are also very pleased to be able to bring back Joe Dumars, and to resign Orlando Woolridge. Both of these players are dynamic scorers who are familiar with the system and we plan to use as a great scoring combo off the bench. Lastly we were thrilled to be able to sign Armen Gilliam, Jay Humprhies, and Otis Smith in free agency. Jay and Armen will come in and start immediately, providing veteran leadership, rebounding, and defense. Otis has a chance to fight for the starting SF position and provide significant minutes for us there. We are very excited about the future of Boston basketball and will open the floor to any questions. |
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Soundwave
Full Member
Toronto Raptors
Winter is coming
Posts: 2,465
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Post by Soundwave on Jan 14, 2014 12:48:29 GMT -6
Were there any serious considerations in trading the #2 pick to your good buddies in Toronto?
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Post by TrayWithAnA on Jan 14, 2014 12:55:19 GMT -6
What are your expectations this season?
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Post by WigNosy on Jan 14, 2014 13:13:52 GMT -6
How soon until you trade Zo, Richmond, and Dumars for more 1993 first-round picks?
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 13:58:38 GMT -6
Were there any serious considerations in trading the #2 pick to your good buddies in Toronto? We had many interesting offers for the #2 pick and Zo in particular. One of which was from our good buddies in Toronto within the hour of us learning of winning the lottery which stopped us dead in our tracks of celebrating and made us run back to our offices to do research. Once we reconvened everyone had the exact same thought, Zo is our guy he's not going anywhere, he will be the centerpiece of this team for a long, long time. |
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PaulyP
Junior Member
Posts: 605 
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Post by PaulyP on Jan 14, 2014 14:12:11 GMT -6
You have many gifted scorers on your roster; Dumars, Mitch, Theus, Woolridge, Armen, and im sure Zo will want a few touches. Is there enough ball to go around to appease all these guys?
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Post by IamQuailman on Jan 14, 2014 14:17:45 GMT -6
Bill Maukee, Milwaukee Tribune. Just to piggyback on the question from the gentleman from Indiana... Your guard position is very deep. Do you imagine that 1 or 2 of these players are on the cusp of a move once they are eligible, or are they all in the teams plans for the future?
Also, how big is the signing of Jay Humphries on your team? Do you imagine this signing to propel you into playoff contention (along with your other acquisitions) while crippling another conference title contender from last season?
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 14:56:29 GMT -6
What are your expectations this season? We basically have a brand new team. The goal this year is to learn the team, contend for a playoff spot, and be one of the most entertaining teams in the league. We just hope to get better as the year goes along and plan with the hopes of hosting a first-round playoff matchup. |
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jan 14, 2014 14:59:08 GMT -6
What are your long term goals in terms of personelle ? What type of identity are you trying to forge with this rebuild?
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 15:00:08 GMT -6
How soon until you trade Zo, Richmond, and Dumars for more 1993 first-round picks? If I could somehow acquire every lotto pick in 1993 I'd do it. But Zo and Mitch are our future, and we think Dumars will have a real shot at 6th man of the year. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 15:25:56 GMT -6
You have many gifted scorers on your roster; Dumars, Mitch, Theus, Woolridge, Armen, and im sure Zo will want a few touches. Is there enough ball to go around to appease all these guys? I'm glad you brought this up PaulyP last year we scored 98 points per game, 3rd worst in the league. We definitely needed to add scoring and we are happy that we have. I think what will help balance this out is bringing Dumars and Wool off the bench and allowing them to be the main options while they are on the court. Zo and Mitch will be the main options, Theus will be a great drive and kick guy with his superior inside game and passing ability, and Armen will clean up the offensive glass and benefit from the defensive attention to Zo. We look to be in the top 10 in scoring this season. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 15:40:02 GMT -6
Bill Maukee, Milwaukee Tribune. Just to piggyback on the question from the gentleman from Indiana... Your guard position is very deep. Do you imagine that 1 or 2 of these players are on the cusp of a move once they are eligible, or are they all in the teams plans for the future? Also, how big is the signing of Jay Humphries on your team? Do you imagine this signing to propel you into playoff contention (along with your other acquisitions) while crippling another conference title contender from last season? Well we consider all of our 2 guards pretty versatile. We're going to actually start Theus at the SF position, something he's done for us in the past. Joe is our only expiring and we look to open negotiations to sign him to an extension as soon as possible. In short we will not be actively seeking any trade for any of our guards, we are happy to have depth. As to your other question signing Jay was huge. We negotiated all off season for a PG and were very close to adding a big-time PG on 3 separate occasions, but for various reasons couldn't close out a deal. Jay was someone we targeted very early on the FA process, and we consider ourselves extremely lucky to get him. As for the second part of this question I think it puts us in the conversation for the playoffs, and we always aim to cripple our opponents. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 14, 2014 15:45:16 GMT -6
What are your long term goals in terms of personelle ? What type of identity are you trying to forge with this rebuild? In a word...Balance. In the past we focused on defense and rebounding and had some success. We are coming around to realizing this is more of a scoring league and you have to at least keep up on nights when the other team is hot. So yes we look to find balance, we've got a great start with Zo and Mitch. One should anchor the post, while the other terrorizes the perimeter. We'll continue to search for a playmaker on both sides of the court, I think we've got the offense. It may be time to start searching for the defense. |
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Post by Nick Malone 77 on Jan 14, 2014 15:48:56 GMT -6
Nick Melon; Charlotte Observer: With all the picks you have in next years draft, would you consider it an ultimate failure if you dont have a pick in say the Top 5 next season or do you feel like with the picks you have that it will be enough to get the player(s) you want most?
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Post by bowtothebill23 on Jan 14, 2014 16:14:03 GMT -6
Jack Markson, The Golden Take. While getting Alonzo was lucky, you did top 2 protect the pick. Additionally, you got dumars and Richmond in what seemed to be good deals for you for present and future. Do you feel you should be one of the, if not the, favorites for GMOY?
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Post by NOLa. on Jan 14, 2014 19:19:38 GMT -6
The league took notice of your acquisition of 1993 draft picks once the four 1st round picks trade causes a shit storm at the previous owners meeting. Is Chris Webber the ultimate goal here, with most players (outside of Zo) as trade bait to pair up with your multitude of picks?
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Post by Conroy on Jan 15, 2014 6:36:46 GMT -6
Nick Melon; Charlotte Observer: With all the picks you have in next years draft, would you consider it an ultimate failure if you dont have a pick in say the Top 5 next season or do you feel like with the picks you have that it will be enough to get the player(s) you want most? It's hard to have specific goals on things we can't control. One advantage of owning multiple picks is the flexibility it gives us in trade talks. Whether we move them now or on draft day to try to move up we will use every asset available to continue to try to acquire talent. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 15, 2014 6:40:50 GMT -6
Jack Markson, The Golden Take. While getting Alonzo was lucky, you did top 2 protect the pick. Additionally, you got dumars and Richmond in what seemed to be good deals for you for present and future. Do you feel you should be one of the, if not the, favorites for GMOY? Wow Jack I consider it a great compliment to be mentioned in the conversation this early. But while we have made a lot of moves we have to see how it translates onto the court. We have got to get wins and the awards and accolades will come. To be honest our main goal is a championship until then we won't rest. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 15, 2014 7:10:27 GMT -6
The league took notice of your acquisition of 1993 draft picks once the four 1st round picks trade causes a shit storm at the previous owners meeting. Is Chris Webber the ultimate goal here, with most players (outside of Zo) as trade bait to pair up with your multitude of picks? Yeah we remember that meeting, nothing like causing a good ol fashioned shit storm. We can't hide our affinity for Michigan Sophomore Chris Webber. We've had our eye on him since his senior year of high school at Detroit Country Day. We've made no secret that we want him on this team. But we'd be lying if we said our main goal is to get one player on our team. Our main goal is to win a championship. We feel we have the foundation for a championship roster, and we just need to find the rest of the pieces to complete the puzzle. |
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Post by 78 on Jan 15, 2014 21:54:40 GMT -6
Will Dumars, Richmond, and Humphries be on the floor together for plenty of minutes?
Do you feel trade raping other teams is acceptable and no one should complain about it since its becoming common in the league?
What type of offense will you run to get the most out of your perimeter guys?
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Post by janjanjanjan on Jan 15, 2014 22:14:17 GMT -6
Which of your '93 1sts do you think will be in the lottery?
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Post by janjanjanjan on Jan 15, 2014 22:14:40 GMT -6
Which of your '93 1sts do you think will be in the lottery?
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Post by Conroy on Jan 16, 2014 12:26:08 GMT -6
Will Dumars, Richmond, and Humphries be on the floor together for plenty of minutes? Do you feel trade raping other teams is acceptable and no one should complain about it since its becoming common in the league? What type of offense will you run to get the most out of your perimeter guys? Mitch, Joe, and Jay will see some time together, but all 3 at the same time will probably be limited. Mitch will start at SG and Jay at PG, Joe will be the first player off the bench likely coming in for either Jay or Mitch. But we do want to get Mitch some minutes at the 3 so there could be a scenario where we go small and all 3 are on the court together. Look transactions happen all the time here, nobody has the exact same value on a given player or pick. If both parties are happy with the deal, then it's fine by me. It's going to be a learning experience with this brand new team. We always want to have a balanced attack and feel we have the personnel to run that type of offense with Zo inside and Mitch outside. What we are excited about as well is the 2nd unit will be able to continue our balanced attack with Woolridge down low and Dumars outside. |
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Post by Conroy on Jan 16, 2014 12:45:01 GMT -6
Which of your '93 1sts do you think will be in the lottery? The easy answer is, I hope other than my own pick they all end up in the lottery. The knock on the Eastern Conference lately has been, we've got the Hawks and nothing else. This year I think the Eastern Conference is loaded from top to bottom. An argument could be made for a number of teams to make the playoffs or miss the playoffs. I'm not going to give any of the teams any added motivation and call one out individually. |
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J2
Junior Member
Washington Wizards
Posts: 955
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Post by J2 on Jan 16, 2014 17:11:29 GMT -6
J. Junior here. Other reporters have already brought the elephant in the room, so I'll offer a different take: When you look at your team right now, what weaknesses do you see that you feel will need to be addressed in the near future, by way of using your picks?
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