1981 KC Kings Presser

[Darth Vegito]

Darth: Hey everyone, thanks for joining me today. This won't be an extremely long Press Conference. We just took the team over from the last GM and as far as we can see, the team was left on auto-pilot since the beginning. So looking at last season's results are not a great indicator of what this team can do and who these players are. Sikma, Gminski, and Leavell were drafted in Rounds 1, 2, and 3 of the Creation draft. All 25yrs old and younger. We have a few veterans in Fred Brown and Carr. In this year's draft we were able to grab a nice big wing in Eddie Johnson as well.

We are very excited about Eddie Johnson and the contributions he is ready to make to this organization immediately this season. Gminski had a great Training Camp and is showing that he wants to be a focal point of this team. For this moment I would say Mike is the only real untouchable for the moment. Since I've not seen what they can do on the court yet, we are definitely still in the evaluating phase and will wait to see what we actually want to makeup of this team to be.

I have an idea of what type of ball we'd like to play but for now we will adjust to our personnel. For this season I foresee us being a pretty balanced all-around team on offense, a little mid-range game and a little banging down low. I can perhaps see our biggest challenge being on the defensive end. We may keep the tempo a bit slower in the beginning of the season to see what the defense looks like and hopefully rely on our front court to carry the defensive load. But we'll see how that goes.

So much of this season will be wait and see because we just don't know what to expect. Speaking of expectations, half of our division last season made the playoffs. It's a tight division, Houston finished at .500 and missed the playoffs and I don't think .500 is going to get the job done again. So I would say the ultimate goal is to compete and figure out what lineups and gameplans make this team tick the best. We don't believe in active tanking, or "trying" to lose games. Sure there's rebuild timeliness and the players may just not be there yet to win games. But I don't think that's the case with this team. Sure we are young but I expect at least .500 this year. I'll be disappointed if we can't win half of our games. That may not equal a playoff appearance but it's a start.

Opening it up now, does anyone have any questions!!!???

[WigNosy]

Steve Duin, Blazers beatwrite, the Oregonian...

Two questions. First, whom do you see as the King most likely to be selected as an allstar (and how soon can that happen)? Second, you mentioned Gminski is your only untouchable, and I think your starters are fairly well-defined, but what important roles do you see being filled by bench players this year (and who are those players)?

[Darth Vegito]

Steve Duin, Blazers beatwrite, the Oregonian...

Two questions. First, whom do you see as the King most likely to be selected as an allstar (and how soon can that happen)? Second, you mentioned Gminski is your only untouchable, and I think your starters are fairly well-defined, but what important roles do you see being filled by bench players this year (and who are those players)?

I think Gminski could actually pull it off, maybe not this year but it may be close. Possibly even Eddie but he may be a few years off.

I think everything is well-defined outside of the SG position. Fred is a little long in the tooth and likes to jack shots up inefficiently. I'm hoping by sending him to the bench and have him be a high minutes 6 man will control that a bit. Having him bring the energy when some of the other starters are on the bench. So we'll see who provides a more efficient gameplay, Fred or ML Carr and we'll most likely stick with that direction for now.

[logpmess]

You have a really good young point guard in Allen Leavell. Do you see getting him some extra training time to have him develop faster, or do you anticipate a slow development to maintain on the timeline with his younger teammates?

[Darth Vegito]

You have a really good young point guard in Allen Leavell. Do you see getting him some extra training time to have him develop faster, or do you anticipate a slow development to maintain on the timeline with his younger teammates?

I am cautiously optimistic with Leavell. Biggest problem with all my players is that the team wasn't optimized last year. No depth charts were placed, so these numbers they put up are flawed. So I truly don't know what they are capable of. If I like what I see from Leavell, he is 100% the next target of extra training. Next focus probably being his inside game turning him into a true all around player.