S3 1982 Supersonics Presser

[BigDaddyd8720]

Good morning everyone,

I appreciate you all coming down to the Supersonics Preseason Presser. I know, I know, I usually love to make these things lively and fun but I'm not sure the fans would appreciate it after last season. While we're happy with the way we're going now, we still have nothing to be able to celebrate yet.

First, let's talk about the bad. A 9 win season is never something we wanted to see but here we are. We hoped we could have gotten off to a better start so we could make moves to compete but it just didn't work out. We traded away a bunch of starters to accumulate assets and then we purposefully tanked to get the #1 pick. Thankfully, the lottery gods were smiling upon us and gave us the first overall pick or else last season would have been much harder to handle. I can assure you, that we will be doing our best from here on out to try and make sure the fans don't have endure another horrific season like that.

Now for the good! We got the #1 pick and of course we weren't going to pass on Wilkins. He brings us immediate help and we believe he is ready to take over as the leader of this team. He has all the makings of being an elite superstar and we will do everything we can to get him to that point. We really hope the fans see it the same way as we do. We also made a few moves to help get some good pieces around Wilkins. Getting Ray Williams was crucial in helping us take another step forward to becoming a contender. He's a proven vet and he only got better in training camp. Next, adding Kareem was a great way for us to get someone to work alongside Wilkins and Schayes to help develop them further. We know Kareem still has a lot left in the tank and he wants to win so we're gonna do all we can to help him finish his career as a winner. We also saw Ainge and Schayes take nice steps forward this offseason and really like them to round out our starting 5. We need to get them all playing time with each other but we see no reason why that group can't lead us into postseason play. Getting Ransay, Cook, and Nater in free agency were all nice adds for us. Give us some depth so we can hopefully see our team run 6-8 deep. All in all, I really like the way we handled our offseason and we are more than ready to start making the postseason push.

And while we may not have the makings of a championship team, you can bet your ass we're giving it all we got this season. We have playoff aspirations and if we can make it there, it's anybody's game. Hopefully this time next season we can have more fun at this.

I will now open it up to any questions

[jlmarines]

Justin Bieber, Teremana.com: You gave three blue players on your roster. Based on your preseason record, are you sticking with the same roster, or are you planning to add more players to help you on the defensive side.

[WigNosy]

Steve Duin, Blazers beatwriter for the Oregonian...

Wilkins is obviously already a tremendous player, but talk about your expectations for last year's lottery pick, Danny Ainge. What did you see in him that made you pick him over some of the offensive dynamos that we saw picked after him (like Mark Aguirre)? Would you still make the same decision again to draft him?

[RPF]

Marc H. Morial, Englewood Press: Was it worth it to go through a rough 9 win season to land a player like Dominique Wilkins?

[greepleairport]

Coming off a 9 win season, your Supersonics were the only team to beat the Warriors in the preseason, despite a losing record overall. Do you see this as an omen for good things to come in Seattle? How many wins might you accumulate this year in a division full of killers?

[Eazy P]

Are you ready for the in-game windmill, tomahawk, statute of liberty 360 dunks?

[BigDaddyd8720]

Justin Bieber, Teremana.com: You gave three blue players on your roster. Based on your preseason record, are you sticking with the same roster, or are you planning to add more players to help you on the defensive side.

Definitely sticking with this roster. I don't look too much into this preseason because it used the same gameplan as last season when we were tanking and we definitely won't be using that again. I definitely see this team competing and like where we're at. With that said, I'm always gonna keep an eye out for any other players we may be able to bring in to help give our team an extra boost if needed.

[BigDaddyd8720]

Steve Duin, Blazers beatwriter for the Oregonian...

Wilkins is obviously already a tremendous player, but talk about your expectations for last year's lottery pick, Danny Ainge. What did you see in him that made you pick him over some of the offensive dynamos that we saw picked after him (like Mark Aguirre)? Would you still make the same decision again to draft him?

Mark Aguirre might be the only player I would consider taking instead of Danny but even then, I really felt like since we were, at the time, at least one season if not two seasons away from being able to see our team start to compete, that Danny would be a great fit for what we wanted. He's already got great scoring ability to go along with his defense and that was what I wanted. Our team has shown the ability to score, we just need players who can stop the other team from scoring and that is where I think Danny is better than Mark. He's still young so he's got plenty of time to really develop into a superstar

[BigDaddyd8720]

Marc H. Morial, Englewood Press: Was it worth it to go through a rough 9 win season to land a player like Dominique Wilkins?

Only time will tell. What I do know is that if we didn't get Wilkins, then that would have made the 9 win season worse that what it was. Wilkins immediately steps into a rule where he can really elevate this team. We can only go up from here, right?......... right?

[BigDaddyd8720]

Coming off a 9 win season, your Supersonics were the only team to beat the Warriors in the preseason, despite a losing record overall. Do you see this as an omen for good things to come in Seattle? How many wins might you accumulate this year in a division full of killers?

I don't look too much into preseason. I really just want to use it as a way to get my players to get playing time together. Beating a division rival is always nice, but everybody plays differently in the preseason than in the regular season. This division is tough. After FA and TC, we still look like the weak link in the division but I would be willing to bet we'd be very competitive in any other division. If we can take care of business at home while stealing some road wins, I think best case for this season is a 40 win season. But it is also the first year of these guys playing together so 40 wins may be a bit of a lofty goal.

[BigDaddyd8720]

Are you ready for the in-game windmill, tomahawk, statute of liberty 360 dunks?

I know some of these words. But really, I'm just excited to see the energy Wilkins will bring to this team. As I said earlier, him paired with Kareem could be a very fun duo.

[IamQuailman]

Which off-season acquisition will make the biggest impact on your franchise THIS season?

[BigDaddyd8720]

Which off-season acquisition will make the biggest impact on your franchise THIS season?

I really think the answer to that is Ray Williams. He can score, he can pass, and he looks really good on defense. We needed help on the perimeter and he takes care of that for us. I see him generating a lot of opportunities for our other scorers on the team. He may not put up the flashiest numbers, but as long as he gives us some good looks every game, he should be able to put us in some good spots to win

[NY_Magic_Garrett]

Bruce Wayne, Gotham Gazette

The rumors swirling all offseason had you and Washington as the front runners for Buck. Sounds like it really came down to the wire, but here we are in Seattle and Buck is in Washington. Did that sting? How true were the rumors? Did your team push hard? If so, do you feel like you presented a competitive offer? A lot of questions here, but I think we just all really want to know how you feel about narrowly missing out on the Buck sweepstakes


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[BigDaddyd8720]

Bruce Wayne, Gotham Gazette

The rumors swirling all offseason had you and Washington as the front runners for Buck. Sounds like it really came down to the wire, but here we are in Seattle and Buck is in Washington. Did that sting? How true were the rumors? Did your team push hard? If so, do you feel like you presented a competitive offer? A lot of questions here, but I think we just all really want to know how you feel about narrowly missing out on the Buck sweepstakes


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The rumors are true. It did sting a little bit when we found out we weren't able to get Buck. I thought we gave a competitive offer but the Knicks decided to go a different direction. I was hoping for more time to get some more assets but I also knew this deal had to get done before TC so I told them to take the other offer so I didn't hold anybody up too long. Buck would have been a fantastic addition to our team and would have given us the ability to have yet another player come off the bench and be impactful. But, we can't dwell on the past too much so we have since moved on and looking forward to seeing how this season plays out