Behind the Scenes with JB Bickerstaff: Day 3
July 5, 2006

(On day three of practice)
It was good. I think the thing you like to see is everyday we are getting better and everyday we are improving. That’s what’s important. When you get a brand new group of guys together it’s hard for them to mix right away. But our guys have been really good together, they have been unselfish, they share the ball with one another and I think that is one of the things that when you build a team, you need. Especially when you get one week to put in all of your sets you cannot have guys that are worried about themselves, you have to have guys that are considerate of one another and are making the right plays for the team.

(On Adam Morrison)
What we keep talking about is his ability to make everyone better, he comes off the screen and he can recognize when he’s open and when the guy who set the screen is open. It's those little things, when you are watching from the outside you don’t get to see, but when you are with him everyday you watch him and you realize how much he’s helping -- he’s not just putting the ball in the basket.

(On Morrison taking shots)
He’s going to take shots and we want him to take shots. We ask him to take shots. He’s turning down shots now because he’s used to the 35-second clock, but we don’t want him turning them down. He’s not a guy who’s selfish by any means, but he is a scorer by nature, it’s what he does, that’s part of the reason we brought him here, to put the ball in the basket. He’s going to do that regardless. He’s going to get his teammates involved and I think his teammates appreciate that because your teammates are not going to set things up for you and do those things if they think you are selfish. But if they know that if they set up this good screen and if I’m open my man will give me the ball, they are going to do a better job of setting screens. I think that’s what all of these guys appreciate about what he does.

(On Ryan Hollins competing in track)
I think for what he does he’s quite a bit better than what he would be if he just played basketball. He runs the floor and he rebounds, not only when the ball comes to him, but when he has to go chase it down. He’s done those other things in track -- they work on his stride in the triple jump and in the broad jump you have to move, you cannot stay in one spot, so I think that has helped him immensely.

(On Hollins jumping ability)
When we brought him in here, my dad talked to Coach (Howland) about him and was intrigued. Coach (Howland) didn’t even bring up his athleticism -- he brought up his intelligence and his ability to retain things and how quickly he picked up on their system, both offensively and defensively. Then we brought him in to work out. Most guys come in and workout, but he came in and asked questions trying to get better. Then on top of that, every time we would ask him to finish he would do something unbelievable, he would do a windmill, he would do a behind the back or something like that. After the workout we were messing with him because he did five or six in a row, so we asked him what else can you do because we were tired of seeing the windmill. This is after an hour and a half workout, so he comes down the left side of the floor and does the windmill again, but mixes a 360 in with the windmill. Yeah, the Vince Carter type of windmill. A lot of big guys dunk but they don’t look real fluid. His stuff was with a purpose. Every movement he made was with a purpose and it was more graceful than most seven footers.

(On Hollins development)
Obviously every day we work with him we want him to improve, but he is who he is and you want him to get better at that. He’s the kind of guy who's going to be active, he’s going to elevate over the top of people, but he has to figure out what to do when people start bumping and hitting. I think that’s where sometimes people get into trouble, is when they try to change too much and try to make them someone they are not. Right now he’s a shot blocker and he runs the floor and obviously we are going to add a jumper. But we want him to improve at this level at what he does now. It’s baby steps at this level too. When you have a guy who is a three or four year veteran that’s one thing, but a guy who’s fresh in this league he’s going to have a hard enough time figuring out who he is at this level, so you don’t want to confuse him and ask him to do these things that he’s not comfortable doing.

(On the Bobcats choice of Hollins)
We didn’t expect it. We go through the draft and we rank our top 60 players, from top to bottom, and we come up with a consensus and then we mark them off as they get drafted. The guy that’s highest is the guy we take. In the second round he was the highest guy on our list. We thought there was a chance he would slide in the first or he’d be gone in the first five or six in the second round because you look at the guy and how often do you get a guy that seven feet tall with a 40 inch vertical, who can run and can do the things he can do. We were happy he was there, we had no idea he would still be there, and we believe he was a steal at 50.

(On Hollins as a steal at 50)
He was easily ranked at 30 and it wasn’t just one guy, it was a consensus of all the guys and I think it was easier for us to see that because we brought him in. I think some people watched him at UCLA and in college it’s difficult to see some of the things he can do because of zone rules and the way they pack it in and the way teams play, but if you get him in the building by himself you cannot help but like him. College is really guard oriented. If you think about all the players that score a lot of points, when was the last time a big guy dominated, like a Tim Duncan, in college? Schools are more based on their guards, so you never really get an opportunity to see what big guys can do. A guy like Ryan can go under the radar.