Behind the Scenes with JB Bickerstaff: Day 6
July 8, 2006

(On the final day of practice)
Today was probably our worst day, you know, but it’s our last day -- six days in a row. It’s to be expected a little bit, so we’ll give them tomorrow off and let them clear their heads and relax. We have a shootaround Monday morning and will get back after it afterwards. The effort was still there, but you just have those lapses. After six days in a row with some two-a-days -- you have those mental lapses. And to go from good to great, you don’t have those lapses. You look at the guys we have here, it’s a bunch of young guys, and they have to figure that out.

(On the balance of playing time between veterans and true rookies)
Well I think through this week of practice guys have earned that. You know we look at that because here at practice everyone gets minutes. Our primary responsibility is to the guys we have on our roster, helping them improve and getting them minutes. And if there’s a guy this week that makes himself stand out, he’ll earn those minutes once we get down to summer league. Yeah we are going to play the four or five regulars and get them shot attempts, and those are the guys we are going to go through. The more comfortable they get and the more experience they get, the better it will be for us during the season. I think that’s what this is about is preparing for the season -- it’s just not summer at the rec center, it’s about us trying to get better. These are young guys and if you look at our team, the focal point of our team has been young guys, so the quicker you can advance them the better it will be.

(On Marcus Campbell and D’or Fischer’s development)
I think both of them have improved. I think the question we had with both of them was consistency, and now they seem to be more consistent with their effort, and that’s one of the things we wanted to see -- how hard they would work and if they could work hard on a consistent basis. So both of them have been better and both of them have improved.

(On Campbell and Fischer’s leadership)
I think it’s tough though with guys like Kevin (Burleson), Alan (Anderson) and Sean (May) here. I think they kind of take a back seat to those guys because those guys are more veterans. You know it’s one thing going to a training camp, but it’s another thing going through an 82-game season so I think Kevin, Alan and Sean have assumed that leadership role. But Marcus and D’or have contributed. They work hard and I think that’s one of the things that is most important, you know, they come out and get better each day.