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Jerry West's Comments on the Draft
Opening Statement to the Media
"A lot of times when you are involved in the draft you do things that meet the needs of your team. We have rating systems here that we think are very good and we obviously trust our scouts a lot. When you look at our backcourt, a lot of things that we wanted to address were a defensive player and another offensive player. We got the Big East player of the year who averaged 25 ppg and he was the Big East player twice. We think that one of the two or three players top in the draft was Troy Bell. With the injury problem with Michael Dickerson and his uncertainty we felt we really needed a defensive player. We think that we got another tremendous athlete and defensive player in Dahntay Jones. This is a very happy day for us. When you look at the draft up to 13, there wasn't anyone that we loved up there, but we liked people down the line a little bit better than our 13th pick. Boston had a need for a point guard and they got the person that they wanted. I will tell you we are all very excited about what we did today."
On potential players…
"We just felt comfortable that we could get the two players that we wanted at those two positions. If we had waited any longer, we would not have been able to get the player that we wanted at the 27th pick or either one of them. It has nothing to do with salary. We think that we have done something good to do to address some situations that we needed to address."
On Troy Bell…
"This is a combo guy. This guy is really strong and I think that he has the highest vertical jump (41 inches) of anyone in the draft. We need somebody there when we are not scoring in the backcourt, we have someone who can score now."
On picking more guards…
"You know that Jason Williams had an operation today. We are hopeful that, that will be good. I told you before that we are going to take the best players period. We think that we took two better players where we were than we would have gotten at 13 and also 27."
On Jason Williams…
"When you start having your feet cut on that is not a good thing, but our doctor's told us that he would be fine. We experienced a lot of pain last year and they went in there and cleaned him out really good. The more good players that we can get puts us in a position maybe to make moves. There are things that we are going to address in upcoming months. Can we find someone bigger through free agency? We are going to try to address that in the free agency also."
On the trade with Boston…
"We would have drafted Troy Bell at 13 and this trade came along and we thought that we could address the other area that maybe we would not have been able to address it before. We got the two players that we wanted."
On options…
"Yes, there was someone else up there that we wanted. We tried to do a lot of different things, but it would have probably been a different player. We would have taken a hard look at Mickael Pietrus at the 13th pick, but we would not have done what some people wanted to do to get him."
On the Draft…
"Nothing surprised me about this Draft, maybe the order of it a little bit. We are very pleased with what we have. You cannot control with what other people do and you just have to make the best of what you are given. I think that we made the best of a very good day."
On Troy Bell…
"This guy is going to be a terrific player here. These guys (Bell and Jones) are probably two of the top five guys in this draft. We need to defend better in our backcourt and we think that we addressed that today."
On Dahntay Jones…
"Dahntay Jones is about as good as it gets as an athlete. Mickael Pietrus is a great athlete and when you look at him you see some star qualities in him. He has a chance to be a heck of a player, some people might be sorry that they didn't draft him."
On the Grizzlies team…
"If you look at our team right now, there is only one place that I think that we could do a lot better than what we have done. We have two small forwards, two big forwards, two point guards, combo guard, a shooting guard and a defensive guard. We have four positions and we have two players and a lot of them are young and a lot of them are talented. We think that we are going to make some improvements again and we can do something significant in the off-season and we are going to be very busy trying to do something like that. Your fortune can change overnight and we have a way to do it, if someone is willing to do it."
On International players…
"Most of these guys are really schooled over there. They are really are probably a step ahead of the American players in terms of their knowledge of the game, because they start so young. I think because of the incredible success that some of those foreign players have had, that some people tend to overrate and some people are probably going to be disappointed."
On center position…
"We are going to look for a great player and one that can fit our needs. Like I said before, we have four of those positions covered very well."
On day of workout with Dahntay Jones, Troy Bell and Dwyane Wade…
"They all compared very favorably. Dwyane Wade is going to be a terrific player but we are very happy with what we got."
On draft trade…
"There are a lot of things that you can do in the draft that have long term consequences if you are making trade. We are trying to manage a team. We are not a tax paying team, we don't want to do that, but we also want to give ourselves a chance to win. We think that we are in a position to do something like that. Frankly, we can sign a free agent and still be in very good shape from a tax perspective."
On Troy Bell…
"Last year Troy (Bell) played on a team that didn't have a very good year. We think that he is really good. People think that he would have played in the second round and he would not have been taken in the second round."
On Dahntay Jones…
"I talked to Shane (Battier) about Dahntay (Jones) and this is a great kid. You are going to love these two kids. I really believe in the character and quality of a person and we are going to have two people that played in a team situation and played successfully. They came from schools that are used to winning. When you talk to these guys, you are going to be very impressed."