Catching Up with Mitch Kupchak: Part II
by Nick Kioski
September 28th, 2007

Lakers.com caught up with General Manager Mitch Kupchak to discuss the 2007-08 Lakers as they head into training camp next week. Check out part one of the interview here.

Have you talked to Phil about the current depth chart within the team?
Yes. We’ve met everyday since he’s been back, which has been about three weeks now. We talk every three or four days during the summer and of course he doesn’t leave for the summer until the summer has actually begun. There’s really not a (long) period of time when we’re not in communication. There might be six weeks when he’s out of town and we talk every three or four days in those six weeks. Sometimes every other day, sometimes three or four times a day. So we communicate frequently.

We are deep at every position and I think that’s good when it’s on paper, having said that, not everybody can play (gets playing time). We’re curious for training camp to begin. We’re going to let the guys figure out who plays and doesn’t get to play beginning Tuesday in Hawaii. That’s going to sort itself out. We do feel that we have 14 guys that all want to play and the likelihood is that some of them won’t get to play. Phil’s going to have to narrow down the rotation to eight or nine players. I suppose you can play ten from time to time, but because of our depth I can see where maybe a couple guys that think they should be playing won’t be playing. That may be something we need to address.

You’ve said that you expect to go with this team into training camp, what’s the next opportunity to make a deal? What needs to change so that the opportunity to trade becomes open again?
Our approach now is not that different than our approach at anytime prior to the beginning of training camp. We’re not looking to make a deal just to make a deal. Because we didn’t finish on a positive note last year we were more aggressive in the off-season and we will remain aggressive, maybe more so than you normally would be. But we’re not going to succumb to making a move just to make a move or because there is the illusion that the Lakers have to do something. We feel that we’re a good team and could be a very good team. Our goal in making a move, you would hope that you're not making a move that would make yourself a worse team. So in our case, you’re looking to make a move that would make you go from being a good or a very good team to a great team. Those moves are hard to come by. We’re going to look to make that move, but they just don’t appear. You can make a move to make a move, there’s a bunch of those we can do, and we could do a bunch of things with players that may not play a lot of minutes, we can make those moves. But it’s our feeling that if you’re going to make a move you should think that it’s going to improve your team.

With regards to Larry Turner, Elton Brown, and Coby Karl, what are we looking to get out of them?
Right now we have 14 guys on our team based on their contractual status that will probably make the team. You’re allowed to have 15, so there is a spot open. We may or may not carry the 15th spot. It depends on what happens in training camp. I think the players you mentioned, Karl, Turner, Brown, and perhaps another player we’re going to add in the next day or two, will be trying to impress us to make that 15th slot their slot. So one of those guys could make it, one of those guys could make it for a month or two, or one of those guys can make it and spend time between going up and down between the D-League the whole season. We just don’t know right now, but we do have space for one more player if we want to carry that player.

How will we use the D-League team with regards to Javaris Crittenton and Jordan Farmar?
Well Javaris and Jordan, as well as the players you previously mentioned – Turner, Brown, and Karl – will be eligible, because they are first or second year players, to go down to the D-League. I would anticipate that we use the D-League as an improvement ground for our team this year more than we did last year, based on our present roster. We thought Jordan was going to be down there a lot last year, but he ended up being our first guard off the bench to spell Smush. So if he’s playing in the NBA then why does he need to go to the D-League? So he didn’t go down there as much as we thought last year.

I think we’ll end up using it more this year, but that is the extent of the eligibility. As for our two other draft choices, Marc Gasol will be playing in Spain and Sun Yue has not signed a contract yet and we hope that he continues to play in China so he can become a better player and hopefully next year he can make our team.

Is Sun still playing with the Chinese team here or did they go back?

He is the property of a club team. They have gone back and forth in participating with the CBA (Chinese Basketball Association). I don’t know the status of what the team is today. The last two years they’ve played in Anaheim with the ABA. Sun played on their national team during the summer. So there are the national team obligations, as with Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian, and then there is the club team that we are making reference to.