Mitch Kupchak Interview Part II
Lakers.com recently sat down with Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak to discuss the 2006-2007 season.
Lakers.com: Are you surprised at how much more aggressive Luke has been this season at going to the basket and secondarily how effective he has been at it?
Mitch: Luke, for the first time in a couple of years, is healthy and had a training camp where he didn't get hurt. He worked hard during the summer on areas he needed to work on in particular making shots. Players like playing with Luke because he looks to pass and if you're open he'll get you the ball and he's a great teammate and really good in the locker room and maybe when we went out and signed Radmanovic he took the challenge, now knowing that there's another player at that position, and maybe he worked extra hard, I don't know. But some players just grow into being a better player through work and as they mature in this league. And maybe for Luke it was just part of a natural process and he's just going to get better and better because he does work during the off-season and that's how you get better.
Lakers.com: Has he exceeded your original draft day expectations?
Mitch: Well we drafted him high in the second round; he was almost a first round pick. You don't know how a guy drafted in the 20's or in the second round are going to pan out. Typically, if you chart players, you know the guys in the top ten, the lottery players, are probably going to be in the league for 10 years, then as each 5 players in the draft gets selected the likelihood that they will be successful in the league decreases proportionately. So you can't say that a guy drafted in the high second round or end of the first round is going to be a ten year player. But we liked him, enough to draft him high in the second round, and we thought that he would be a good complimentary player with the team we had at that time. It was a much older team, guys like Shaquille, Derek Fisher, Rick Fox was on that team, I think Robert Horry had left, but we liked his unselfishness and his size and his pedigree. And not just being Bill Walton's son, but the fact that he went to a good program at Arizona with a good coach.
Lakers.com: What kind of value will Luke have in the off-season?
Mitch: Well he is going to be a free agent; I assume that is what you're talking about, the financial value. The market will set what he's to be paid. I think he has helped himself to date; knock on wood he stays healthy and continues to play well, this organization has never ever had a problem paying players who play well. That's just the way it is. If you play and play well, then you're going to earn the pay. So that's not a problem to us, whatever the number is, but the market will dictate that.
Lakers.com: How do we feel about Kwame at the free throw line, given that his percentage has been decreasing every year?
Mitch: I have noticed that. When he came into the league he was in the 60's, the high 60's and then it was 66 and then it went down to 61 and then it's in the 50's and now it's in the 40's. He made 2 last night; he took 2 and made 2, so I think that's a good beginning to get that average up. If you watch him in practice going around the horn shooting jumpers, 10-12 foot jump shots, he makes them all and when he's at the line in practice he'll make 60-70% of his free throws, but when it gets to game conditions, it's like a golfer. When you go to the range and have a bucket of balls and the range is 300 yards wide, you can hit a bucket of balls and they will all go straight, but when you walk up to the tee box and you have 10 people looking at you and you have one ball and one swing, it's a totally different shot. He just has to get comfortable stepping up to the line. He's got good form, he's got good rotation, and it's just a habit that he's got to continue to work on. Shoot a lot of free throws and eventually you will make some free throws and get some confidence. His mechanics are pretty good.
Lakers.com: As an organization, what do we do when we recognize that a player is having trouble shooting free throws or generally when they're in a slump? What do we do to try and help them out?
Mitch: I defer to the coaches. One thing a player can't hear is too many voices. I may talk to Phil and I do about our players and their performance and suggestions that I might have. People send me in letters or emails or I get calls from a fan or a coach or a specialist or someone who thinks they're a specialist. I read them all, I read the letters and emails and take the phone calls and every now and again someone has a good idea or even I myself, or Ronnie Lester or Bill Bertka and I will talk to Phil about it. But a player doesn't need to get messages from several people. I'm sure beyond this court he gets messages from his friends, his girlfriend, and people always telling him stuff and he doesn't need more than one voice from this organization. So I defer to the coach and certainly Phil is aware of trends on our team, whether it's the shooting of Kobe or Smush or rebounding or in this particular case, Kwame's free throws. You can try a bunch of different things, from techniques, to practice, to sitting down with a specialist, to meditating and using visualization, so there are a lot of things you can try as a coach. But I defer to our coach. After 9 nine rings and 15/18 years of coaching, I am comfortable doing that.
Lakers.com: How about Maurice Evans, in terms of gelling with the team?
Mitch: Maurice Evans is 27; he's a little bit older. We knew he was an energy player, a defensive catalyst and we knew he was a great scorer in college, but we didn't know that he would be as proficient a scorer here as he was in college. He can score. And he has given us big points off the bench in addition to his energy defensively and on the boards.
Lakers.com: Do you think the current make-up of the team is good enough to win a championship?
Mitch: There are a lot of good teams in the West, a lot of good teams in the East; though I don't think the east is as competitive as the west, that's not to say that the west will be the championship winner. I wouldn't say we're the favorite in the west, and that may answer your question. We will continue between now and the trade deadline to look for possibilities, to put us in a position where we are on an even keel with a San Antonio or a Phoenix or a Dallas. I think we can beat them, but I think generally speaking, people would say that if we were to play a 7 game series against some of those teams, we might not defeat them. I am not content to sit back and let the trade deadline go by without looking at possibilities, because I do think we can improve ourselves.
Lakers.com: What do you feel is Andrew Bynum's ceiling, how high can he go and how long will it take for him to get there?
Mitch: It remains to be seen. It's up to him. He can be a starter in this league, average 12 points a game, 7 rebounds and a block and a half, he can be 20 and 10 and 3 blocks a game, he could even do better than that. We don't know. We just don't know. I don't think, because of his size and his natural gifts, that there is a limit on what he can do. He's got great hands, he's got great size, he's got great length, he's an excellent athlete, he's a bright kid, so I don't think there are any physical limitations. It's going to depend on how good or how great he wants to be. Does he want his picture on wall in this corridor (at the Lakers offices)? When we drafted him we walked through this corridor and we stopped and we looked at the pictures of Wilt, Kareem and Shaquille and that was something we talked about. If he wants his picture up there, he can do it. But there's a lot of work between now and then for that to take place.
Lakers.com: What assets do we have going into the trade deadline?
Mitch: The assets are our players; we have several players on one year, expiring, contracts. Other teams may look at that and say that's a valuable asset to them. Frankly, an expiring contract, all that really means is you have the ability to take back a player from another team that has more than 1 year on it and that team doesn't want that player. Unless that player for some reason is a great player that another team wants to get rid of, which I don’t know why they would want to do that, I don't consider one year contracts that valuable. I know a lot of people do, but we want to preserve our ability to sign Luke during the summer, so we're not looking to take back salaries that would alter our ability to sign back our free agents this summer. And we're going to have Luke, we're going to have Smush and we're going to have Chris Mihm, who I think is going to recover. But all our guys are on pretty good contracts, they're all young and I think they're all respected around the league so I think there are enough assets there to make a deal with a team, if you were so inclined.
Lakers.com: When does the trade talk really start heating up, Iverson having already moved?
Mitch: The Iverson thing got it going pretty good. Everyone was involved, circling like vultures to see what they could snare on the sidelines. I was involved, just looking, staying in touch with the Philadelphia people to see what players were involved to see if we could swoop down and get a player that nobody else wanted in a good deal. I think it'll pick up after the holidays as you approach the trade deadline in February. Teams after 30-35 games, they begin to get a handle on what they need and what they don't need, so that in part is why the trade deadline is in February. Normally, teams are hesitant to make a deal quickly because they think if they can wait, then the offer might get better. So I think February is when it will be hottest, in terms of trying to make a deal.
Lakers.com: Are you comfortable with the number of 3 pointers our team has been taking?
Mitch: I think there should be a cap on 3 pointers. I think it's a necessary shot, based on how teams play you, but you can also be 3 point happy. It's an easy thing to do, because you’re not defended nearly as well as you are once you're inside the 3 point line. It can become a habit, especially if you make your first or second. Then all of a sudden you say that you're 2 of 2 and if you miss the next you're 2 for 3, and if you miss your fourth you're still 2 for 4 and then you miss your fifth and you're still 2 for 5, which is pretty good by the numbers, but if everyone is shooting 2 for 5 then you're shooting 20 to 25 3 pointers per game. Then you get long rebounds, a lot of times it generates the break going in the opposite direction, and your defensive rebounding is out of whack. As a coach it's what you try to do (get the other team to shoot the 3). You try to defend the paint and the one thing you really can't defend is the 3. That's a shot you want the other team to take, you don't want to give them a wide open 3, but you do want them to shoot 3's. It's necessary and has a place in the game, and it can get you back in the game quickly. We have a couple of guys that can make 3's, Radmanovic, Cook, Luke can make some 3's, Smush made some 3's last night, Kobe can get it going, but you don't want to live and die by the 3. We're better than that.
Lakers.com: As you look at players that you might potentially acquire at the trade deadline or during the off-season via trade or free agency, do you factor in the player being in a contract year/playing for a contract?
Mitch: It's a consideration, but we pay more attention to the player. There are a couple of guys that the word out there is that it is his contract year and he's going to have a good year and then he's going to disappear, but every GM knows who those players are. But most of the time it could be to your benefit because you know a guy is going to have a good year and you hope that he's a professional and if he does sign a big contract that he's going to continue to play at that level. Most guys are like that. You don't see too many guys that sign a big contract and then just disappear, because now they feel they've made their money. I think they're too proud. That may happen from time to time, but generally, that is not the rule.
