“We thought he was, at the college level, effectiveness-wise, arguably the best player in the country. I don’t think we’re alone in that assessment. I really started liking him actually in Chicago last year. He wasn’t as noticeable with his individual play last year in Chicago. But then when you looked at all the post tournament stats and records his team won just about every game when he was there. He just found a way of running his team in such a way that that they always seemed to come out on the upper end. He understands the way the game is supposed to be played in that regard. And then he pulled out of last year’s draft and it ended up being a good thing for him obviously. He went back to college and had such a great senior season. You combine those physical attributes with character, and a person again, and I know we’re talking about these same refrains with Howard and Nelson but obviously there’s a reason why we’re talking about the same things. We try to draft kids that we believe in, in that regard, in terms of their internal make up. And we feel like we have another special kid in that regard with Jameer.”

“The only thing I would say got tough to evaluate was during the year was defensively. If you notice St. Joe’s plays sort of a funky defense and you end up turning your back on the ball a lot. They have a defensive style that’s very transferable to NBA standards. So, that’s the only thing that you can say, ‘Boy, how will he do defensively?’ But on ball defensively, even at his size, he was fantastic and offensively, even though he’s so small he never struggled to create room for himself. He’s so strong and has such a good handle. As I said the night of the draft, when I put the question to these guys, who’s the most NBA ready player in this entire draft. What one player will make the biggest immediate impact on the NBA, both of them felt strongly that Nelson was at the top of that list. It was a pretty compelling reason to do what we did to plot a strategy to get him in the middle of the round.”

“That conclusion first came out way back, I mean way back. They first started saying that in January. There was time in January where we were talking about, ‘Is this kid the number one pick?’ That’s how in love with him our guys were. Obviously as we saw how things played out, based on his size it was such a wild card. You heard anywhere from six to 21. Going into the draft after we had laid all of those little land mines through the first round, talking to Steve, his agent, I think they were pretty comfortable that he was going to go eight, nine or ten. I think they felt comfortable he wasn’t going to make it past Cleveland at ten. So we made it past Cleveland, that was obviously the first trigger. When Portland took Telfair that was when we really went back to try and activate all of those deal scenarios that we had talked about that morning.”

A lot people think the NBA penalizes guys that stay in school…
“I think there’s more time to dissect them and find things wrong with them. It’s a strange phenomenon. But now as some kids have made it by just coming out and being relatively unexamined and just having so much raw talent. Not that LeBron was unexamined, but maybe Stoudamire to some degree, he went 11 or 12. And now when kids become known early on and after their freshman year coming out of high school and people can pick them apart. I thought that happened to Duhon a little bit too. You ride out your tenure even at a good school and it creates the opportunity for your game to get picked apart and you become human. You know, some of the polish comes off when people have too long a period of time to look at you and talk about you. Which is sort of foolish and silly but I guess it’s just human nature.”

On him coming in and being a leader…
“I think he can. I think he’s capable of that. I think it’s intrinsic to him. I don’t think he knows any other way to play. Every player that plays in the NBA or makes it to the NBA is capable of bringing it. Even low character guys bring it on occasion. So you say ‘What’s the dividing line?’ Where does this kid get his fuel, is it intrinsic or extrinsic? Is he playing for fan adulation or records or shoe contracts or is he just playing because he can’t help himself…like it’s in him to compete. And he’s that type of kid. Whether it’s after practice or one-on-one or playing pool in the locker room like he does not know any other way to be except trying to beat people and that’s obviously the type of guy we’re looking to fill our team with.”

Is he is change of pace kind of guy? Do you put him in the game to change the pace?
“Change of pace he’ll speed it up when he comes in? He likes to push it. They had a back court that was so dynamic and they didn’t have really many inside players there so that will be a little bit different style-wise in terms of the way we want to play. If he doesn’t end up starting, you know that’s the most important position on a team, so we want to have two starter caliber players at that position and we want to be able to throw a bunch of different looks at a team. He’s a valuable piece to be able to do that. When you can do that with a rookie that’s important. We wanted to get him just cause we wanted to get him. Now that he’s sat until 20 and got himself all pissed off I like that even more. Now he’s got a little hatchet to bury. He was frustrated that night. Talk about a chip on his shoulder. I hung up from that phone call and I was, I’m not easily moved to giddiness but I was pretty giddy when we spoke to him.”

What was his phone conversation with Jameer…
“He was just disappointed over being 20th. He’s obviously coming in feeling like he’s got a lot to prove. It’s not the first time in his career he’s been in this situation. He’s one of those kids where he’s not good enough to do it at high school level, then he’s not good enough to do it at college level, then he is, and now he’s not good enough to do it at NBA level. So, I think he certainly relishes that challenge. That would be exciting to see him anxious to stick it to people.”

“He was the only guy that we would’ve activated a deal for. If Jameer was gone all these little plots that we had through the middle of the round we would not have activated it for anybody else. We decided that really at eight when Araujo, when the BYU kid went eight that’s when we sort of knew game on. And we made the determination then we will only execute this deal or we will only trigger this deal if we feel like there’s a chance that kid will be there. There was no one else in the draft that we were willing to give up that asset for, cause it’s a valuable asset. That Washington pick, even with some encumbrance, could be a lottery pick. Certainly would’ve been a valuable sweetner for us to use in other deals. I mean we obviously got a ton of work left to do this summer and it would’ve been valuable to have that pick to throw in to one of those deals. So we didn’t give it up easily. He was the only kid in the draft that we were willing to give it up for.”

What is the next step?
“We’ve got a lot to do. Just my nature, we were all pretty excited the night of the draft, then immediately that next day, my job was to come and sort of whack everyone on the chin and that was yesterday. This is a six or eight act play, and we’re just closing out act two, so we got a lot more to do.”

Do you expect a Tracy trade to happen soon?
“I would have no way of saying it would or wouldn’t. I haven’t had any conversation with anyone on that subject today, or yesterday, or Saturday. If something were to suddenly break with that, it would have to happen pretty quickly.”

Do you think there is any merit to the belief that college guys understand the team concept better?
“I think they have experienced more. I think guys coming out of college are being drafted more for what they have been able to do within a team concept instead of being drafted on raw talent. We talked about with Dwight, one of pitfalls of previous high-school draft picks, they’re being drafted purely on being an athletic marvel for a high-school level. They get drafted just based on that individual athleticism. These college guys, to make it up through the college ranks, they have to be executing their team systems, and they have to be learning to execute their talents through more of a team concept. They are a lot more educated, they have a lot more clue as to why they are a talent to a game plan instead of just being athletically dominant.”

Which route will you explore the rest of the off-season to continue to improve, free-agency or trades?
“I think both. We don’t have enough chips to really do a lot in free-agency, we obviously have that MCE, that’s about it. Obviously the trade route is one we have to utilize as well.”

Why would you stay in college when it seems the earlier they come out, the earlier they are drafted?
“It gets harder and harder now with the guarantee-able money, not just in the contracts themselves, but the endorsement contracts. It gets really hard to recommend to someone to put that at risk to go back to school and possibly lower their stock. Obviously you can raise your stock if you are a borderline guy. Even going 20th, Jameer certainly raised his stock by going back to school. Yeah, I think it gets harder and harder to make that decision. Maybe the old antiquated novel idea of getting a degree and education yourself. If you look at it from a career fiscal standpoint it is tough to make that argument I suppose.”