Opening statement:
“This will probably go down as one of the wildest drafts, I know that it seems like we say that every year, that’s because it gets crazier every year with the number of European players involved, the number of underclassmen and the unpredictability of all the teams. We are very pleased with our draft tonight, we’re excited about our accusations, we feel we clearly addressed our needs as a team. We dipped into the European market twice. We traded for the rights to Rashard Griffith who’s played over in Kinder Bologna Italy, a seven-footer with the selection we made in the later second round. Mario Kasun, who has a contract in Germany, was one of the best workouts that we had. He’s a 7-1 player who can shoot the three an can put it on the floor. He did not have a good Chicago [camp], but was playing on an injured ankle. Ryan Humphrey… we can’t say enough about him. This guy is electricity. He’s a bigger version of Bo Outlaw with great offensive skills. When we looked at his numbers statistically, the only guy close to him collegiate-wise was Gooden, who went very high in the draft. The only difference was Humphrey blocked twice as many shots as Gooden did last year. We’re excited about all of our picks, as far as the status as when we’ll see them all, I think Griffith is in the states in Chicago. His agent I think is based there.”

How did Humphrey’s performance vs. Stoudemire in the workout change your opinion of Ryan?:
“He really did [play well]. Stoudemire had a very off day at that point in time too, so I don’t know that we we’re doing a lot of comparing. In fact, Stoudemire didn’t go most of the workout, he was a bit fatigued. Kasun was very good. He shot the ball well, put it down on the floor. He shows a lot of small forward skills. He’s tough and has the desire to come back here to the United States to play in the NBA.”

How has your opinion of Humphrey as a player changed since the end of the NCAA season to now?:
“The one thing I pointed out was that he had tremendous stats, he was consistent all year long. Every season, I love it when there’s one guy you interview, that you can pick out and say ‘that guy is a no miss player.’ A couple years ago for me it was Desmond Mason. There’s usually one guy that has the whole package: physical enough, athletic enough, shoots it well enough… but historically, they are guys who are really ready to play, they’re mature as men, ready to compete at this level. Humphrey was one of our first workouts and when I saw him, I immediately told our guys, ‘this for me would be my no miss.’ He’s a little undersized, so we thought about the fact that we wouldn’t take him because he’s a bit smaller for a power forward. Soon we all found out that the guy in our heart was Ryan, that he was the guy we’d all feel must comfortable with, he’d be the guy that Doc would turn to on the bench and put in the game immediately. In Chicago, he was excellent too. He’s electric, he’s got a great smile, gets along with everybody, and talking to the Notre Dame people, he’s one of the finer people they’ve ever had come through the program.”

Does Humphrey need to put on weight?:
“A little bit. He’s pretty strong. In the weightlifting workouts, he was in the top ten out of a hundred kids that had to go through benching 240lbs. I think he did it more than anybody in the camp. He’s a powerful player. He’s a pretty good shooter. I’d say he has collegiate three-point range but I don’t think right now we’d identify him as a three in that circumstance but he could probably guard two or three positions. We thought in many ways, he was the same height and brought everything to the table that a Malik Rose could.”

Can Humphrey play Power Forward?:
“He’s powerful enough to guard them. There are a lot of 6-7, 6-8 players and he’s 6-8 ½, that guard centers. Malik Rose is another example, he guarded Shaquille O’Neal in the playoffs. He has every opportunity to be a Ben Wallace with a higher skill set offensively. This is a guy who was one of the top rebounders and shot-blockers in college basketball.”

Could Humphrey start as a Rookie?:
“I wouldn’t rule that out, just with the total package he has, the leadership, his flair for the game. One of the other criteria is, we’re pushing him kind of quick here, just having drafted him a few minutes ago, but he’s the type of guy that you wouldn’t rule out as being a Rodman type guy on the boards. He’s just an aggressive player. Here during the workouts, he hit the floor a couple times. About the third or fourth time he hit the floor, with his feet clearly higher than his head as he went down, he lifted up his shorts a bit, and with these players they’re down to their knees, he just rubbed a little bit. I think he wanted us to see that he had bandages on both sides of his butt just from the screech marks playing in Chicago and playing hard. He was one of the guys that we brought back twice.”

Is this a bit of a gamble pick since he wasn’t slated to go so high?:
“A little bit. I think that’s something you gotta do. We flipped down once with Utah to try and get the 47, and it’s that drop that led to another seven-footer so we’re excited.”

Thoughts on Curtis Borchardt’s foot problems:
“We had concerns. We had real concerns. He’s really only had a solid six months in the last three years of basketball. That was just a place that would have been very tough for us to go.”

Did you come close to moving up?:
“Well, I’ll tell you this, we had more spots to move up than we didn’t. After the tenth and eleventh possibilities, we really didn’t see the value in moving up beyond that.”

Point Guard Situation:
“Smush [Parker, undrafted Rookie] would be on our hit-list and Doc has already been on the phone contacting about a dozen guys to participate in camp.”

[Doc Rivers Comments: “We’re going to win the NBA Summer League Championship this year.”]

On Rashard Griffith:
“Teams have taken shots at getting the rights to him from Milwaukee off and on for the last two or three years. For whatever reasons it just hasn’t worked. He’s a very well compensated player over there. He’s a very well established player. He’s one of the best centers in Europe. That played a big part in it. We were looking at other players on our board that we would have to send overseas and hope that they would become what he is. If it happens this summer, which I think we’ll get a chance to meet with him that would be great, but if he stays [in Europe] and plays and continues to get better, that’s okay too. We saw how good the European young players are at 19 and 20 with just a little bit of experience, now this young man six years over there playing, he should be ready to go no doubt about it. It’s just a matter of finding out what it takes to get it done, but we do have his rights now.”