Magic Coach Comments
Giving up at the end of the year: “Well, the only thing that changes that is you’ve got to have success as a team. In order for us to have successes, we’ve obviously got to make some changes to who we are right now and where we are currently; and we’ll look to do that this summer.”
Compare ’03 changes with potential ’04 changes: “I think more than just looking at these new faces, we had a lot of young players. I think when you change and there’s some veterans in the mix, it holds you a little more steady. We’ll look at doing some things this summer. But, again, when you have a season like we had you do have to make some change just because you have a situation where there wasn’t much success this year. And clearly you have to identify those players who can help you and those who perhaps you need to move. And we’ll take a look at that this summer.”
Grant Hill and Pat Garrity: “Obviously we would like to have them both back, but I think when you talk about the totality of it, you have to look at ‘what if they are not back?’ ‘what if they are not right?’ ‘what if they are not back to the level we expect them to be?’ I think we have to plan it that way, and when they are here or if they are here, then it’s much better.”
Players working on their game: “You can work on things that help you defensively which is lateral movement and quickness—those kind of things that help you move your feet a lot faster. Strengthening and conditioning are the kinds of things that help you become a better mover on the floor. So those are some of the things we can do to allow you to shift from one position to another defensively quicker.”
Encouraging players: “We basically talk about not having to go through this kind of thing again next year. Committing to doing some work this summer, and coming in with the right mind set next year to start out the season the right way, and it begins now rather than waiting until you get to training camp.”
Training camp: “That’s where you set the standards and procedures for the team. When you inherit a team that’s ongoing, you just really try to tweak things, and plug any holes you have. But when you start out fresh, and you have a chance to implement something you want to do, it makes a big difference.”
Player on sidelines using cell phone: “That should never happen, and players have to know that won’t be tolerated and is not acceptable. You can’t have that. You just can’t have it. That means the guy does not have his head in the game, and whomever he is talking to is more important than what he’s doing at the time.”
Shifting gears: “It’s time to go to work, and we’ve got a lot of work to do. We want to make changes, and good changes, not change just for the sake of change. We want to make sure all of the changes are changes that will benefit us as we move forward. This is not a summer to go on extended vacations. We don’t have anything to rest on, we’ve got work to do.”
Giving up on Drew Gooden: “You don’t give up on anyone per se. What you have to assess as we move forward is this a player who can help us, or is his upside greater than moving him along for someone else. All of those decisions will be made this summer. I think Drew is going to be a nice young player. A lot of people talked about his difference in minutes per se, but he was playing the same position as Juwan Howard. Juwan Howard had a very consistent year for us, which perhaps cut into Drew Gooden’s minutes. The only thing you can say to that is we’ll move Juwan Howard to the five and let Drew Gooden play the four. The problem with that is Juwan Howard is not a center, so when we moved him to the center position it affected our play; he was more effective as a four. And Drew Gooden is not a three. Juwan Howard got the most minutes because he played the best.”
Developing young players: “This is his [Drew Gooden’s] second year. There is a lot of room for growth and improvement with him. He knows that, and we’ll continue to develop him and he’ll have a long productive career.”
Does that mean Drew or Juwan has to go: “That doesn’t mean anyone has to go. They both have to improve their games. And hopefully next year, if they are both here they have to have individual improvement in their games for us to improve as a team.”
How difficult would it be to go into next season not knowing whether or not you will have your superstar: “You always want stability in what you are doing, knowing exactly who is here, who is not here, what they’re going to do. But as a coach, my only and main concern is to coach the twelve guys that are here, and if Tracy is here, he is one of the twelve, and I’m going to do the best I can to put us all in a position that we can be successful next year. It is going to take all twelve, 82 games is a long season, and it takes everyone to be successful. My concern is not what we’re doing in terms of the free-agent market, who is not here, who is here-the twelve guys that are here I will coach and coach to the best of my ability.”
Will the club look for a vocal leader: “There are leaders by example and there are vocal leaders. Leadership is something that the team decides. You can designate a leader, but just because you designate him as such doesn’t mean he is the leader. The team decides who is a leader and who they follow. I think Tracy is more of a by example leader than a vocal leader. That is not a knock, it is just who he is.”
Will watch the lottery closely and put a lot of stock in something like that: “Now that we are in this position I want the number one pick, but I didn’t want that prior to season obviously. Right now I don’t know much about the top players because I’ve had my focus on our team and opponents, but I’ll get a chance now to study some of the top college players. We have a very good scouting department and I’m sure they have tracked the top players all year and we’ll have a good idea who we should select when that time comes.”
Were you naïve to think you could turn this season around: “I was hopeful that I could. I went about it each and everyday, up until the last day that believing we could do something to make it better, continue to be pro-active. But I knew it would be difficult, there was a lot of emotional damage that had been done to this team. Anytime you lose like that, especially out of the blocks, it makes it difficult. The team had really lost its confidence, and confidence is the toughest thing to recapture. We had it going a little while, finally thought we got a little traction under us where we could move forward then we would slip and fall again and go into another tailspin. That is when having that lack of confidence from the start hurt us, because we didn’t have a reference point to something good, our reference point was the start we had.”
What was the toughest part of coaching: “I think the toughest part of it, for me, as we moved forward during the season, was try to instill in team if we do certain things, we’ll have a chance to win every night, and that one thing was defense. If we defend, if we played with defensive intensity and intelligence, we’ll have a chance most nights. Coming back next year, that is one of the things I really want us to understand as a team, if we defend even when we aren’t shooting well, we’ll still have a chance to win games down the stretch. You can steal games if you play good defense.”
Compare ’03 changes with potential ’04 changes: “I think more than just looking at these new faces, we had a lot of young players. I think when you change and there’s some veterans in the mix, it holds you a little more steady. We’ll look at doing some things this summer. But, again, when you have a season like we had you do have to make some change just because you have a situation where there wasn’t much success this year. And clearly you have to identify those players who can help you and those who perhaps you need to move. And we’ll take a look at that this summer.”
Grant Hill and Pat Garrity: “Obviously we would like to have them both back, but I think when you talk about the totality of it, you have to look at ‘what if they are not back?’ ‘what if they are not right?’ ‘what if they are not back to the level we expect them to be?’ I think we have to plan it that way, and when they are here or if they are here, then it’s much better.”
Players working on their game: “You can work on things that help you defensively which is lateral movement and quickness—those kind of things that help you move your feet a lot faster. Strengthening and conditioning are the kinds of things that help you become a better mover on the floor. So those are some of the things we can do to allow you to shift from one position to another defensively quicker.”
Encouraging players: “We basically talk about not having to go through this kind of thing again next year. Committing to doing some work this summer, and coming in with the right mind set next year to start out the season the right way, and it begins now rather than waiting until you get to training camp.”
Training camp: “That’s where you set the standards and procedures for the team. When you inherit a team that’s ongoing, you just really try to tweak things, and plug any holes you have. But when you start out fresh, and you have a chance to implement something you want to do, it makes a big difference.”
Player on sidelines using cell phone: “That should never happen, and players have to know that won’t be tolerated and is not acceptable. You can’t have that. You just can’t have it. That means the guy does not have his head in the game, and whomever he is talking to is more important than what he’s doing at the time.”
Shifting gears: “It’s time to go to work, and we’ve got a lot of work to do. We want to make changes, and good changes, not change just for the sake of change. We want to make sure all of the changes are changes that will benefit us as we move forward. This is not a summer to go on extended vacations. We don’t have anything to rest on, we’ve got work to do.”
Giving up on Drew Gooden: “You don’t give up on anyone per se. What you have to assess as we move forward is this a player who can help us, or is his upside greater than moving him along for someone else. All of those decisions will be made this summer. I think Drew is going to be a nice young player. A lot of people talked about his difference in minutes per se, but he was playing the same position as Juwan Howard. Juwan Howard had a very consistent year for us, which perhaps cut into Drew Gooden’s minutes. The only thing you can say to that is we’ll move Juwan Howard to the five and let Drew Gooden play the four. The problem with that is Juwan Howard is not a center, so when we moved him to the center position it affected our play; he was more effective as a four. And Drew Gooden is not a three. Juwan Howard got the most minutes because he played the best.”
Developing young players: “This is his [Drew Gooden’s] second year. There is a lot of room for growth and improvement with him. He knows that, and we’ll continue to develop him and he’ll have a long productive career.”
Does that mean Drew or Juwan has to go: “That doesn’t mean anyone has to go. They both have to improve their games. And hopefully next year, if they are both here they have to have individual improvement in their games for us to improve as a team.”
How difficult would it be to go into next season not knowing whether or not you will have your superstar: “You always want stability in what you are doing, knowing exactly who is here, who is not here, what they’re going to do. But as a coach, my only and main concern is to coach the twelve guys that are here, and if Tracy is here, he is one of the twelve, and I’m going to do the best I can to put us all in a position that we can be successful next year. It is going to take all twelve, 82 games is a long season, and it takes everyone to be successful. My concern is not what we’re doing in terms of the free-agent market, who is not here, who is here-the twelve guys that are here I will coach and coach to the best of my ability.”
Will the club look for a vocal leader: “There are leaders by example and there are vocal leaders. Leadership is something that the team decides. You can designate a leader, but just because you designate him as such doesn’t mean he is the leader. The team decides who is a leader and who they follow. I think Tracy is more of a by example leader than a vocal leader. That is not a knock, it is just who he is.”
Will watch the lottery closely and put a lot of stock in something like that: “Now that we are in this position I want the number one pick, but I didn’t want that prior to season obviously. Right now I don’t know much about the top players because I’ve had my focus on our team and opponents, but I’ll get a chance now to study some of the top college players. We have a very good scouting department and I’m sure they have tracked the top players all year and we’ll have a good idea who we should select when that time comes.”
Were you naïve to think you could turn this season around: “I was hopeful that I could. I went about it each and everyday, up until the last day that believing we could do something to make it better, continue to be pro-active. But I knew it would be difficult, there was a lot of emotional damage that had been done to this team. Anytime you lose like that, especially out of the blocks, it makes it difficult. The team had really lost its confidence, and confidence is the toughest thing to recapture. We had it going a little while, finally thought we got a little traction under us where we could move forward then we would slip and fall again and go into another tailspin. That is when having that lack of confidence from the start hurt us, because we didn’t have a reference point to something good, our reference point was the start we had.”
What was the toughest part of coaching: “I think the toughest part of it, for me, as we moved forward during the season, was try to instill in team if we do certain things, we’ll have a chance to win every night, and that one thing was defense. If we defend, if we played with defensive intensity and intelligence, we’ll have a chance most nights. Coming back next year, that is one of the things I really want us to understand as a team, if we defend even when we aren’t shooting well, we’ll still have a chance to win games down the stretch. You can steal games if you play good defense.”
