Orlando Magic General Manager Otis Smith Pre-Draft Comments
On having the 22nd pick…
“Well I think at 22 you’ll get a good player, I think this year the draft is deep, early on you can almost kind of predict the first couple but after that it gets a little sketchy from there. So I think at 22, you get a good player there.”

On picking the best available player…
“You normally go after the best player available on the board, that way you get an asset and you can choose to do with the asset as you please, as opposed to trying to get a position. So I think when you look at 22 you get to survey the board and there’s a lot of things that are going to drop to you at 22 that will be able to help you.”

On moving up in the draft…
“Well, we’ve explored the option of moving both up and back, really, to get another asset, but at this point there is nothing imminent that is going to happen. There is a player or a few players at 22 that we feel will be there that we’d like to have, so that’s one of the reasons why we kind of stayed were we are right now.”

On catching a player who might fall in the draft…
“You know I think this draft is, like I said, deeper than people may give it credit for, and it’s always this time of year we always say it’s a little deeper, so I think that there is a player or two that could possibly fall there that could help.”

On pursuing a back-up point guard…
“I don’t know if I’d go into the draft with a position in mind and if you’re ideal you’d pick up a position that you have a need, but I’m not sure if a point guard will get down that low first, and second part of it is I think you have to get the best player that’s going to help you. You start addressing some of those needs probably on July 1.”

On drafting a player that is NBA ready…
“You know, we go through that back-and-forth, whether guys are ready or not, I think you have to get a guy that’s going to be able to help you at some point. Whether that’s this coming year or the year after that—you still have to be able do that. That guy has to be able to fight and get his way on the floor and if he’s a big that’s a harder battle, and if he’s a wing player it may not look like it’s a harder battle but even that is a tougher position to get on the floor. You look for competition throughout your roster and I think we have that down low right now; we’re still a little depleted because of our free agents.”

On getting a starting shooting guard at 22…
“I think there are good players down there. Whether or not that player is going to be somebody to step in and start over the guys that we have, I’m not sure. But I think there are good players down there, regardless of position.”

On free agency…
“Well, they are still free agents and up until July 1 I’m really not allowed to get into a whole lot of that and all of our guys that were free agents will be free agents on July 1 and we’ll go from there.”

On screening potential draftees…
“Well, we do everything. We background check; we talk to everybody that is affiliated with the player from high school to AAU coach to their college and trainers and everybody else we can talk to, to get enough information. For me to sit down face-to-face is huge, to be able to sit and talk to a guy about him, his life, what’s going on with his life on and off the court, some things we already know the answer to, just to see what kind of answer you’re going to get from the player sometimes is good . I put a lot of value on the sit-down time, probably more than I do on putting them in the gym and watching them hoist up jumpers. We’ve kind of watched them throughout their careers so im not sure they’re going to get any better going from one place to the other, particularly going three-on-three is kind of hard to see the full player that way.”

On moving up in the draft…
“I think if there is an opportunity to move up, we do have assets to do it. It has to be something that we want to do. But I’m not sure at this point and time that an opportunity presents itself, at this point and time there has not been an opportunity that I’ve liked to move up. So we’re pretty set on picking at 22.”

On trading during the draft…
“Things get a little heavier during the course of the draft, things get a little heavier this week. We are having conversations with different teams, whether or not anything is imminent that’s going to happen , I'm not necessarily sure. So you just continue to have conversations and if anything works it works, but if it doesn’t you move on to the next thing. If I had to sit here and tell you what’s the percentage of something happening with us, I’ll probably tell you that it’s about an 80-percent chance that you won’t trade anything, but that’s any draft year.”

On whether or not he brought players back this week…
“No I did not.”

On whether or not he is looking at acquiring a second-round pick…
“I’m not necessarily saying I’m looking at it, but we’re interested in players that could possibly get that way. So, we don’t have a second-round pick at this point and time, and if the board continues to go where guys continue to slip and there’s an opportunity to get a second, we’ll probably get a little bit more interested. We’ve had conversations with teams regarding seconds but at this point, there’s really nothing there.”

On evaluating foreign players…
“I think what’s happening now with the international market, the money over there is getting greater. And they are competing in a lot of ways at the same value as we are competing here. So I don’t know if necessarily it changes the way you do business, you have to look at everything as it relates to the player: does the player want to come here? Does the player want to be here? You kind of approach things accordingly. You know there’s some good players out there, both domestic and international players I think.”

On trusting international players…
“You have to continue to do your work on a guy. You have to continue to make sure this guy is ready to come. The landscape is changing a little bit more as it relates to international players as a whole, not just in Orlando. I think in the NBA as a whole because the money is getting greater over there so a guy can sign a same deal over there, but because of the tax ramifications make more money. But you still have to drive a little bit more for the guys that want to be in our league and guys who have that hunger, that drive to be in our league.”

On Fran Vasquez’s situation…
“I don’t really anticipate it changing this year. From this point forward, it’s a Fran Vasquez decision. He has to be willing to take a little bit of a financial hit, and I’m not sure where that stands. His team that he’s currently on in Barcelona is constantly in a changing mode, from the coach to the GM to the players that they’re adding. So, at this point we’ve done everything that we can do for Fran Vasquez, it’s on him.”

On Dwight Howard being named to Team USA…
“That was a foregone conclusion for me, so I really have not had a conversation with him regarding being accepted on the team. I had anticipated that happening all along, I’m excited for him as he is excited to participate and playing for our country. I think it’s a good time for all those guys.” On Howard being the only center on Team USA…

“It really doesn’t concern me from that standpoint. Most of the time they are playing a smaller game of basketball, matching up with the European players, so it doesn’t concern me from that standpoint. As I’ve said in years past, if our guys are playing basketball somewhere, I’d rather for them to be playing somewhere structured, that’s being coached by some of the better coaches in the country.”

On drafting a player from a big-time college program…
“You have to look at the whole guy, what he brings to the table. Whether he’s a guy that played in a big program or a guy that’s played in big games or a guy that’s played four years, I think you take all of those things into consideration when you are doing a draft. How he’s going to fit into your team, your scheme, how we play. Those things you kind of take into consideration.” On Marreese Speights…
“I think his upside is huge for him. I think he has potential to be a very good player in this league for years to come. I’m not sure if he’s a finished product yet, as I’m not sure if any of those guys are. We’ll have to visit that if he gets to 22, but I’m not sure where he falls.”

On how many players are on his “short list”…
“It’s kind of hard to say I have a short list, because it changes every time. But yes, we have a short list and there’s probably four or five guys there that we like and have the potential to get there. Today, tomorrow, we continue to work the board, see who actually gets to us, who actually has the potential to get to us. We have to head into the draft keeping in mind who is going to get to us at 22.”

On Memphis guard Chris-Douglas Roberts…
“He’s a very talented basketball player and where he falls I’m not sure. So he could be in the mix of those four, five, six guys that we like.” On getting out of the first round…
“We’ve explored everything as it relates to our pick. Whether it’s staying in or moving out of it, or trying to pick up other assets in other ways. I can’t say that we’re set here and we’re going to do anything, or have to do anything. I think we’ll explore the opportunities to do them. If it works we’ll get involved, if not I really do believe and like 22, and think the player that’s going to get to 22 is going to be a pretty good player for us.”

On if there is any one guy that stands out…
“There’s a ton of guys actually because it’s kind of hard to sit here and say that somebody is not going to fall because inevitably they do. So for me to say we are kind of stuck here and we’re going to pick up this guy at that number is kind of difficult to do, but for us to sit here and say we’ve explored the board and somebody up there that we may like that not everybody above us may like, those things kind of happen in the draft, I go back to a few years ago when Jameer was drafted and we went through the same thing. So, we just have to be prepared for any sudden changes in the draft board on draft night.”

On whether or not he expects trade movement on draft night…
“I expect there to be some movement. But I also expect there to be some movement in the weeks to come after that because of the way the free-agent market is this year, the teams that have money and the teams that need to get better and the teams that are willing to spend and not willing to spend money. So I think it’s going to be an interesting year off season wise for the league.”

On talking to teams with picks around 22…
“We do that, we talk to ones in front, ones behind, ones at the top, but as I said before, I’m not sure we are all trading trade secrets, we kind of keep a lot of things close to our vest, I know that’s what we do and I’m sure all the other people in front of me do the same thing.”

On Boston’s success sparking other teams to make similar moves…
“I’m not sure. I think you’ll see a little bit of everything. Team’s going to stay their course of where they are, and some teams are going to go after some veteran guys. Most of the time those will take place after July 1.”

On the team’s needs…
“I think our needs are still the same. We have two free-agent point guards, that we have to fill a void at the point guard behind Jameer. We talk about big guards, and being able to go and get a big guard but it has to make some kind of sense to us, so that need has the potential to still be there.” On disrupting the core of the team…
“It would be hard for me to change our core group of guys at this point and time. It would be hard for me to sit here and tell you that there is a deal out there that is going to move any of them, because there’s just not. Our strength right now is our forward and center area, even with Adonal opting out you still have Tony [Battie], Marcin [Gortat], Brian [Cook], a lot of guys who didn’t play a lot in the post season last year, we’ll have those guys back this coming year. Along with Dwight [Howard] and Rashard [Lewis], that’s probably our strongest position.”

On getting Maurice Evans back…
“Well, I think you’re open to everything when you are in free agency. You are hoping to get better and you do that in various ways, whether it’s through trades or through free agency to get better basketball players that are going to make your team better to be able to do different things. So are we open to it? Yeah we are open to it, what’s the dollar amount and I think the littlest things have to go into account.”

On the mid-level exception…
“I think the mid-level exception is going to be interesting this year. I don’t know if there’s a ton of guys out there that are going to get the mid level, one there’s not a ton of teams that are going to spend the mid-level because of tax, and second part of it is, there’s not a ton of teams that have a lot of money to spend as far as room goes. It’s going to be as I see it, an interesting offseason. So, player movement may come in the form of trades and sign-and-trades.”

On picking up a point guard…
“I think you do anything you have to do as it relates to a point guard. When you have a small point guard like we have, you have to really cover yourself with someone with some size. How you do that, whether it’s in the draft, trade, or free agency, you just have to make sure you are on point to do that. I think that’s something we will have to address in other ways.”

On Tony Battie…
“Tony is fine. Had we went to the Eastern Conference Finals, we probably would have put tony on the floor. So from that standpoint, I think tony is as healthy as he can be. He’s been here probably two days a week. In my mind, Tony is the equivalent to signing a free agent because he is a guy that hasn’t played for you in a need a position in which we had a need for at the end of last year. What we have in Tony is the ability for Stan [Van Gundy] to get a little bit more creative with our roster and lineup and who’s on the floor, so to me it’s a good thing.”

On Battie’s return affecting the lineup…
“I just think it makes you more flexible. Tony played two positions for us in years past. Rashard can play the four and the three. Turk can play, has played the three, four and the two at times. You like your roster to be versatile, depending on what the other team is throwing at you, you have an opportunity to counter. From that stand point, I like our roster, I like our forwards, I like our lineup we’ve got. But we do have some holes we have to fill.”

On Hedo Turkoglu playing shooting guard…
“I think Turk can play two. At times he’s played one for us. We’ve had him bring the ball up, we’ve had other people bring the ball up and give him the basketball and let him do it from that standpoint. So I just like the versatility of our roster.”

On moving Turkoglu…
“We like Turk so much and where he fits into our team, it’d have to be a deal that knocks your socks off and at this point there’s really not a deal out there for Turk, so we are kind of moving forward accordingly.”