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We reached an agreement with Cliff (Robinson), he has passed his physical. Once the Fed-Ex arrives today, we expect to have a signed contract with him. I just signed an agreement to allow Zoran Planinic to pursue an opportunity overseas. His agent just has to sign a piece of paper, it then goes to the league office and he then will be waived. If he clears waivers he will be a free agent and free to go to Spain to play.
As far as free agency, we are interested in signing one more player -- right now wehave 13 players on our roster. (Mile) Ilic, if in fact the buyout goes through with he and his Serbian team, then we will sign him subsequent to him taking a physical. That probably will not transpire until after the World Championships that will be held later this month in Tokyo. Ilic is on the Serbian National Team that will be participating and when that concludes – if the buyout goes through – then we'll be signing him at that time. We also plan on signing one other player. It could be a two-three type player or a three-two type player or a one-two type player or a one if the case may be. Right now we are not close to having any agreement with anybody so that’s still up in the air. But that’s what we plan on doing between now and camp.
The buyout situation with Ilic, is that something that takes a lot of detail or is something that can get done rather quickly?
From our standpoint it’s rather simple, we just pay what we pay and that takes care of it. As you know an NBA team is limited as to what it can pay towards a buyout. What normally transpires is if players are heading to the NBA, the price for the player goes up. So there is a negotiation between player and team that we are not a part of because we are not allowed to be and that’s up to the player and team.
How much are you allowed to spend towards a buyout?
Our maximum is $500,000.
Did you get a feel for how much (Ilic) wants to be here?
He and his agent Mark Kornstein have made it very clear that they are very interested in playing here. They feel the opportunity -- as we do -- is now if we are going to do this. It has changed a little bit because he made the Serbian National Team. So he is practicing many hours a day right now and is caught up in playing for his national team. He is very interested in coming here and we are certainly interested to have him.
A couple weeks back you said you thought you wouldn’t bring him over after Boone was injured because you wanted a more experienced player. Is this just a matter of having the flexibility now with the roster?
Two things, we traded for Mikki Moore so that alleviated the problem we had with depth and we were not aware at the time that this deal with Planinic would come up. So we weren't planning on not having Zoran and when it did come up it opened another slot for us. Had that slot not been opened then we would have probably filled our last spot with a three-two, two-three, one-two or one. But now with that slot opened, we can still do that and also bring Mile over.
What do you hope to get out of him?
He is an over seven-foot kid who is athletic, who has some offensive skill now, needs some strength and weight work, and needs to be in this environment everyday. When we got Krstic several years ago, we weren’t planning on him playing. But when (Alonzo) Mourning and (Aaron) Williams left our team, Nenad played but we weren’t planning on him playing much at all that year. Not comparing Ilic to Krstic but he is a big guy – and you can never have enough big guys – and he is athletic and has some talent. Our expectations are that we will work with him everyday, he’ll work everyday and get better, and hopefully at some point in time he will be able to help us.
Allowing Zoran to go overseas, is that more a decision on your part with the thought he maybe wouldn’t be able to contribute to the team like you wanted? Or did he not want to be in New Jersey?
Zoran would have been in a competition with Marcus Williams for the back-up point guard position. He was being pursued by several of the large European teams. From his perspective he feels he needs to play and his feeling was his chance of playing was better there. From what I understand, he was able to secure a nice contract. And I think a combination of those two things led to his decision. From our standpoint, how much he was going to play was certainly open to question. Our feeling was we would be better served if we had that spot open. Now he does have to clear waivers. If somebody does claim him, then the deal with the European team is no longer valid. There is a waiver period here. If we get the signed paper from his agent today, we will probably put him on waivers today – no later than Monday.
At what point did you become aware that Zoran was interested in playing overseas?
Within the last week there were some conversations between the club and Marc Cornstein. Through those conversations we ended up where we are today.
What process did you go through in determining whether to bring him back?
As you know Cliff played very well for us. He is very popular among his teammates. He is a leader in the clubhouse. He’s a guy who has a real intensity about him and a guy who comes to play everyday. Our young players tend to gravitate towards him. We had several conversations with Cliff over the course of the summer and determined – if we could sign him – that we would bring him back. And I think he sort of felt an obligation to us also because it ended on a sour note last year. His feeling was that he would like to come back here if it could be worked out because it didn’t end on the kind of note he would have liked it to end on.
How much can we expect Cliff to have left?
He played around 20 minutes a game last year. He had a lot left in the tank last year so we’ll see.
How important was it to bring Cliff back considering you have four rookies on the bench?
This is a much different bench then we had last year that’s for sure. We had a lot of experience last year. This year we aren’t nearly as experienced – at least up to this point – as we were. Having some veteran leadership and having some people who have been through the process is always a plus. It’s real hard if you only have young guys but obviously some of these young guys are going to play for us. We just have to hope they get ready quickly and adjust in a reasonably short period of time.
Has Hassan Adams been signed?
He has not been signed yet. He is rehabbing his broken foot, he’s about four weeks away from being back to working out on a full time basis. But that process is really just starting and we expect to have him signed in a reasonable period of time.
