 Jordan  Audio |
Q: Talk about Andray Blatche's progress and your expectations of him as a player?
Jordan: Andray went through his first training camp and, you know, he's still young, and we like his skill level. We always said he needs to understand the professional side of basketball and that comes with maturity and years of experience. We said all along that he needs to improve his conditioning and his strength because his skill level will drop if you can't sustain physicality on the basketball court. So he's still young in those departments as far as his strength and conditioning and he needs to understand that every possession is important and you can't take a possession off. So he's a little short in those departments, but again, he's a project, there's no doubt about it. You can talk about his upside, but he's still a project. And we still need to see how his growth is going to get better as we move along. Will it be a rapid growth? Will it be an extended growth ... I should say a slow growth. Right now, he's a little bit below average and we'll see as we move along.
Q: Talk about your experience with the D-League and if there's anything you'd like to see improved?
Jordan: We've had two guys down there [and] we though it was a terrific, terrific experience for them. We had Andray Blatche down there, we had Peter John Ramos down there. Peter John I think was second in the league in rebounding and Andray played off and on, but they were at the bottom of their conference and they rose up to make the Playoffs. That experience helped them a little bit. I think they played with two high-scoring guards on that team. But certainly it's a terrific idea. I think it's just going to get better, the competition is going to get better, and it's going to help young guys in the NBA who don't play as much to go to the D-League and get some development and some experience.
Q: What do you see as the next step to LeBron James elevating his game?
Jordan: I also saw him in my dreams last night, so that's another area where I saw LeBron [laughing]. It's all about experience. You know, the more experience he's going to have, the better he's going to be, the better leader he's going to become. He's got the size, the skill level, the drive to be one of the top players in the league -- in the history of the NBA. It's just a matter of can he sustain or can he improve ... will his team get better and will it become a championship experience. Magic had Kareem right off the bat. He probably needs to get another top-quality teammate so they can reach the highest level. I'm not saying if things don't go well they can't get there. But it's all about playing with another top-level guy [so] we can compare him to the other guys who've won championships, whether it's Oscar with Kareem or whether it was Tim Duncan and Tony Parker or Avery Johnson and Tim Duncan. You have to have another guy to help you win a championship. Right now, they don't have that guy yet.
Q: Do you think LeBron has those qualities of desire and leadership already wired in him?
Jordan: Yeah, that's mostly how it goes. Sometimes you're born with it, sometimes you are taught how to be a leader, and you can become a leader in that regard. But certainly the drive ... you don't teach drive. You can teach guys how to be disciplined and what to look for and what to see in an NBA game and how to behave happens within.
Q: Talk about how your division may play out.
Jordan: We think everybody improved. It's funny because we talk about where we want to go and where we've been. You look at last year ... the last three games ... it took us up until the last three games of the season to qualify and to remain in fifth. You know, we lost three games in the Playoffs on the last possession and before that, we just had scored ... So you can look at it both ways. You can look at it as we could have missed the Playoffs in the last three games of the season and we could have gone to the second round. We could have made three stops in the Playoffs. So it's a fine line from winning and losing, it's a fine line from going to the Playoffs to making the second round. We had lofty expectations obviously and we have to understand that we got to defend better and that each possession counts and that we can't take plays off and we have to sustain a level of intensity ... sustain a defensive mindset throughout the season if we're going to have a shot at going to the second or third round.
Q: Talk about the starting center battle between Haywood and Thomas.
Jordan: We've been pretty much trying to be equal with them throughout training camp. In training camp, Brendan had two practices with the starters; the next two practices Etan had it. And we've gone the same way in the preseason games and in four games Brendan has started twice and Etan has started twice. And what we're looking for is [that] we must have someone defend the rim. You need to take a charge, you need to get some shot blocking in there, you need to play some terrific post defense, you have to be a help defender, but you can't allow layups, you got to keep the pace offensively. And it's a close battle, I'm telling you. One has certain gifts the other does not have, so the other one the same ... vice versa. So it's a pretty even battle right now.
Q: Talk about what James Lang brings to the front court?
Jordan: We've made room for James to improve. We've had Peter John Ramos with us for two years, this is his third year. We decided that it was in the best interest of Peter John and the fact that to give James more reps ... a longer look ... the way we weighed Peter, that's what we've done. We like what we've seen lately of James; he's gotten in better conditioning. He has played very solidly with the third team -- the free agents and rookies -- in the preseason games. So we really like him. We think he is a keeper as long as the next few weeks he continues to improve ...
Q: Thoughts on Caron Butler potentially having an All-Star season.
Jordan: Well, first of all I like the fact that he feels very comfortable with us, comfortable playing with Antawn and Gilbert Arenas and Antonio Daniels, even Deshawn now, because he's with Miami, traded to L.A., played on a team that had Kobe really dominating a lot of the offense. But he feels very confident being a big part of what we do, signing a long-term contract. I think some of that helps an NBA player ... He got to know the system probably after a third of the season last year and we started him after the first third of the season, so it's falling into place for him. And he means so much that in our last five games he was out with a broken thumb, we lost all five. And when he came back, and we needed three wins to qualify and to remain in fifth, he played those three games and played at a high level, and we needed him, and we won all three. He is certainly a huge part of what we have to do at both ends of the floor.
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