--raptors.com
May 21, 2003

With mere days remaining before the month-long hype that will be the Raptors’ 2003 NBA Draft, questions among Raptor supporters and Toronto media-types alike are running fast and furious.

Grunwald just may be the phone companies No. 1 customer before the spring is out. raptors.com

The hardest part about this stretch is that no one can answer all these questions aside from general manager, Glen Grunwald.

Unfortunately, a general manager who says what he’s thinking is a general manager no more, so when Grunwald met the media on Tuesday afternoon, he wisely didn’t offer-up too much in terms of specifics, but did outline the team’s strategy going into Thursday’s lottery and the draft on June 26.

“We’re heading off to the lottery,” said Grunwald. “Vince will be on stage and I’ll be in the back room making sure everything goes as planned and we’re looking forward to it.”

Here are the main points Grunwald covered in Tuesday’s pre-lottery presser:

Have you made up your mind?

“No, I think we’re still in the evaluation process. We’ve done a lot of scouting, in terms of the actual games that people have played. We started doing some background checking, but we still have the interview process, the individual workouts process, and we’ll review game tapes along with some other things we do as part of the evaluation process.”

Can you describe the evaluation process?

“We generally hire an investigative firm to do the normal criminal records checks, driver’s license checks. We also interview people that have known the player, friends and family, things of that nature and the player himself.”

Have you ever passed on a player because of these checks?

“Yes, many times. Our corporate mission statement says that we want to bring pride to our community and we want to bring the right people in that will bring pride to our community.”

If the Raptors fall lower than the No. 3 pick, is there anyone there that can help?

“Everyone talks about the top three picks, but there will be other good players in this draft and I don’t think it’d be a real stretch to say that a player who goes after those top three in the draft is probably going to have a better career than one of the top three picks. That’s not unusual at all if you look at the history and then the question is, picking that right guy. I think there are good players in the draft after the top three, hopefully we don’t have to worry about those other players, but that’s kind of beyond our control.

Are you drafting the best player available or drafting according to need?

“I think you try and get the best player available, but if it’s close (between two prospects) then you probably draft according to need. We do have some needs, but at the same time I think we’ve got some pretty good players at all the existing positions. So we’re going to take the best player and that still is a, quote, evaluation between the candidates that play different positions.”

How significant is Thursday to the future of the franchise?

“Well, I think that this year, you look at the top three prospective players and you’ll see that they’re all high school players and equivalent basically, I guess Carmelo has played one year (in college), and it’s difficult, often times for players coming off their freshman year or high school to contribute right away to the NBA. So I think there’s other things we need to do as a franchise to improve and I think that doing that in the offseason here – one is that we get healthy and train hard and smart so that we don’t have these same number of injuries that we had this year.”

Would you consider trading the pick?

“I don’t think that, unless it’s a very advantageous deal for us, we would be interested (in trading the pick). But then again, you never know what another team is going to offer you, how much they value a draft pick.”

Grunwald is taking his biggest draft-day success, Vince Carter, with him to this year's lottery. NBAE/Getty Images

How is the search for a coach progressing?

“Well, we’ve been doing extensive telephone interviews with a number of different candidates and we’ll get down to the final three to five candidates that we’ll bring to Toronto for formal interviews. Hopefully that will happen shortly and we’ll begin the interview process in early June.” How many coaches have you spoke to?

“It’s in the twenties probably. A lot of candidates have been calling me and I think that’s important that people want to come and coach the Toronto Raptors. But I have called some candidates too on my own.”

Do you need to have your coach in place before the draft on June 26?

“I think that would be best if we could, but it’s not a necessity. I think it’s more important that we get the right guy. If we’re not prepared to make that decision before the draft, I think we’ll be fine. But it would probably be better to have that coach on our staff at the time of the draft. But, it’s not unusual for a team to go into the draft without a coach”


What are the qualities you are looking for in a head coach?

“I’m looking for someone who’s going to come in here and work hard and instill some confidence and purpose in our team and get them to be as good a team as they can be, not only on a team basis, but also individually. So we’re looking for someone that’s going to come in here with enthusiasm, that’s going to garner the respect of the players and that’s going to get this thing turned around.”

Will the outcome of Thursday’s draft lottery have any impact on who coaches the Toronto Raptors in 2003-04?

“I don’t think so. The better the pick, probably the more attractive destination we’ll be, but I think there’s a lot of people who are interested in coaching this team and we could be a little bit more attractive or a little bit less attractive, but I don’t think that it’s going to sway the team one way or the other.”

Are you taking any lucky charms to the lottery on Thursday night?

“Well, I haven’t decided yet . . . I’ll bring my wife, she’s pretty lucky.”