Media Day Quotes - September 30

Guard Allen Iverson
On how important he feels it is to start training camp healthy:
Starting the season healthy, so our chemistry can be there, practicing and playing games, is going help us do that. We made a lot of changes at draft time, and I think that by getting Todd (MacCulloch) back, and then adding Keith Van Horn, we made our team deeper. Coach and Billy King did a great job in the off-season. 

On how he feels about the way last season ended:
It was tough. I want to win the whole thing; it was just a bad feeling period. We need to learn from last year and put it behind us. We need to get together at practice and work at it. Learn from it and get better at the things we need to get better at. This team is a lot deeper than the team last year...We drafted John Salmons, and the young guys like Alvin Jones and Damone Brown, and they are getting better. I think training camp is great; guys are going to be fighting for jobs and playing time.

On how he feels the team will make up for Dikembe Mutombo:
It is going to be important for us to play great team defense and help each other out. Aaron McKie talks about us talking on the court and that is going to be really important for us to be a great defensive team on the court. 

Guard Eric Snow
On how much adjustments will the guys have to make this year:
I don’t think there is any adjustment at all. I think our focus is still the same. Coach Brown is still the same; he’s going to coach the same way. We are going play hard. We just have different people.

On how different this team is:
We made the trade to get Keith (Van Horn), and he is a great scorer. So, I guess that is what will make us an offensive team, now. But then you look at Greg Buckner and Monty Williams and they are known for their defense. But since the big trade was Keith and Todd [MacCulloch], and you take away such a great defensive player such as Deke [Dikembe Mutombo], everyone seems to think we became this great offensive team because of that.

On how tough it will be adjusting as point guard to the different players:
It would be tougher for me to go somewhere else, but since I have been here for five years and with Coach Brown, I know some of the players such as AI [Allen Iverson], Aaron [McKie] and Derrick [Coleman], and I know the system. So I think it would be harder for (the new guys) to get used to the system. It’s a matter of us playing together, and that’s what training camp is for. That’s why it’s a month long and we have to establish that tomorrow.

Forward Derrick Coleman
On how his recovery is coming and when he expects to play:
I have been told by my doctors to stay off of (my knee)and to keep doing what I have been doing. They want me to wait about two weeks, and then I’ll go back and get another evaluation. I felt better right after surgery.

On what he thinks of all the off-season moves:
Overall, when you lose a guy like Dikembe Mutombo, a shot blocker, a rebounder, I see my self-playing a lot more center. Seeing these guys over the course of the summer, I feel that we should be a quicker team. 

Guard Aaron McKie
On his initial thoughts for what this team needed to improve on when Game 5 ended in Boston:
I thought we’d have to win the lottery. You can’t judge our season based on what happened in Game 5. I just think that there was no real flow to our season last year. It was so up and down, we never really had our team together all at once.

On how the team will develop flow, is it in training camp:
I think that is important, but you also need a little luck by having everyone stay healthy. It will also happen through us playing together and that will get better throughout the season. Also, as we spend more time together, we will get to know each other on and off the court, which will help us develop as a team.

Head Coach Larry Brown
On what some of the things he will have to do with all of these new players coming in at training camp:
It's not like this isn’t the first time I am going into a new situation. I think this is a pretty simple game, if you do it the right way; we’ve got guys with good character coming in this year. If you look at our roster from last year and you look at the injuries we had even prior to camp, we are in much better shape than we have ever been since I have been here. So I think we have to get Allen [Iverson], Eric [Snow], Derrick [Coleman] and Aaron [McKie] to let them know what our team is about. I think with the nucleus of those guys coming back and the type of people we have coming in, I think it will be a lot easier for us to impress upon those guys just what to expect. Despite what our record has been over the past couple of years, I think we have the reputation of being a team that plays very hard and tries to play the right way night in and night out. And that’s what we are going to emphasizes in training camp.

On what he expects from this particular group of individuals that he has assembled:
I have been watching them work out for the past month. I just want them to continue what they have been talking about doing since the season ended. I sense there is a commitment from everyone that we want to get back to the level of play of two years ago. I think there is a consensus that guys are willing to sacrifice to see that we can do to get better. I am confident that the older guys will provide us with tremendous leadership, but it’s a matter of us doing it and that starts tomorrow. We all have to make some sacrifices and put demands on each other, and I feel confident that those things will get accomplished.