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Sixers President and General Manager Billy King
“Last night was a great day for the city of Philadelphia and the 76ers because we were able to get a player in Andre that will fit how we want to play. We’re excited he was there. We didn’t feel he was going to be there. We were going to try to move up to get him. And this is probably the first time in my eight years that we really liked the player targeted and were able to get him.”

Sixers First Round Draft Selection Andre Iguodala
“I’m just happy to be here, I’m real excited. Yesterday in the draft I was real anxious to hear my name called. I hoped to get called a little earlier but through this whole process I’ve been thinking, this is the place where I would like to be and that this is a team used to winning. The city is great, the town is knowledgeable of sports. The football team over there with Donovan McNabb and Terrell Owens, got AI over here, got the Phillies, got the Flyers, so this is a good sports city and I’m just happy to be here. The town’s used to winning so I know we’re going to win some games. And a lot of rookies when they come into the league, they’re used to winning a lot of games and then they go right to losing, to a bad team, but I think here, I’m going to keep that winning tradition going and try to make the team better.”

On what he can bring to the team
“I think I can bring a lot of above the rim-type game to the table. Also, defensively I can go out there and defend well, guarding some of the best wing players in the Eastern Conference.”

On his decision to leave college
“I sat down with my parents and we thought about it, we heard a lot of good things, about my stock being high and I had a good chance to come out and be a top-ten pick. The workouts went pretty well, my agent, Rob Pelinka, did a good job of exposing me, setting up everything and it worked out well.”

Sixers Head Coach Jim O’Brien
On some players not having the best shots
“I think one of the reasons, when you have the skills that Andre has: great ball-handling skills, strength, leaping ability, as a coach whether it’s a high school coach or college coach, you’d rather him be taking the ball to the basket. This is a game that its tougher to get the ball to the basket no matter what size you are in this league, and the fact that he’s going to be playing for a coach that really values perimeter shooting, I’m sure he’ll spend a lot of time just working on his stroke. In our evaluation, Billy, Tony (DiLeo), Courtney (Witte), our whole scouting department, all of our coaches, thought his stroke looked great the other day when they worked him out. Great rotation on the ball, good hand position, good concentration, so I don’t think that it will be a dramatic step up for him to be able to become a very solid outside shooter. Figure, a number of players that have consistently improved their shooting, in the NBA, I don’t know of any body that doesn’t, so it wouldn’t really serve the purpose to talk about it. The difference in the NBA, as opposed to college, there is so much time. There are no classes. Whatever Andre’s outside interests are, there’s plenty of time for that. But meanwhile, we expect rookies and guys that are just getting into the league to be there an hour before practice and an hour after practice, with the idea of working on the things that are going to make them contributors as soon as possible.”

Sixers First Round Draft Selection Andre Iguodala
On being compared to Scottie Pippen
“It feels pretty good, he’s a great player and just being mentioned right next to him is a great compliment. He’s a player who can do a lot of different things on the court, as far as bringing up the court, setting up the offense, being explosive to the basket, he shoots the ball well and he’s a very long player.”

On when he started playing basketball and his idols at a young age
“I started playing ball at a young age, I was about five years old or six, playing with a lot of older kids. And mainly it was Michael Jordan, which is pretty much everybody’s idol back then. As I got older, Penny Hardaway got to the league when I was around 4th or 5th grade and I remember him and he’s a player I’ll always admire.”

On where he would feel the most comfortable right now
“I feel comfortable anywhere on the court. Iverson’s playing two right now, so I can step right in at three, step along side of him and just do what the coaches ask me. Work hard everyday, try to help the team win.”

On wondering if he’d get picked by No. 9
“I was hoping that, and I got a pretty good feel for everyone at my workout. I was hoping they would take me at nine, and when the time came up cameras surrounded me in the Green Room and I was hoping that they would call my name.”

On what he learned during his two years in Arizona playing for Lute Olsen
“Just the small things that you need to be a great player. Mainly fundamentals, being able to learn how important the rear-end game is, a coach will appreciate that a lot, catching on a wing, head-fake, 1-2 dribble pull-ups. He just preached being consistent and working hard every minute on the court. Every possession is equally important as the last. So mainly the small things that separate great players from average players.”

On when he started to factor the Sixers into his plans
“When I first started the workouts…we knew Philly was going to be in the top ten, so we knew we’d work out for the teams 3 – 10 and we always wanted to work out for them just in case. They always say you should be here or there but they never actually know with who.”

On getting a feel for the teams he worked out for
“I enjoyed all the teams but there was some teams that I liked more than others, such as here, I liked Phoenix a little bit and Chicago, being close to home. But I think that this situation was going to be best for me because we were going to be winning and that was the main goal, to win, and not just to try to have an average season, or a better season than the year before where teams don’t win too many games, whereas this team is used to being in the playoffs”

On having something to prove
“If you look at past drafts, Kobe (Bryant) went 13th and (Tracy) McGrady went 11th, and they are two of the best players in the league now. So I think no matter where I went I was going to come in, work hard, and try to prove to everyone that I belong here”

Sixers Head Coach Jim O’Brien
On where Andre will fit with this team since he plays 3 positions
“I don’t know. I think that’s the beauty of the having a player that has versatility and can play a lot of positions. I don’t think he’s really going to care as long as he gets playing time. Originally when I came on board here at the 76ers and I started to study the draft, I thought the more I studied it, it was highly unlikely that we were going to get somebody that could come in and compete for playing time at nine. I thought it would probably be a younger man that would have to go through his lumps over the next couple of years and then eventually become a major contributor. I’m shocked frankly, that we got a guy that will compete for minutes. Like anything else, I’m sure in this young man’s life, nothing comes free, everything has to be earned, but he certainly has the skill and because he is a guy that can play three positions, there are plenty of options out there for him. There are also as we know and he will get to understand very quickly, we have some people at the 1,2, and 3 spots, that played a lot of minutes in the NBA and have produced a lot. But getting to know Andre the little bit that I did when he came in and studying him, I think he’ll welcome that challenge. As a result, to be able to get a rookie in like this, it’s going to make our team better because he’s a confident guy and he believes that he will have the abilities to earn that playing time.”

On who he compares Andre to
“I don’t know who to compare Andre to, like Billy I respect Coach Olsen’s program. I remember studying Richard Jefferson when Richard was coming out, and looking at his statistics and Richard Jefferson’s point production over a course of three years at Arizona was very even. He wasn’t a 20-point scorer, he was in the low teens, as a matter of fact. When I was looking at Andre you don’t see 20-point scoring but you see a guy that can distribute the basketball, can defend, can rebound, can finish. So you’re looking at a well-rounded basketball player with intelligence and a work ethic. And they’re hard to find. To be able to say that this guy averaged 25, or a high school player averaged 40 points, to have somebody that can do, can contribute in a lot of phases to the game is key to me.”

Sixers President and General Manager Billy King
On if he thought Andre would be there at No. 9
“We had discussions with some teams in there that I thought we needed to get to, to get him, and so he was obviously higher than nine.”

On other possibilities on Draft Night after No. 9
“We talked. We had some guys that we still liked, of course, and we talked to some teams, but the price that they wanted wasn’t what we were willing to do. We felt very comfortable with the player we got, and we didn’t need to go and be desperate to get another player because we have a chance now with free agency to do some things and starting July 1 and we’ll continue to build this team.”