Jonah Ballow
Wolves Editor/Writer
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David Kahn, Jonny Flynn, and Wayne Ellington Press Conference

All smiles on Friday afternoon with the Wolves welcoming point guard Jonny Flynn and shooting guard Wayne Ellington to Minnesota.

Both players are essential pieces to the new-look Wolves roster in 2009-10 and beyond. Until Flynn and Ellington can showcase their talents on the hardwood floor in Summer League games, a bevy of media appearances are on the horizon. The Friday press conference revealed the amount of joy felt by the two young men.

Flynn Opening Statement:
“First I want to thank the Minnesota Timberwolves organization for giving me the opportunity to come and play on a great, young team like this. A team that’s ready for an NBA championship. I’m just blessed. Just blessed to be in a city like this that’s flourishing. A lot of people like to talk about it’s cold up here. But I like to say in the wintertime this is like Hawaii compared to Niagara Falls, New York. Maybe I can give Wayne some winter fashion tips on how to dress because he’s not used to it. I’m just real excited to be here. I’m excited that the Minnesota Timberwolves gave me the opportunity to bring my talents to the organization.”

Ellington Opening Statement: “Like Jonny said, I felt blessed and happy to have the opportunity. I want to thank the Minnesota Timberwolves organization for allowing me to be here today. I’m just fortunate. I feel fortunate and I’m happy to have the opportunity to play with some great talent, some young guys who all have the mindset for winning. We’re all hungry and we all want to work together to accomplish some great things. I’m really happy that I’m here in Minnesota with my new teammate. We’ll get the rest of the guys here and we’ll do some great things in this season coming up.”

Ellington on having the opportunity to play immediately:
“We’ll have to earn any time we do get. But at the same time, there’s an opportunity. We look forward to that. It’s something you pray for. We have the opportunity to come in and get some minutes.”

Flynn on having the opportunity to play immediately:
“It’s like Wayne says, it’s definitely good to have the opportunity to go out there and showcase your abilities. We have the right pieces here in Minnesota. We have two pieces down low in Kevin Love and Al Jefferson that’s going to make me and Wayne look really well. It’s good to come in and learn on the fly and learn how to go through adversity the right way. It’s just great to have the opportunity to come and play at all.”

Flynn on advantages of coming from a top program:
“I think so. Coming into the NBA, our mentality is all about winning. We come from programs that are used to winning. We come from programs that are used to doing well in the postseason and things like that. Just being able to bring that mentality to a team like that has struggled in years previous to this is just great.”

Ellington on advantages of coming from a top program:
“I think a winning mentality is definitely something that will definitely help this organization and help out the players. Also, just being able to interact with a lot of the young guys. We come from programs that we’re all used to being close with our teammates as well as having talented guys around us. I think that will help a lot. It will make the transition a lot easier.”

Flynn on his reaction to hearing Rubio’s name before his and what he thought Minnesota would do with the No. 6 pick:
“The NBA is full of great players. You look at all the successful teams in the NBA, you have superstars at every position. I think if you can play the game of basketball well, you should be able to play with anybody on the court. Hopefully we can get this thing resolved and we can be here with Ricky. And me and him can be on the court together and he can me look well and I can make him look well.”

Flynn on whether he can defend taller point guards:
“I think at my size, every point guard in the NBA is bigger than me. I’m going to have to get used to that right away. The way the workout was set up, we played a lot of one-on-one, two-on-two, three-on-three and things like that. So I got to guard Tyreke a lot. He’s an amazing basketball player with great talent. It was good just to get that under my belt and see how that was.”

Kahn on whether Flynn can defend taller point guards:
“I’ve noticed there has been a lot of attention paid to the offensive end and how this would fit. But frankly from a defensive standpoint, this is a very solid fit. Jonny clearly is capable of guarding almost anybody because if you did see the workout he was amazing even against a guy like Tyreke Evans who had five inches on him. But he simply, I think, can become one of the best on the ball defenders among point guards in the league.

“And Ricky is a legitimate 6-5 at 18 years old. And so the prospect of getting bigger, stronger, maybe even an inch or two is certainly there. So I think from a defensive standpoint, there is half of the game on that side, this could be one of the best defensive backcourts in the league in a few years hence. And I don’t want to leave Wayne out too. I think that at Carolina they teach you how to play defense or you don’t play.”

Flynn on what the last 24 hours have been like:
“It’s definitely great. It might sound a little cliché, but we’re living the dream. Like Wayne said, ever since we picked up a basketball at the playgrounds you always sit down after the pick up game and say, ‘With the such and such pick in the NBA Draft this team selects Jonny Flynn.’ When my name was called last night, it was great. Like Wayne said, it’s emotional. It’s an emotional roller coaster. A lot of nerves going into the Draft not knowing when you’re going to get picked and after the Draft you’ve got to go for an hour and a half with guys like you asking every type of question in the book. It’s just a lot of emotion and a lot of mental draining that goes into it. But like Wayne said, we’re just happy to end up in an organization like Minnesota where we can really flourish.”

Ellington on if he was surprised Minnesota picked him:
“There weren’t many point guards left on the board. But, nah. I had two pretty good workouts here. They brought me back for a second time and I thought I had a chance. Like I said before, I was really excited. I knew they had a bunch of young, talented guys that I could fit in well with. When I did hear my name, and I knew I was going to come to Minnesota, I got very excited to have the opportunity to come here and play.”

Flynn on playing off the ball:
“I think coming into any NBA team, not only just this one, they aren’t going to change what they’re doing just for you. They already have established players on their team. Going into any situation, you’re going to have to play off the ball a lot. At Syracuse, I really dominated the ball because Coach Boeheim wanted me to dominate the ball. Coming into any situation, you have to be open minded about it. I think wherever the organization or the coach wants me to do, I’ll be happy to go out there and do.”

Flynn on how the game against Connecticut showcased his abilities:
“I think that game really propelled me into the national stage. The length of the game, how long it was, you had people on the West Coast that could come home from work and watch it. You had everybody could watch that game. I think that game really showed GMs and things like that my passion to win the game, my fight and my hunger to go out there and compete. Without that game, I kind of question whether I would have made this decision to come to the NBA Draft. That game really helped me out a lot.”

Ellington on being a shooter:
“I want to shoot a lot. They do have two very talented big guys down low. A player like myself, I think I’ll be able to space out the floor and open up a lot of things. Like I said, I think there’s going to be a great opportunity for me to be able to do that. Spread the floor out, teams have to respect a shooter like myself. I think it will definitely help the team.”

Kahn on deciding against Stephen Curry:
“It wasn’t that he wasn’t a fit. I think we get trapped sometimes saying that wouldn’t have worked. That wasn’t the case at all. He was very high up on our draft board and we have enormous respect for him. We love Jonny Flynn. It’s as simple as that. We love Jonny Flynn. Seriously, one thing though that I will say that is remarkable is I’ve been listening for the last 15-16 hours, ‘How could you take a second point guard?’ And frankly Steph Curry has been telling everybody, his father has been telling everybody – Dell – his agent, ‘He’s a point guard. He’s a point guard. He’s a point guard. He’s not a shooting guard.’ So if we had taken Steph Curry, we would have had a point guard. I’m kind of puzzled.

“What I’m trying to say too and I think – and I know I’m putting an enormous amount of pressure on you Jonny and I apologize in advance – I truly believe Jonny Flynn will be defensively, and I mean this sincerely, one of the great on the ball defenders in our league in due time. You can see it in workout. Jonny played a 2-3 zone at Syracuse and you really don’t, as you know, showcase defensively your individual skill when you’re playing a 2-3 zone. At our level, in our league, you don’t play that. You can play some zone, but few teams use it throughout the entire game. And I think the combination for us from a defensive standpoint is compelling.

“I also believe that Jonny is no slouch on offense either. Steph is a great shooter right now. But Jonny is a good shooter. Jonny scored almost 18 points a game last year and he shot the ball very well. You’ll hear me say this a lot today and it sounds like you’ll hear me say this a lot for a long time, and I’ll even incorporate Ricky Rubio in this. Ricky is 18, Jonny is 20. Ricky was the youngest player in the Draft and I think I just told Jonny I think he was the 12th youngest player in this entire Draft. The idea that Jonny and Ricky, and all these kids even Wayne, who is a very proficient now, won’t continue to get better is not true. Almost every good player who has come into this league gets better at all kinds of facets of their game, including shooting. I believe Jonny and Wayne and all the young guys that we have will continue to get better at that. I like Steph Curry a lot, love Steph Curry. Really do. But we felt that Jonny was a much better fit for us and for us it was an easy decision to make.”

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