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In a special warriors.com exclusive, Warriors General Manager sat down with the media for pre-draft interview session on June 19. The following is a transcript of that day: |
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Garry St. Jean “We have had several players in over the past few weeks and will have more in through early next week. This is one of the few drafts that you don’t go seven, eight, nine or 10 deep. Where you really have a tight feel one week away from the draft of who is going from four to 10 in front of us. I think that there is a consensus of names that you have, but it’s not as tight as past years. There aren’t many debates about the top two and there was some discussion about (Carmelo) Anthony, but I think that he will go to Denver. Then after that you’ve got a lot of guys, depending on the teams that you have up there. I’ll give you a classic example with Toronto and Miami at the four and the five spot, respectively, whether they will go big or small. I think that there is strong possibility that you’re going to have three or four guys from Europe, or from other countries. We have had a history in our league stating that more bigs go early on top or in front of some of the smaller guys. This is a good year for point guards. The two position is not extremely deep. There are a lot of fours, but there are not a lot of fives. The three position has an average amount.” |
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On entering the draft without knowing the status of Gilbert Arenas “We are cautiously optimistic that he (Gilbert Arenas) will be here. We are going to go into this draft with a game plan, whether we’re going to go big or small. If you’re going to cover yourself - lets put it that way - you would need to pick a point guard there. You can also go the avenue of a sign-and-trade or a straight trade. These are the things that we will know either on July 16th or shortly after. Let’s put it this way, we aren’t in an ideal situation. We are not here to tell you that we have an answer, but we will get to that draft date and you guys are going to look at what we do. Obviously you guys can twist it around another way, but we’re going to do what we think is the best avenue to help the team go forward. Again, we are optimistic that he (Gilbert) is going to stay. I think that is the viewpoint that we have taken from day one. I have said this before, I am not on a campaign here, but I think that he (Gilbert) enjoys playing here. He loves the Bay Area, he’s a California guy, loves his teammates, he has a good relationship with the coaches and he likes the direction of the way the team is going and he likes the fans. But again, there are a lot of other factors involved too, so those will all be weighed and we will see where it goes.” |
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On the way scouting has changed over the past years “It’s a puzzle putting all the pieces together. If you like the picture, then you go in that direction. You start keeping a log and obviously you have other factors starting to get involved with the influx of other international players. We have had to spend more time focusing on that. We have had a really good year evaluating what was available in other countries. Secondly, you have the high school situation that comes into play. As far as the college players, you have to jump on it as early as you can. It is creating a library - watching games, seeing them practice, watching them interact with their coach and with other teams in the league, seeing how they react to him. Obviously, if they play in Chicago you get a chance to see them in an all-star setting like in the old days in Phoenix and Hawaii. Then you bring them in for workouts, some teams now have team psychologists, some teams now get them aside for three hours asking them questions." "We tend to go into another direction with more basketball related questions. I always like to break bread with them, just to sit down and chat with them. Talk about their families and I like to talk to other coaches that I know around the country. Again, there is no exact science to it. The most popular thing now are these workouts that go on before the draft. Teams want their own individual place, where they don’t want other people watching. I don’t know, but that might be an area that changes in the future. With so many guys from Europe and so many guys involved in playoffs. The two players from France that are probably going to go in the first round, (Mickael) Pietrus and (Boris) Diaw-Riffiod. They are playing now, so they can’t come over and workout for anybody. So teams have to go over there.” |
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On the idea of getting a point guard as a backup should Gilbert return “We are looking strong at the guys that are there in the draft and potentially available, but obviously the (salary) cap and the luxury tax play major roles with everything that is going on with every team now. We are in a situation where will are talking to teams about doing some different things, but that dialog will all start with Earl’s (Boykins) agent come July 1. We would like too, in a perfect world, have him back. But we’re going to see where all that takes us with the draft and where we are with the tax to see if there is a way to have him back. He was a nice piece for our team last year. Right now there are not a lot of teams who want to do a lot of things (in terms of trades). You still have the vehicles of the draft, sign-and-trades and straight up trades. We are going to investigate or exhaust all our options to see where we can go. We have talked about, if it’s draft picks, whether its big people or young people. We have talked about doing different things with different teams. We will see where it goes.” |
