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Thread: Lakers Press conference...

  1. #1

    Lakers Press conference...

    Lakers PR Director: Good morning everyone and I want to thank you for coming out. First the Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupcheck will be joining us for a brief statement and questions will take place after. So without further hesitation, I'll introduce Mitch Kupcheck and Dirk .

    ***Mitch walks up with Dirk following***

    Mitch Kupcheck: Good morning everyone and i'd like to echo the aformentioned statements and say thank you to everyone for coming out. I know this time a year you guys are as weary as us trying to make every single presser.

    The reason we called this was to discuss a few topics and let some questions be asked for our fan base. The first thing I want to discuss is probably the biggest piece of news both literally and figuratively involving our trade of Shaq. We want to thank Shaq for his service and domination through his 2 years as a Laker but we felt it best to move in another direction. One reason why is that if you look at the landscape of the league right now there is a huge disparity in talent level from the top to the bottom. We wanted to have a team in which could take the other team's defense depending on match-upand not really have to depend on one guy. Mostly we felt we were too dependent on Shaq and if he were to go down, our season would go down with him. We're excited to bring a little more defense to the picture bringing Joel up to the 5 spot and were able to instantly create depth by being able to move 2 starters to our bench.

    Mitch Kupcheck: The next item on the docket was free agency. We know we have a very... eager fan base which is why we have to address this topic. Now we know we haven't gotten anyone in free agency, but we are and have offered a numbber of contracts. Unfortunately for us, there are a lot of teams with a lot of cap space, so we'll have to find the right fiit. We're really looking for another big body.


    Mitch Kupcheck:Now we will move on the the question segment. We have dirk here for questions and myself for team relaated questions.

    "I don't know if people know — I dislocated my pinkie finger. And [Tyreke] told me, 'You wanna go home or you wanna be here?' I want to be here. And he said, 'All right, then go tape it up and let's play. Let's go. We not stoppin' at no stores. Straight gas. That's what we do, just keep going.'"

    http://thebasketbawlblog.com/

  2. #2
    Max Contract Contributor AD23forMVP's Avatar
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    Dirk, your scoring has dropped a bit every season since the 2000 season, why do you think that is and what have you done this summer to make sure that doesn't continue?

  3. #3
    Dirk: Well, you've got a good point and there are a lot of hours placed on a personal level. Although my scoring has dropped I feel like i've my strides in my game. Scoring is something that comes pretty natural to me and I've focused a lot of my offseason training other aspects of the game. In Indina for the last two years, they decided to go younger and try to rebuild. I was the total focal point of the offense and really didn't have someone to open the floor up for me as a distributer or space the floor due to having a lack of scorers. There were times i was double and even triple teamed. If on this team that happens, I can pass and we have a ton of other guys that can fill up the basket. On this team we have a plethera of talent and people who are really specialized in their skill. for instance Pryz is a guy focused on Defense and rebound which allows me to use my energy to do what I do best and be a scorer because I know he'll be there. I've played with Marion for 2 years now and we kind of have a flow and he's basicly a Swiss Army knife on the court. He picks up rebounds at a very elite rate for his position and is a great defender. I think what i'm getting to is, i can focus on my talent, which is scoring, and let the rest of my game come to me.

  4. #4
    Max Contract Pelicans78's Avatar
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    TJ Simers of the LA Times. You traded arguably two top 5 players in Grant Hill and Shaq in less than 12 month period. One trade brought in older players while another trade brought in younger players. What direction can the fans expect from the team?

    Emeka Okafor - Joe Smith - Carmelo Anthony - Manu Ginobili - Jason Williams

    Al Jefferson - James Posey - Aaron McKie - Shaun Livingston

  5. #5
    Max Contract Pelicans78's Avatar
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    Bill Plaschke: With what the Clippers have done to build their team, are you worried about being a second fiddle to a team who plays in the same arena in the short term and long-term?

  6. #6
    Max Contract Pelicans78's Avatar
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    JA Adande: Looking at the roster, the team seems to have perimeter oriented players throughout the lineup. Will that make your team pretty much focus offensively on the perimeter and are you worried about losing the dominating inside scoring you had with Shaq and Grant Hill?

  7. #7
    Mitch Kupcheck Thanks for the question TJ, and don't think I didn't see you trying to crown the other team in LA earlier. Can someone escort this man to the psych ward? I'm only kidding.

    :: Crowd Laughs:::

    Mitch KupcheckWell, Our thoughts and long term goals are we want to have the most successful franchise throughout our time here, and really in terms of wins and losses we're right up there. We felt that with the extremely high contract we had in Hill and shaq along with that it was time to move on. If you look at our roster, I think it's a roster in transition. And by that I mean we have guys like Eric Snow, Mookie Blaylock and Jamal Mashburn who are in their 30's and we also have guys like Pryz Dirk and Marion in their early to mid 20's. We think this mix of youth and experience brings a really good brand of basketball for us. We haven't had quite the renaissance as teams like the Clippers, Bucks, Bulls and Knicks had, but we have a very different owner than them. our owner demands excellence and no lull period. Our rebuilding has a little bit different engineering process behind it than most teams. We have to rebuild while being a contender and that takes a lot of creativity to do.

  8. #8
    Pistol Pete Would Be Proud!! Trell's Avatar
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    Hey Sir, Chris Hardwick from NewJerseyNetsallday.org everything sports. My question is how well do you think Marion and Dirk will replace Shaq? And do you guys believe your team is better then last season to make that push?

  9. #9
    -Garrus Vakarian- ItsPaulyP's Avatar
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    How much pressure are you under from Owner Jerry Buss to win a title considering your failure the last few seasons?
    -and-
    Chemistry aside, what do you think your roster's biggest weakness is?
    Twitter: @TheRealPaulyP
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  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by Hornets78 View Post
    Bill Plaschke: With what the Clippers have done to build their team, are you worried about being a second fiddle to a team who plays in the same arena in the short term and long-term?
    Mitch Kupcheck: Hey Bill, always nice to see you. Well, i think it's the media's role to call people second fiddle or first fiddle with knee jerk reactions. We're not going to trash what the Clippers did because we feel we have a possible rival for years to come and that's great for basketball; but they need to play together and win division titles and then we can rehash this decussion.
    Last edited by BallSoHard; 11-29-2012 at 09:14 AM.

  11. #11

    NCAA

    Quote Originally Posted by Hornets78 View Post
    JA Adande: Looking at the roster, the team seems to have perimeter oriented players throughout the lineup. Will that make your team pretty much focus offensively on the perimeter and are you worried about losing the dominating inside scoring you had with Shaq and Grant Hill?
    Mitch Kupcheck: It's an interesting question, but I really leave that up to the coaches to decide. These guys haven't played on the court yet so it's hard to set anything in stone, esp since we don't even have our roster filled. I think when the roster does take shape, we're looking at a balanced team. We expect Dirk and Stack to carry the offensive load, and if you look at their skill sets, they're very versatile. Marion is really a guy that gets a lot of baskets cutting and rebounding. Eric isn't really a scorer and neither is Joel. We expect our bench to really help us out this year with Outlaw, a guy who's never really needed the ball in his hands to succeed and Mash whos really still a great scorer to carry the load. I think we'll start out just taking the best shots that come to us and move from there.

  12. #12
    Quote Originally Posted by Trell View Post
    Hey Sir, Chris Hardwick from NewJerseyNetsallday.org everything sports. My question is how well do you think Marion and Dirk will replace Shaq? And do you guys believe your team is better then last season to make that push?
    Mitch Kupcheck Chris, welcome to the world of sports and all if it's glory and congrats on the change of scenery. To your question, i'm not sure anyone can replace Shaq and what he did for us. Shaq was a dominant scorer, rebounder and defender. There's not many people in the league that did what he does in all aspects of the game. I think this will be more of a team focused change of strategy. Before when we had Shaq we really didn't have perimeter stoppers and we really had to funnel the driver to him and hedge out on shooters. We really relied on help defense. This defense will be more about self accountability. With Joel manning the middle, Shawn on the best wing and Eric or Mookie kind of controlling the opposing teams pace, we feel like this will work out great. Again I think we have one of the best benches in the league to help out as well.

  13. #13
    Quote Originally Posted by PP3istheMVP View Post
    How much pressure are you under from Owner Jerry Buss to win a title considering your failure the last few seasons?
    -and-
    Chemistry aside, what do you think your roster's biggest weakness is?
    Mitch Kupcheck: Failure is a strong word because we feel like we have accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. We are concerned about the backwards momentum of the team. year one we were 1 game away from the finals. Year two we lost 401 to the mavs in the conference finals and last year with our first round exit. This really prompted us to change our focus to less of a superstar driven team. To answer the question directly, Dr. Jerry Buss doesn't accept failure so theres always a ton of pressure on us. With the Celtics winning the last one, that even makes the pressure even more taxing. We are fully committed to win, as always. I don't think you'll ever hear us being brought up in conversations concerning tanking and such.

  14. #14
    Mitch Kupcheck: As far as our biggest weakness, that's hard to say without seeing guys play. While we have full faith in Mookie and Eric, we do lack a dynamic playmaker. I think they will admit that neither one of them will ever lead the league in assist, but they are elite defenders for their position, which is something we value a lot. All we will ask them to do is to make the right play and hit open shots.


    Any more questions guys?

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