General Manager Mitch Kupcheck has finished his final interview with Dr. Buss after the season report and walks into the press conference. There are a large number of reports here with cameras flashing...
Mitch Kupcheck: Good afternoon everyone, We have just concluded our internal exit interviews and I wanted to come out and first address the public, then I'll be happy to take questions after. First of all, this season was huge challenge for this franchise. The best way to describe what happened would be a roller coaster. When we initially built this team, we had the goal of rebuilding with younger guys but still being able to vie for a title. We had a really good point in which we won 10 straight games, but we just couldn't figure it out in time. In some degrees, this season had its successes and on others it was a profound failure. In short, we are very disappointed in the outcome of this season but are going to use this as a building point, not a point of failure.
Mitch Kupcheck: Starting the season we made some very impactful trades in acquiring Dirk and Marion for Shaq. At a certain point we decided we were not going to move forward in resign Marion this offseason; so we decided to get value for him. Unfortunately for us, Marion seemed to be that glue guy for our team. The reason I phrase it like that, is our team really fell apart once we let him go. But we are a franchise that only moves forward, so after today this topic will not be up for discussion.
Mitch Kupcheck: As for our future it's hard to say. We're still moving in that same direction on rebuilding a young team that can compete for years to come, but we may be replacing the core of that team. We have a fair amount of cap space and a lot of guys expiring this year. Outlaw, Pryzbilla, Mashburn, and most importantly Dirk. We do plan to engage dirk in extension talks as soon as the memorandum states we can and hope for him to be a cog in our line-up for years to come.
Mitch Kupcheck: I can now take questions. Please feel to ask.