Post by Haberino on Jun 18, 2011 16:57:26 GMT -5
Rich Cho, Assistant GM:
What was frustrating about that for me was how dedicated I'd been to this franchise, and how close we thought we were. We knew it was a flawed team, but we had a lot of great ingredients and room to add depth. And that next season, Trey went back to his old form and we won 52 games.
Aaron Haberman, GM:
If Bynum stayed, with Trey's improvement, we might've run Josh at the 3 and been the best rebounding and shotblocking team around, with two 25-point scorers in the backcourt.
Cho:
I had opportunities to go elsewhere, but I wanted to see all the hard work pay off. I'd been in Oklahoma City for, what, almost ten seasons. We thought we had it in 2011. We made two more finals. I thought we had it with Ray developing, I really did, and then Bynum left. I didn't know if I could stand another retool, which is what I thought we needed.
Haberman:
I told Rich to pursue other opportunities if that's what he wanted. He has a lot of great ideas he had to suppress while he was here, because for as much as I value his input, he doesn't love the way I build teams. He did his best to get us where we needed to be, but Rich's style is much more draft-oriented. I do things on the fly, and Rich is a much better planner.
Cho:
I stayed because it was still an exciting time to be here. You never know how good you can be when you have a developing superstar. We still had a lot of nice pieces. I may have gone if better opportunities came along, but I didn't see any GMing job as a step up. It had to be the right organization.
Haberman:
It might be easy to look back on 2018 and say we were clearly an also-ran, but that wasn't how it felt. A lot of great things happened that season. Greivis Vasquez being, without any need for qualification, an elite player. Ray was absolutely dominant on both ends. We had a 15 point, 12 rebound, 4 assist, 4 block power forward. It was a treat to watch, and we felt we had so many weapons, such depth of rebounding, shotlbocking and scoring, that we were in it to go far.
Cho:
It was a really fun team, but Aaron gets carried away by how he felt about that team. He loved them because they all stepped up with Bynum gone, and it showed statistically in a lot of cases. The blocks and rebounds were there. Our turnovers were very low. We were a better team in the regular season in 2018 than we were in 2017. But Phoenix and Memphis did everything we did, and managed to give up 7 or 8 fewer points a game.
Haberman:
Memphis made easy enough work of us in the postseason. We didn't have the road magic, but we took them to 6 games.
Cho:
It was a predictable enough outcome, if not for the previous season's upset. Hey, we all thought we had a chance, but ultimately, the better team won.
Haberman:
At the end of the season, Rich asked me if I could tell him my offseason plan. This wasn't customary, but I knew where he was coming from. His star was no longer rising - it was bright for everyone to see. Either we were going to build that winner in Oklahoma City, or he'd have to capitalize on his reputation and get that GM job.
Cho:
I was more than willing to stay if we were close and getting closer. But I thought the best move for the organization was to retool around Ray McCallum, and that was Aaron's plan he gave me. I told him it was the right move, thanked him for the opportunity, and left to pursue other jobs.
Haberman:
He got a job GMing in Portland, and that's the top of the summit. Of course he had to take it.
Ray McCallum:
That offseason was the first time I heard my name in trade rumors. They said the Thunder are old, and they either need to rebuild or get youth around me. Aaron was very clear with me about his intentions. He was dangling me in trade rumors to engage other teams and see the level of interest they had in the other guys.
Haberman:
We went into 2019 knowing it was time for the vets to go. Then, 17 games in, Josh is off to a slow star and ruptures his Achilles. Kevin had little value. Thankfully, Trey Thompkins was enjoying a resurgence, and we were able to get Jacquez Knight for him in a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Ray McCallum:
That would've been really, really special. At the time, there was all this talk in Oklahoma City. Is the writing on the wall for Ray McCallum? Will Ray McCallum have to move too shooting guard? I wasn't worried. Jacquez was such an incredible talent. I told him after one practice that it wouldn't surprise me if he had a better career than mine.
Haberman:
Jacquez was good, no doubt, and we saw him as a special point guard. But that was a time when the league was loaded with point guards, and we didn't think point guard skills were the be all, end all any longer. We had the guy we felt was the best point guard in the league. Do we move him or Jacquez to shooting guard? Well, if we move Ray, his performance will suffer. If we move Jacquez, his development might suffer. To our credit, we tried it.
Dan Eisner, Assistant GM:
I was promoted as soon as Rich Cho left, and I pushed for us to get Jacquez. I thought Jacquez would be every bit as good as Ray was, and Ray carried all the value in the world. Why not deal Ray for the kind of superstar youth you can build around long term.
Haberman:
The toughest thing to do is to deal a superstar in his prime. And part of that is because more often than not, it's not a wise thing to do. Good pieces move around so often that we felt we could put the pieces around Ray. As Rich might've counseled me, that's the opposite of a plan, and you don't win by getting lucky.
Eisner:
We decided instead to flip Jacquez for the kind of young pieces we could build around long term.
Haberman:
I can't say anything negative about the guys we got. Not only are they still developing, but they've all become very good players. Marvin has proven he has as good a drive as any other wing in the league. Stevens remains just a notch below being the Josh Smith type we projected him to become. And Marquez Lynch, well, it's unfortunate he's not still in OKC. No doubt, he was the worker out of that trio, and his game is excellent. He'll get his chance to lead a team someday, and he can do it.
Eisner:
Good pieces who didn't add up to approach Knight in value.
Haberman:
Those are good pieces, but if you're building around them and Ray McCallum, you're going to need a really good option scorer at Center, and a heck of a bench. It's a 50 win team, but we were hoping for better.
Eisner:
And more importantly, their development was prolonged. Patrick is still improving. We were counting on those guys having great training camps, and they just didn't.
Haberman:
I was annoyed. I was more than willing to be patient with those guys, but Ray was 27 and they needed to show development that they did not show.
Eisner:
We started shopping our young guys, as we perpetually seem to be doing, and we found that the interest was there.
Haberman:
The names started adding up. OK, we can get Demar DeRozan. OK, we can get Quincy Miller. Enes Kanter can be had for draft picks.
Eisner:
It was a less than ideal core, but it was solid, and hey, there's still hardly any guys who can stop Demar.
Haberman:
I remember we decided to go inside for a little while, and Demar exploded like nobody else we've seen. Something like 6 of 10 games where he had more than 50 points a game.
Eisner:
So of course we start shopping him. What else is there to do?
Haberman:
Right, we shopped him and we got two guys we absolutely loved.
Eisner:
Things really turned around around here when we got Travis Leslie and Damontre Harris for Enes Kanter and Demar.
Haberman:
That was the least patient I've ever felt as a GM. I thought it was time to build a contender, and that we had two bedrock pieces. Leslie and Harris, we felt, were the two best defenders at their positions. Perfect, perfect complementary pieces.
Eisner:
The whole Ray thing happened pretty fast.
McCallum:
It was no problem when they dealt me. Every year I had a new set of teammates, every year it was a new plan. I'm not naive. I knew they did a lot for me, but that when they thought it was their best move, I fully expected to be dealt.
Haberman:
Ray's take was always levelheaded and understanding. That's why it makes me feel like a shit that he's rotting away in Miami. That's one of the most detached organizations in the league, and Ray's play is suffering because their pieces don't fit together and he's trying to be someone he isn't.
Eisner:
We brought in JD Quincy and were very clear with him. We know you're going to be a superstar, but we are building for now, and we're going to offer you up. It was tough on him, but I think he was happy to end up in Phoenix, and his career hasn't suffered since.
Haberman:
This all replays like a series of rash decisions, but at the time, we were just very willing to upgrade. We get accused of not being loyal to players, and while that may be fair, we don't screw these guys, and we're honest with them. Anyway, we were able to essentially land Kyrie Irving and Andryunas Raskauskus for Ray, and late that season, we turned Travis Leslie into Derrick Williams, perhaps the most efficient and effective scorer in the league, and a great rebounder and passer at the 3.
Eisner:
So many deals went down that I have to think for a second to remember how we landed Demarcus.
Haberman:
Some point along the way, we got Demarcus. Jesus, I don't even remember how. Oh! Right, that's who we dealt Damontre for.
Eisner:
Damontre, right. The thinking was, we can score at every position (we had J Mychal Reese and Raskauskus), and these guys are pretty damn good rebounders. We went pretty far, losing to Minnesota in the conference finals. We could tell we were overmatched. Kyrie struggled with his shot selection and aggressiveness, and Andryunas was just plain outclassed.
Haberman:
Raskauskus wasn't the guy we thought he was. At that time, there were a lot of calls for my head, because fans felt they had nothing to hold onto. Thank God we made the conference finals that year. Success is all the people ask for in Oklahoma City, and they're very fair. We've come very close, and they don't see us never getting over the hump as a reason to fire me. They trust me to get us close.
Eisner:
The next offseason isn't much fun for any of us to talk about. It was a whirlwind, but we had a chance to bring in Allen Avery and Serge Ibaka and we took it. Of course, that ended up forcing us to move Kyrie Irving for Kemba Walker, and we were concerned about our lack of depth and defense. So we dealt Avery for Amir Otemzel and Corey Laifer.
Haberman:
That one I regret. Two great defenders who can really solidify a defense, but you'd have a hard time convincing me we didn't easily have 100+ points a night between Kemba, Derrick, Allen and Demarcus.
Eisner:
We still felt we had a contender, and we were very successful in the regular season. The dropoff from Kyrie to Kemba wasn't severe, and we added Marquez Lynch for pennies.
Haberman:
I never once thought that was our team that would finally do it. It was a down year for some of the powerhouses, but if you got one of our bigs in foul trouble, we rolled right over.
Eisner:
Houston underachieves, but they're a bad matchup for anybody. You're not going to outscore their backcourt, and we couldn't contain them.
Haberman:
58 wins. It was 58, not 59, but if you can win 58 times, you've got to have enough lineups to beat an inferior team. We didn't. Amir wasn't eligible to play the 2, and Jarek certainly wasn't going to step in for Kemba.
Eisner:
That was it for that core. Players do not reward this organization's impatience, and that certainly was the case with Serge Ibaka. He was 33, and he'd asked us to pay him a crippling amount.
Haberman:
What a fucking joke that was. I hope that guy's enjoying retirement. He asks us for an obscene amount, an amount which I believe would have put us over the Hard Cap. We told him, look, we're entirely committed to keeping you, but not at that price.
Eisner:
I think he didn't want to play anymore, and only wanted to stay for a massive amount.
Haberman:
We went to shit without him. You don't easily replace 12 rebounds and two and a half blocks. Corey was undersized for center, and Demarcus had to move there. Corey couldn't rebound or stay on the court like Serge could.
Eisner:
We were also banged up and got off to a slow start. Otemzel was hurt for a bit, DWill missed some games, and so did Laifer. Then, right around the middle of the season, we're turning it around, certain we can at least grab that eighth seed, and Kemba ruptures his Achilles.
Haberman:
It doesn't matter. So what if we win 45 games or 38?
Rich Cho:
I got fired from Portland for a perceived unwillingness to pull the trigger on important deals. I guess they thought they were hiring Aaron Haberman. Well, management was hoping to build around superstars, and I got them Perry Jones and Derrick Favors, along with the best point guard I could find. They weren't happy. I got two good wings for Perry, and they fired me. It wasn't what I expected. I had no freedom to be patient with the team, and if I'm gonna be constantly flipping deals, let me at least make it fun. Let me go somewhere where I can infuse some planning but still be on board with the moves, surrounded by basketball guys and not owners.
Haberman:
It was a no brainer. Of course we brought Rich back.
Cho:
I told him I was coming back to finish what we started, whatever unfocused, often idiotic method that was. It works. It's gotten us close, and now we're doing things differently.
Haberman:
Rich called and said you've got the kind of players where the best you're gonna get is some lottery picks, some mid-rounders, and some expirings. Fortunately, Rich is convinced that's sufficient to build a winner.
Cho:
I told him we're gonna take a breather for a few years and build through the draft. We were able to get some very talented young pieces with our picks, and I was on board with turning them into other young guys as well.
Haberman:
I don't know if this is the single most exciting time to be a Thunder fan, but this is the most excited I've been about a rebuild. We're trying Rich's draft-oriented strategy, and it's going to take a few more years, but that's what we'll need to do to get long term pieces.
Cho:
We already feel very good about where we are. We have our pick. We have another lottery pick. We have a rookie doing 11 rebounds and 3 blocks per game. Another who's just come off a brilliant training camp and still has potential. Brady Cooper we think is going to be one of the best scorers in this league. And Randy Sinclair might be our favorite of them all. He's had a lot of disappointments in his career, but he's in just his fifth season and he's playing the best basketball of his career.
Haberman:
Sinclair has all the talent, and he's thriving for us. We don't think there's anything missing.
Cho:
Of course, knowing the way we operate, these guys will all develop and we'll turn them into an also-ran batch of veterans.
Haberman:
Rich wouldn't be here if the thought that was the case. We have a lot of flexibility and a lot of talent, and we're excited about our new approach.
What was frustrating about that for me was how dedicated I'd been to this franchise, and how close we thought we were. We knew it was a flawed team, but we had a lot of great ingredients and room to add depth. And that next season, Trey went back to his old form and we won 52 games.
Aaron Haberman, GM:
If Bynum stayed, with Trey's improvement, we might've run Josh at the 3 and been the best rebounding and shotblocking team around, with two 25-point scorers in the backcourt.
Cho:
I had opportunities to go elsewhere, but I wanted to see all the hard work pay off. I'd been in Oklahoma City for, what, almost ten seasons. We thought we had it in 2011. We made two more finals. I thought we had it with Ray developing, I really did, and then Bynum left. I didn't know if I could stand another retool, which is what I thought we needed.
Haberman:
I told Rich to pursue other opportunities if that's what he wanted. He has a lot of great ideas he had to suppress while he was here, because for as much as I value his input, he doesn't love the way I build teams. He did his best to get us where we needed to be, but Rich's style is much more draft-oriented. I do things on the fly, and Rich is a much better planner.
Cho:
I stayed because it was still an exciting time to be here. You never know how good you can be when you have a developing superstar. We still had a lot of nice pieces. I may have gone if better opportunities came along, but I didn't see any GMing job as a step up. It had to be the right organization.
Haberman:
It might be easy to look back on 2018 and say we were clearly an also-ran, but that wasn't how it felt. A lot of great things happened that season. Greivis Vasquez being, without any need for qualification, an elite player. Ray was absolutely dominant on both ends. We had a 15 point, 12 rebound, 4 assist, 4 block power forward. It was a treat to watch, and we felt we had so many weapons, such depth of rebounding, shotlbocking and scoring, that we were in it to go far.
Cho:
It was a really fun team, but Aaron gets carried away by how he felt about that team. He loved them because they all stepped up with Bynum gone, and it showed statistically in a lot of cases. The blocks and rebounds were there. Our turnovers were very low. We were a better team in the regular season in 2018 than we were in 2017. But Phoenix and Memphis did everything we did, and managed to give up 7 or 8 fewer points a game.
Haberman:
Memphis made easy enough work of us in the postseason. We didn't have the road magic, but we took them to 6 games.
Cho:
It was a predictable enough outcome, if not for the previous season's upset. Hey, we all thought we had a chance, but ultimately, the better team won.
Haberman:
At the end of the season, Rich asked me if I could tell him my offseason plan. This wasn't customary, but I knew where he was coming from. His star was no longer rising - it was bright for everyone to see. Either we were going to build that winner in Oklahoma City, or he'd have to capitalize on his reputation and get that GM job.
Cho:
I was more than willing to stay if we were close and getting closer. But I thought the best move for the organization was to retool around Ray McCallum, and that was Aaron's plan he gave me. I told him it was the right move, thanked him for the opportunity, and left to pursue other jobs.
Haberman:
He got a job GMing in Portland, and that's the top of the summit. Of course he had to take it.
Ray McCallum:
That offseason was the first time I heard my name in trade rumors. They said the Thunder are old, and they either need to rebuild or get youth around me. Aaron was very clear with me about his intentions. He was dangling me in trade rumors to engage other teams and see the level of interest they had in the other guys.
Haberman:
We went into 2019 knowing it was time for the vets to go. Then, 17 games in, Josh is off to a slow star and ruptures his Achilles. Kevin had little value. Thankfully, Trey Thompkins was enjoying a resurgence, and we were able to get Jacquez Knight for him in a trade with the Los Angeles Clippers.
Ray McCallum:
That would've been really, really special. At the time, there was all this talk in Oklahoma City. Is the writing on the wall for Ray McCallum? Will Ray McCallum have to move too shooting guard? I wasn't worried. Jacquez was such an incredible talent. I told him after one practice that it wouldn't surprise me if he had a better career than mine.
Haberman:
Jacquez was good, no doubt, and we saw him as a special point guard. But that was a time when the league was loaded with point guards, and we didn't think point guard skills were the be all, end all any longer. We had the guy we felt was the best point guard in the league. Do we move him or Jacquez to shooting guard? Well, if we move Ray, his performance will suffer. If we move Jacquez, his development might suffer. To our credit, we tried it.
Dan Eisner, Assistant GM:
I was promoted as soon as Rich Cho left, and I pushed for us to get Jacquez. I thought Jacquez would be every bit as good as Ray was, and Ray carried all the value in the world. Why not deal Ray for the kind of superstar youth you can build around long term.
Haberman:
The toughest thing to do is to deal a superstar in his prime. And part of that is because more often than not, it's not a wise thing to do. Good pieces move around so often that we felt we could put the pieces around Ray. As Rich might've counseled me, that's the opposite of a plan, and you don't win by getting lucky.
Eisner:
We decided instead to flip Jacquez for the kind of young pieces we could build around long term.
Haberman:
I can't say anything negative about the guys we got. Not only are they still developing, but they've all become very good players. Marvin has proven he has as good a drive as any other wing in the league. Stevens remains just a notch below being the Josh Smith type we projected him to become. And Marquez Lynch, well, it's unfortunate he's not still in OKC. No doubt, he was the worker out of that trio, and his game is excellent. He'll get his chance to lead a team someday, and he can do it.
Eisner:
Good pieces who didn't add up to approach Knight in value.
Haberman:
Those are good pieces, but if you're building around them and Ray McCallum, you're going to need a really good option scorer at Center, and a heck of a bench. It's a 50 win team, but we were hoping for better.
Eisner:
And more importantly, their development was prolonged. Patrick is still improving. We were counting on those guys having great training camps, and they just didn't.
Haberman:
I was annoyed. I was more than willing to be patient with those guys, but Ray was 27 and they needed to show development that they did not show.
Eisner:
We started shopping our young guys, as we perpetually seem to be doing, and we found that the interest was there.
Haberman:
The names started adding up. OK, we can get Demar DeRozan. OK, we can get Quincy Miller. Enes Kanter can be had for draft picks.
Eisner:
It was a less than ideal core, but it was solid, and hey, there's still hardly any guys who can stop Demar.
Haberman:
I remember we decided to go inside for a little while, and Demar exploded like nobody else we've seen. Something like 6 of 10 games where he had more than 50 points a game.
Eisner:
So of course we start shopping him. What else is there to do?
Haberman:
Right, we shopped him and we got two guys we absolutely loved.
Eisner:
Things really turned around around here when we got Travis Leslie and Damontre Harris for Enes Kanter and Demar.
Haberman:
That was the least patient I've ever felt as a GM. I thought it was time to build a contender, and that we had two bedrock pieces. Leslie and Harris, we felt, were the two best defenders at their positions. Perfect, perfect complementary pieces.
Eisner:
The whole Ray thing happened pretty fast.
McCallum:
It was no problem when they dealt me. Every year I had a new set of teammates, every year it was a new plan. I'm not naive. I knew they did a lot for me, but that when they thought it was their best move, I fully expected to be dealt.
Haberman:
Ray's take was always levelheaded and understanding. That's why it makes me feel like a shit that he's rotting away in Miami. That's one of the most detached organizations in the league, and Ray's play is suffering because their pieces don't fit together and he's trying to be someone he isn't.
Eisner:
We brought in JD Quincy and were very clear with him. We know you're going to be a superstar, but we are building for now, and we're going to offer you up. It was tough on him, but I think he was happy to end up in Phoenix, and his career hasn't suffered since.
Haberman:
This all replays like a series of rash decisions, but at the time, we were just very willing to upgrade. We get accused of not being loyal to players, and while that may be fair, we don't screw these guys, and we're honest with them. Anyway, we were able to essentially land Kyrie Irving and Andryunas Raskauskus for Ray, and late that season, we turned Travis Leslie into Derrick Williams, perhaps the most efficient and effective scorer in the league, and a great rebounder and passer at the 3.
Eisner:
So many deals went down that I have to think for a second to remember how we landed Demarcus.
Haberman:
Some point along the way, we got Demarcus. Jesus, I don't even remember how. Oh! Right, that's who we dealt Damontre for.
Eisner:
Damontre, right. The thinking was, we can score at every position (we had J Mychal Reese and Raskauskus), and these guys are pretty damn good rebounders. We went pretty far, losing to Minnesota in the conference finals. We could tell we were overmatched. Kyrie struggled with his shot selection and aggressiveness, and Andryunas was just plain outclassed.
Haberman:
Raskauskus wasn't the guy we thought he was. At that time, there were a lot of calls for my head, because fans felt they had nothing to hold onto. Thank God we made the conference finals that year. Success is all the people ask for in Oklahoma City, and they're very fair. We've come very close, and they don't see us never getting over the hump as a reason to fire me. They trust me to get us close.
Eisner:
The next offseason isn't much fun for any of us to talk about. It was a whirlwind, but we had a chance to bring in Allen Avery and Serge Ibaka and we took it. Of course, that ended up forcing us to move Kyrie Irving for Kemba Walker, and we were concerned about our lack of depth and defense. So we dealt Avery for Amir Otemzel and Corey Laifer.
Haberman:
That one I regret. Two great defenders who can really solidify a defense, but you'd have a hard time convincing me we didn't easily have 100+ points a night between Kemba, Derrick, Allen and Demarcus.
Eisner:
We still felt we had a contender, and we were very successful in the regular season. The dropoff from Kyrie to Kemba wasn't severe, and we added Marquez Lynch for pennies.
Haberman:
I never once thought that was our team that would finally do it. It was a down year for some of the powerhouses, but if you got one of our bigs in foul trouble, we rolled right over.
Eisner:
Houston underachieves, but they're a bad matchup for anybody. You're not going to outscore their backcourt, and we couldn't contain them.
Haberman:
58 wins. It was 58, not 59, but if you can win 58 times, you've got to have enough lineups to beat an inferior team. We didn't. Amir wasn't eligible to play the 2, and Jarek certainly wasn't going to step in for Kemba.
Eisner:
That was it for that core. Players do not reward this organization's impatience, and that certainly was the case with Serge Ibaka. He was 33, and he'd asked us to pay him a crippling amount.
Haberman:
What a fucking joke that was. I hope that guy's enjoying retirement. He asks us for an obscene amount, an amount which I believe would have put us over the Hard Cap. We told him, look, we're entirely committed to keeping you, but not at that price.
Eisner:
I think he didn't want to play anymore, and only wanted to stay for a massive amount.
Haberman:
We went to shit without him. You don't easily replace 12 rebounds and two and a half blocks. Corey was undersized for center, and Demarcus had to move there. Corey couldn't rebound or stay on the court like Serge could.
Eisner:
We were also banged up and got off to a slow start. Otemzel was hurt for a bit, DWill missed some games, and so did Laifer. Then, right around the middle of the season, we're turning it around, certain we can at least grab that eighth seed, and Kemba ruptures his Achilles.
Haberman:
It doesn't matter. So what if we win 45 games or 38?
Rich Cho:
I got fired from Portland for a perceived unwillingness to pull the trigger on important deals. I guess they thought they were hiring Aaron Haberman. Well, management was hoping to build around superstars, and I got them Perry Jones and Derrick Favors, along with the best point guard I could find. They weren't happy. I got two good wings for Perry, and they fired me. It wasn't what I expected. I had no freedom to be patient with the team, and if I'm gonna be constantly flipping deals, let me at least make it fun. Let me go somewhere where I can infuse some planning but still be on board with the moves, surrounded by basketball guys and not owners.
Haberman:
It was a no brainer. Of course we brought Rich back.
Cho:
I told him I was coming back to finish what we started, whatever unfocused, often idiotic method that was. It works. It's gotten us close, and now we're doing things differently.
Haberman:
Rich called and said you've got the kind of players where the best you're gonna get is some lottery picks, some mid-rounders, and some expirings. Fortunately, Rich is convinced that's sufficient to build a winner.
Cho:
I told him we're gonna take a breather for a few years and build through the draft. We were able to get some very talented young pieces with our picks, and I was on board with turning them into other young guys as well.
Haberman:
I don't know if this is the single most exciting time to be a Thunder fan, but this is the most excited I've been about a rebuild. We're trying Rich's draft-oriented strategy, and it's going to take a few more years, but that's what we'll need to do to get long term pieces.
Cho:
We already feel very good about where we are. We have our pick. We have another lottery pick. We have a rookie doing 11 rebounds and 3 blocks per game. Another who's just come off a brilliant training camp and still has potential. Brady Cooper we think is going to be one of the best scorers in this league. And Randy Sinclair might be our favorite of them all. He's had a lot of disappointments in his career, but he's in just his fifth season and he's playing the best basketball of his career.
Haberman:
Sinclair has all the talent, and he's thriving for us. We don't think there's anything missing.
Cho:
Of course, knowing the way we operate, these guys will all develop and we'll turn them into an also-ran batch of veterans.
Haberman:
Rich wouldn't be here if the thought that was the case. We have a lot of flexibility and a lot of talent, and we're excited about our new approach.
