Draft Central - 6/23/10
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Jerry Smith – Louisville – Senior
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Armon Bassett – Ohio – Junior
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Artem Zabelin – Russia – 22 Years Old
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Tyler Smith – Tennessee – Senior
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Chris Kramer – Purdue – Senior
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Jeff Foote – Cornell - Senior
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John Hammond - Bucks Genral Manager
On the Corey Maggette trade…
“(We’re) Excited about having Corey Maggette as a part of our organization. (I) know Corey, even had a chance to coach him quite a few years ago when he was a young player in this league. I can tell you, he brings toughness. He’s not afraid of anyone and he’ll compete with anyone and he has a very high level of energy when he plays. One of our issues with our team this year was our inability to get to the free throw line and that was a concern this off-season and if we could address that, we thought it would be beneficial. Corey is one of the most efficient players in the NBA of getting to the free throw line. Just for that, we think that he can help us, but beyond that, as I said, I love the fact that he brings the toughness and energy that he has.”
On how he gets to the free throw line…
“How he gets to the free throw line is that he just puts his head down and drives the basketball. He has a mission. When that ball is on the floor, he’s trying to finish to the goal. I think that he’s earned the respect of how he plays and because of that, he can get to the line. So a part of it is just the willingness to say I’m willing to take the hit. He is a guy that has some injury issues at times and one of the reasons why is because he plays with a reckless abandon and when you play that way, sometimes you do go down but he gets up every time.”
On the difficulty of the Bucks getting to the line this year…
“So many nights, we’d pick up a stat sheet and we’d see that. I know Scott (Skiles) talked about that so much during the season but we overcame it. We overcame it because our guys were solid defensively, we made the effort on the boards, we shared the basketball and we shot the three well. That helped us. But boy if you can get to the line, it can make your life easier.”
On if it makes it easier having Maggette in the lineup if John Salmons doesn’t come back…
“Regarding John, from our standpoint, as we stand here today, in this deal, we have about a million and a half dollar savings that we could apply to something if need be for this off-season and we created a roster spot on top of that. This has nothing to do with John and hindering him to come back, it more so it strengthens the position. Add a piece like Corey Maggette to the team that we had last year and I think we’re better. With that being said, we would love to have John Salmons back here and I think he knows how badly we want him back and our intention is to do that. Whether we can get that done, who knows, but our hope is to do that.”
On if he intends to make Maggette a big part of the squad…
“Absolutely. I’ve read that and heard that he might be a piece we’re just going to move on and that’s not the case. We need a player like this and appreciate him for who and what he is. I think that people that attend Milwaukee Bucks games or watch us or follow us are really going to appreciate him too for the player that he is and the effort that he puts forth on the floor, but also for the man that he is. Corey is an outstanding, outstanding guy and I think he’ll really represent our organization and this city in a great way.”
On if he’s more effective as a two or a three…
“He’s a three. I think Corey’s a small forward. He’s been able to play some shooting guard because he’s got good feet, defensively, but I think his best position for the most part is the small forward position and that’s where he’s been most effective.”
On if that impacts who they may look at for pick 15…
“No, I don’t think so. We sit here in almost this exact spot (as) yesterday and said that we probably are going to look at the best player on the board. This (the trade) doesn’t change this. I think we’re still going to, whoever’s there, best player, we still have multiple needs and we’re probably still going to say best player on the board for tomorrow night.”
On if he thinks Maggette’s scoring average will come down a bit with the Bucks…
“I think once again, it’s Golden State and there’s a style of play and there’s a pace of the game factor there too. It’s good how Golden State plays and they choose to play that way and they can be very difficult to defend, but if you look at the pace of the game compared to a more normal NBA style of play, I think his numbers could come down just naturally. The one thing that you could say about Scott Skiles, and I think what makes him so effective as an NBA coach, is that he probably does as good as anybody in this business in putting players in a position to be successful. Corey has been doing that for a lot of years in this league and I don’t know why that won’t continue and I think Scott will put him in a position to be successful.”
On if he thinks the deal was a steal…
“We’ll see. It’s all a matter of does it play itself out and you hope that’s the case. I’m going to keep saying this because what happened to us last year and how it turned was we fit. You don’t know if it’s going to happen. We ended up, the second half of the season, with a group that really liked playing with each other, they fit well together and they were a cohesive unit. I said before that if we knew how we did it, we would do it again, but there’s no set pattern in how to do it. I know that Corey is gong to be a great fit for us and I know he’s going to help us, but at the end of the day, we still have to have that right cohesive fit. I know he’s willing to be that kind of person, but it still has to happen for us as a group.”
On possibly making more deals with the three second round picks…
“I think right now, there’s some speculation on something else that could be on the board for us. I don’t want to speculate on a potential option for us that could go away too.”
On potential rumors being a done-deal…
“If it was a done deal, we’d be announcing it. Nothing else is done.”
On if the moves are to address scoring issues…
“It was a need. It was a need that we needed to be able to score the ball and as we talked about, to be able to get to the free throw line. So the fact that Corey is a proven scorer, I think that that was one of the big factors in bringing him to this team.”
On if things are starting to heat up around the league…
“I don’t know. I have enough to worry about what’s happening right here so what else is happening around the league, who knows.”
On taking on an investment with Maggette yet being committed to winning…
“We do have a savings this year. Next year, Charlie Bell was still under contract, so we have the Charlie Bell contract to off-set with (what) Corey’s going to be making, but that third year, is when we do take on the final year of that contract. I’ve said this before and say it again that Senator (Herb) Kohl is committed to winning and darn right, this is a great example that he’s willing to do something like this and he wants to win.”
On if Maggette will be a starter or come off the bench…
“Corey’s been effective at doing either or. I think, you know when you guys have a chance to meet him and see him, I think you’re going to see that he’s the kind of guy that has the right kind of spirit and I think he’ll say that whatever it takes, I’m willing to do and he means it. So that plays itself out. I don’t know how it’s going to play itself out but it will play itself out. I do know this, Corey Maggette over the course of his career has been effective whether he’s coming off the bench or starting games. Usually when he comes into the game, he scores points.”
On if he’s excited to come to Milwaukee…
“Yeah, he was very excited, could not ask for anymore than what he said about the opportunity to come here to join this team.”
On when he coached Maggette…
“I think it might have been Corey’s second year in the NBA, I believe. At that time, I can tell you he was one tough hombre. The thing I remember most about Corey, we had a very, very young team, that was with the L.A. Clippers, a very young team, young talented team, with Lamar Odom, Darius Miles, Quentin Richardson and a group of others and Corey Maggette, but the one thing I do remember about him, is that (he is an) extremely, extremely tough kid and loves to work. Relentless worker.”
On people tweeting certain trades…
“People tweet a lot of things nowadays and some of them come true and some of them don’t come true.”
On what he goes through emotionally during this time of the year…
“It’s a part of what we do. It can be a little emotional but it’s a part of what we do. The emotional part, more than anything is the fear factor that now you hope it works. Everybody is excited about it, we’re excited about it, I can tell you that but now it all has to work. Scott does a great job, I think as good as anybody in the business, at stepping between those lines and getting the guys organized and getting them to play together and play within a system. I keep saying it’s my job to worry. He gets them to do their job and the players believe in themselves.”
On having four picks…
“Really, we say four picks, we have three second round picks right now. At the end of the day, do we keep all three seconds; I would say more than likely we don’t keep all three seconds. They all have value. They have value for future picks, they have financial value, so I would be surprised if we keep all three second round picks this year.”
On if the draft plays out like last year where someone falls to the Bucks later in the draft…
“We’ll see. We have a grouping, as we talked about yesterday, at 15 that we like and we hope one of those players are there. I think there’s kind of an upper grouping, like a first seven or eight maybe in this draft that everyone has kind of locked in there. I can’t imagine any one of those guys slipping to a team in the second tier like ourselves.”
On if he’d be willing to move up a few spaces if someone were to slip…
“Right now, I think today, we feel like we might be able to get the same player at 15 that we can get at 12. As I said, that upper tier, that top seven or eight players, would be hard to get to for us I think.”
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Billy McKinney - Bucks Director of Scouting
On the workout…
“Well today concludes our workout for our draft players. Today was one of our best workouts that we had. The players that were in today are players that we’ll look at in the second round. It’s been a great process for us thus far. We really appreciate the effort of the players that have come out and worked out for us, especially the last week or so. The last couple days of the draft workouts have been the toughest. We’ve had players that have had seven workouts in eight days or they’ve been to six different places and physically, it’s been very demanding, mentally it’s been tough on these players and yet these guys came out today and played as if it was their second or third day out working out. So we appreciate all the guys that have come in. We still have a lot of work to do on the draft for tomorrow and determining who we’re going to select at 15, but now we have three second round picks, 37, 44 and 47 so we’ve still got some work to do.”
On if yesterday’s trade changed his mindset going into the draft…
“Not really. The trade with Corey Maggette and picking up an additional second round pick doesn’t alter our thinking about the draft. We’ll still take the best player available at 15, but in the second round, it gives us a lot of latitude to look at players that could be moved into the second round that could have been first-round picks. For example, Tyler Smith out of Tennessee would have been a senior this year, he left school due to some circumstances that occurred there. He played overseas in Turkey and he was a guy that was projected being a first-round pick. So there’s going to be some nuggets down there in the second round for us and we’ve been fortunate, this organization, to be able to pick up some pretty good players in the second round.”
On possibly using the second round picks to move up from 37…
“There’s a possibility we could package the picks and move up into the first round if we saw a player that we liked there or we could sell the picks or even look at moving picks for a future second round pick. We’ll explore all those different options.”
On if things are going to heat up around the league now…
“It’s going to heat up (with) the last 24 hours before the draft. I’ve talked to a lot of the other scouting directors and general managers in the league about what they’re doing with their picks above us. I think people now are really focused on these last 24 hours, what guys will actually be there. We’ve been given ranges or when we talk to teams, they’ll say these are two or three guys that we’re looking at in this group. But I think today it becomes a little bit more concrete.”
On having a plan with the moves…
“It’s like anything in life, sometimes they say it’s better to be lucky than good, but we’ve really tried to put ourselves in a position, even going back to some of the trades that were made when we first arrived as a management team, with some of the players we traded, it’s kind of come into a plan of getting us some financial flexibility, which in turn, has given us a lot of roster flexibility.”
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