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OKLAHOMA CITY THUNDER MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 25, 2017Sam PrestiOklahoma City, Oklahoma SAM PRESTI: Good morning. Just first want to thank everybody for coming out to media day. Before I take any questions, just have a couple things I just want to say, and then I'll be happy to answer anything that you want to ask. First, I want to make sure that we recognize our ownership, obviously our ownership group led by Clay Bennett, and there's several other people involved that are tremendous individuals and citizens of Oklahoma City, as well. You know, the last -- a summer like this or opportunities like this really are only ideas and opportunities unless we're given the opportunity and the support to execute on those, and I just can't say enough about the group as a whole and what a pleasure it is to work with them. The other thing I think I just want to add about them is it's a great group of people, but they're also incredibly humble people, our ownership group, and for that group of guys to be from Oklahoma City, to get along the way that they do, to support us as they do, there's just no egos in the room, and I think it's one of the reasons why -- I think it's a huge reason for the ability for us to sustain the level of performance that we've had since 2008 going into this is our 10th anniversary. The other thing I just want to add about that group of guys that we've all had the pleasure of working for is they're incredibly passionate as an ownership group about basketball in Oklahoma City. They're incredibly passionate about the Thunder, and they're incredibly passionate about Oklahoma City as a city, as a place, as a home, as a thriving community. But at the same time, they balance that with a tremendous amount of respect for our players. They respect their craftsmanship. They respect their space. They care about them as individuals. They care about their families. They create a great environment for our players to work because they know that they have the things they need to be successful, but they also don't have a lot of distractions. I think that takes a lot of humility for an ownership group to operate that way. Moving on, obviously, to the trade with respect to Carmelo, an incredible opportunity for us and a rare one to add a player like this. I think the best word to describe him is "dynamic." You know, I think offensively there's some things about him that are different and that I think could be really special with our group in particular. One, his ability to stretch the floor as a catch and shoot, three-point shooter, regardless of corner or non-corner threes. He was over 40 percent in both of those areas over a period of time. And he also shoots an extraordinarily high percentage on uncontested ones, which hopefully with the group that we have, he'll be the beneficiary of some open opportunities or more open opportunities than he's had. I also think Billy, with respect to a player like Carmelo, will be exceptional in terms of putting him in positions to experience new things, to move him around, and Billy is really excited about this opportunity because he really feels like Carmelo is somebody that is a really underrated passer and also gets to the free-throw line at a really high rate, but also, as I said before, is a guy that's an exceptional catch-and-shoot three-point shooter and just gives us another opportunity, another player that we can play in different spots, and I think that's one of Billy's greatest strengths is just utilizing the flexibility of the team and thinking creatively. So we're really excited about that. The other thing I just want to add about him and that I've admired for a very long time is just his professionalism and the way he carries himself, and everyone in Oklahoma City will have an opportunity to meet him and get to know him, but from afar, he is a very -- he's a rather dignified guy in my opinion in the way he conducts his business. The relationships he has around the NBA and the respect that he garners from many different people, from owners to referees to executives and obviously players, as well, he's had a -- we all know it's been a challenging situation for him, and those types of things happen, but I thought he handled it the best way he could, and that was another reason why in speaking to a lot of people that know him and know him well, we really felt like he would not only be a really good fit for our team, but I think he carries himself with a professionalism and a class that as the Thunder going into our 10th year, we want that to continue to be a hallmark of our organization. So with that, I'd open it up to any questions. Q. You talked about on Friday how it was a risk not to take a chance to get Paul George; do you feel the same way with Carmelo? SAM PRESTI: That's a great question. I didn't think about it in those terms. With Paul George I did. I think in this case it was mostly opportunity. You know, obviously it doesn't come around very often that a 10-time All-Star is available, and then it's unique in the sense that he had the clause in his contract where he could choose the place to go. I think opportunistically the ability to make the trade, to be in the position to be on the list of teams, and then as I said to open the press conference, to be given the ability to be aggressive by Clay and the other members of the ownership group, I mean, that's what takes ideas or theory and turns it into actual practice. I look at it being like opportunistic. To me, the risk -- I don't see it as much of a risk because of the team that we have in place and the way he complements the team. It's just kind of where we are in terms of the life cycle of the organization. And the last thing I'd add is we've been at this for 10 years now in Oklahoma City, and we've had a -- it's been an up-and-down experience, but I think it's been an incredible ride for all of us to be on and a lot of success that we've had and the ability to find a way to sustain that beyond kind of the commonplace team cycle in today's NBA is about three years of high performance. You know, if we can capture that and elongate it even further than we have with a trade like this, you know, I think it's a great thing for the city, a great thing for the fans, and great thing for our players and coaches. Q. How did Carmelo come to get on the radar of the Oklahoma City Thunder, and anything to all the Dwyane Wade rumors? SAM PRESTI: Okay, sure. First part of your question, it's a unique situation when a player has that ability, so it's kind of a -- you're kind of just kind of waiting and seeing. Obviously you're preparing. Quite frankly, we've prepared every off-season exactly the same way that we prepared for this off-season, and sometimes things break in a good way and sometimes they go against you. We were kind of fortunate obviously that some of the things that we prepared for have worked out. But we got informed by the Knicks that this was a potential opportunity, and from that point we were able to engage -- I don't want to get into how or when the conversations picked up, but our job is to be in touch with all the teams all the time, to have a pulse on what's taking place, and fortunately for us, we've benefitted by having good relations with different people, and we have a lot of different people that we lean on to have those conversations, et cetera, et cetera, and I feel like we had a good pulse on what was going on with New York. But until you're on the list, it doesn't make a difference if you can make a deal or not. So once that happened, we engaged -- Scott Perry and I worked together in Seattle for a year and have been close friends for 15 years or so, so we talk a lot, but the conversations specifically about this deal didn't really pick up until we got on the list. Second question, Dwyane Wade, as I said before, we try to prepare for as many situations as possible. We know that these types of buyout situations are possible. A lot of times with buyouts, there's kind of an idea in advance where the player might be leaning toward or going to. That remains to be seen. But he'll go through the process, and we'll be in touch with those people just like the rest of the league. Any time there's an opportunity to make the team better, since 2008 or I guess really -- since 2008, we've tried to put ourselves in position to capitalize, at least know what's going on, but that doesn't mean that we're going to do anything. We just kind of want to understand what's taking place, and in this business sometimes things are decided in advance, believe it or not. But we'll see how that one plays out. Q. Understanding that it's early, obviously, but to what degree have there been discussions with Melo just about positions and power forward versus small forward and where he'll be used? SAM PRESTI: Sure, those are conversations that primarily Billy will have with him, and I'm sure that those conversations will continue to evolve in the coming days. But I think that the way that he impacts a team as a catch-and-shoot player, figuring out how we do that, and then also not getting away from the things that he does exceptionally well, which is play with the ball in his hands, I know Billy and his staff have been hard at work at figuring out how to play to everybody's strengths, but at the same time, you know, we talked about this morning that the same things win -- I said this the other day, like whether you're playing in high school, college, junior college, the NBA. There's certain truths in basketball that have to be fundamentally executed on a day-to-day basis before you can worry about the intricacies and the tactics. We'll have to start working on those things tomorrow. It's not something that comes together quickly, and you definitely can't skip steps, and as I said, I'll just reiterate again, I can write the stories for all of you. The first time that we look sloppy or we drop a game here or there or we're working things through, you know, that's natural, and I wouldn't say you guys shouldn't react that way. But the vision for our team and the way we've gone about our business is to always see things for what they can be and not for what they are, and I think we'll know what we can be after 82 games. We'll focus on what we can control to get to the end game starting tomorrow. Q. You talked about Billy preparing for this season; did he have two plans going, one with Carmelo, one without? Seems like a big difference whether you have him or not. SAM PRESTI: Well, as I said before, the opportunity to acquire a player like this doesn't happen quickly, so it's not like -- you guys know I'm from New England, so it's not one if by land, two if by sea, as much as I'd like to believe that everything goes back to Paul Revere and Concord, Massachusetts, but I think that he reacts once we have a player like that in place. There's an infinite amount of possibilities that could take place, but I think what makes Billy really good is he focuses on what he has, how to create the best version of that, and one of the reasons -- whence -- I remember sitting up here with him when we introduced him as the coach in this room, and a lot of questions were posed to me, like what were the criteria or the things you thought were important, and one of the things I thought was really important why I thought he'd be a great coach for us was he's shown that he's evolved and continues to adapt. He's very curious. He has a creativity. He has a lot of the criteria or qualities of like a high-performance person regardless if they're coaching basketball or doing something else. And so one of those things is that adaptability and curiosity, and I think that's a huge strength of his, that he hasn't just held on to the things that have worked, but he's been willing to push the limits, be creative, and go through some of the messiness that gets -- it's kind of a requirement for making progress. And so I think we'll see some of that. I hope we see some of that to be honest with you. I hope we see some stretching. I hope we see some things that we didn't think about or haven't thought about yet because that's the only way I think you can break through and continue to make progress versus just stay in the lane. Sometimes you've got to be willing to go through some of the creative process in order to get the benefit of progress. I think he'll do that. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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