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LOS ANGELES CLIPPERS MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 29, 2019Mfiondu KabengeleTerance MannLos Angeles, California Q. How excited were you guys when you got the phone call from the Clippers saying that they were going to draft you guys? MFIONDU KABENGELE: Yeah, so I was picked and then when I got picked and went through the whole media circuit, I was talking to L, and he said, your man Terrence is on the board still. And I said, yeah, it's going to be crazy. He's like, how crazy would it be if you played with him? And I said, it would be insane. But at that time the pitch was still going through, and as I was going through the whole media circuit I was watching the TVs and when the Clippers were up and they picked Terance Mann, I was ecstatic. It was insane seeing me and him being in college and then on the same team now. TERANCE MANN: Yeah, I mean, I didn't know that he got picked by the Clippers. It was a Brooklyn Nets pick, but when I heard I was getting picked, I was extremely excited to be able to stay in the sun, because I was in Florida and now I'm in Cali, so I was excited for that part. And the team that they had going on the playoff run and all of that, so I was extremely excited for myself and my family. Q. Terance, during the PLAYBOOK event, Jerry West mentioned he was really excited to see you play this year. What's it mean to have a player and executive of his stature be excited to see you play? TERANCE MANN: It means everything. Just who he is, him being able to acknowledge my game and what I bring to the table means a lot to me. I talk to him often every time he comes to the gym just giving me little pointers and stuff that I need to do to get better, so it's amazing to have a guy like that around. Q. You guys are both still rookies, haven't even played in a preseason game yet, but you've been around the team now for a greater part of a month. What have you picked up over these weeks from the runs and being fishing trip and all that stuff? TERANCE MANN: I mean, I picked up a lot. I see that we're a very mature team. We got a lot of vets, guys who have been different places, so they're always giving us different pointers. But we have great chemistry so far. We're always doing stuff together, always talking about winning things and stuff like that. Just being around for a month I see everybody is kind of connected and a lot of guys that know what they're doing. MFIONDU KABENGELE: Myself personally I recognize that these guys are very wise. Everything we do is very efficient. There's not a lot of dead time. They want to save as much energy as possible and do things the right way. Just talking to them in private conversations, being around them in the locker room, they're very insightful. They've seen a lot throughout the league. Everyone had a different journey to get to where they are now, so it's been kind of cool to see their different paths. So just picking up on those little things and practice habits and building a routine, just learning from them has been really great. Q. Who are your respective vets, and have they assigned you any rookie duties yet? MFIONDU KABENGELE: So our vets basically have been all the older guys, like Pat, MO, Lou. And one of the small things they do is get the towels, make sure everybody gets towels. If you're on the training table and they gotta get stretched, too, you gotta get off. So just a little bit of a hierarchy. Ain't nothing to it, it's nothing too crazy. That's pretty much it for me. TERANCE MANN: Same. Towels. Mainly towels. We haven't had training camp yet where we have to do a lot of other stuff, but a lot of towels. A lot of towels. Q. Last season we saw Jerome get his car popcorned for not following his rookie duties. Did he give you guys any kind of tips or pointers on being a rookie on this team? MFIONDU KABENGELE: Yeah, just whatever they say just do it. Like just do it. Don't think about it. If they say get a specific thing, just do it, no questions asked, and bring it to them on time, not earlier, not late; on the specific time. TERANCE MANN: Yeah. I don't plan -- yeah, what he said. Q. What are you guys looking forward to the most about playing your first year in the NBA? Terance, do you want to start? TERANCE MANN: Yeah. I'm really looking forward to learning a lot. I'm really excited with the team that I'm on, just because, like I said, it's going to be older guys, so I'm really excited to learn, you know, to help me in my career, because they all been through so much and they all come from different paths. So just being able to learn from guys like that is what I'm most excited about, and to win. MFIONDU KABENGELE: I'm excited just covering my niche in the league, there's so many talented guys on our team and just finding my role and just learning from Doc. I'm super excited to have my learning curve, my learning bumps throughout the season and kind of finding my role and kind of honing that and as the season progresses, just kind of owning it and excelling in that role. Q. What's been told to you guys about staying ready every night, because there's nights where injuries could happen. Guys could sit out due to rest. What have you been told about staying ready every night? Is that something you have to prepare for mentally more than physically? TERANCE MANN: I would say it's both, nice happy medium in between. You just really gotta, even if you're not playing, you know, you gotta be on that court early, get in get your workout before the game, get a good game rep workout so your wind is ready, you're in great shape, great stamina, just in case your number does get called. And then it's definitely a mental thing because a lot of people go from playing a lot from where they came from to sometimes not playing very much and they've never been through something like that. So it's definitely a big-time mental thing, but like I said, being able to have vets like this where some of them have been through that, you can ask them how they got through it and learn from that. MFIONDU KABENGELE: For me personally I feel like it's mental. I mean the coach and staff do a great job of preparing you physically, whether it be drills, conditioning, lifting weights. So you're obligated -- they're going to take care of that, but the stuff on your own responsibility is mentally. Every game you gotta act like, okay, I gotta be ready if my name is called and that's the mental challenge by yourself. No coach or player can really kind of do that other than yourself, because everyone else just kind of takes care of everything else. So if you just focus on mentally, preparing yourself acting as if you're ready to play, even if your name is not called -- and if it is, just be ready, so that's the kind of challenges I'm going to face just being mentally ready all the time. Q. You guys both went and played a summer league and did pretty well there. What did you learn there and what did sort of that experience do you for you and your confidence? MFIONDU KABENGELE: I learned a lot. The spacing of the floor, or the pace of the game, even though it's not to the degree of the NBA in the NBA season, especially in the Playoffs, it's good to get a little taste of it just because guys -- it's much different in college. Offenses are different, different roles. So to be a part of that and have a decent summer league with my teammates, it was really fun to build that more chemistry, because in college we ran different offenses than the NBA. We ran some differently, so it's kind of cool to get that gel. TERANCE MANN: For me I learned a whole new position. I came from playing on the wing most of the time to summer league having the ball in my hands, having to run the team, know guys' tendencies on my teams, know where they like the ball, know what they do. So it was just a lot of learning also in the summer league, so that's what I really had to take in, just kind of finding what I do best and excelling at that position. Q. Could you tell me your observations of the Clippers' run in the Playoffs this past season, and what did you guys learn from that? MFIONDU KABENGELE: Those guys are very gritty and tenacious, because watching that playoff when I was in college, just seeing those guys, and they faced Golden State in that first round when they were the healthiest they've ever been, and they competed really well. And to see that kind of grit and toughness from Doc all the way down, it just really inspired me because although they weren't maybe as talented at the time, they still stepped up to the challenge. And now that we have more pieces now, it just gives me more confidence going into the regular season and into the Playoffs. TERANCE MANN: Yeah, for me, I just liked how they played with toughness. The toughness really stood out, kind of had everybody talking about it across the world who was watching, how tough they played them. And they didn't back down, and they knew that people thought they had less talent, and they knew the team that they were facing, but you could tell that they were playing with confidence, and you can see when a team believes in themselves. It shows, and that's what I saw. Q. What's the best piece of advice either of you have been given on surviving your first year in the NBA, whether it's being ready to play on any given night when your number is called or just the challenges and obstacles that might present themselves along the way? TERANCE MANN: For me, I got some good advice from Jerome. He told me take it day by day. Don't think too far ahead. Don't think about yesterday, just try to get better every day that you're there. Always do something to try and get better every day and then it'll stack up and add up. MFIONDU KABENGELE: For me personally, a lot of the vets told me to create a routine, because the NBA season is so chaotic, and it's so sometimes up and down, so to kind of own that something that's consistent, whether it be a shooting routine or a diet or whatever, create that routine just so you have something consistent in your life, especially in a chaotic NBA season. Q. (No microphone). MFIONDU KABENGELE: It's great. I'm always going to have somebody to talk to when I'm struggling or vice versa, so whenever a challenge presented themselves, if he needs someone to talk to, we're kind of doing the same thing together. When I was in college, I was a freshmen, he was upper classman, he showed me of the ropes, so now we're kind of doing it at the same time, and now we can have those kind of conversations because we're both going through the same thing. TERANCE MANN: Yeah, I would say it's a lot easier to transition with somebody that you're familiar with. Just being able to talk to other rookies from other teams, they don't have it how we have it. We've known each other for a long time. We were each other's favorite teammates in college. So we know what each other wants, what our needs are and what our goals are and stuff like that, so it's a lot easier to transition in with that. Q. Are you guys rooming together? TERANCE MANN: No, we're not. MFIONDU KABENGELE: No, no, no. TERANCE MANN: We're close, though. MFIONDU KABENGELE: No, we're very close. We need our space. TERANCE MANN: I can't live with him. Q. Why? Is he messy? TERANCE MANN: No, he's not messy. Q. What about the advice that the veterans on the team have told you in terms of playing for Doc and what kind of coach he is? MFIONDU KABENGELE: Yeah, one thing I did appreciate was Doc is really -- he does care about offense, but you know, make a mistake on offense, he's not really adamant on that. It's mostly on the defensive end. If you lack on defense and mess up on a coverage, that's when Doc kind of turns up a little bit. So you get that freedom on offense, but you have to bring it back to him on defense. So that's something I appreciate, because Coach Ham back in college had a similar philosophy. TERANCE MANN: For me, just playing point guard now, it will just be the turnovers. Vince told me he doesn't like turnovers. I don't think any coach does, but just being able to watch that and not turn the ball over. Q. Yeah. Nobody likes turnovers. Anyone else here? Q. (No microphone)... college on the wing, but as a kid? TERANCE MANN: Yeah. Growing up, I always played point on my teams. High school senior I played point guard, and then in college, my freshman year at college, I played the 4. So it was a big, big difference, but, you know, I was just on the team at the time trying to do whatever it took for my team to win. I didn't really care so much. And then I didn't play point guard all through college up until like the end of my senior year, I would play a little bit of point guard here and there. So, you know, not much in college for the past few years, but when I got in summer league, it just came back naturally, and you know, even when we've been playing here. So it's a lot of fun. Q. I'm curious, when that moment sinks in that you guys are in the NBA, and for example, like 2K. Are you guys big 2K players? You see yourselves in the game. What's that moment like for you? TERANCE MANN: For me, it was crazy just because I grew up playing 2K and NBA Live and all that stuff. It was always a dream of mine, but I really didn't think it would really come true. But it's just crazy to me see me in the video game form. They have everything perfect, tattoos, hair. They didn't give me a haircut, though, so it was kind of messed up but it was amazing to see. MFIONDU KABENGELE: It was nice. I look good. I like it. My rating is pretty good. I'm going to get it up. I appreciate it. You play games, you make a my career. You kind of visualize yourself kind of going through it. And now that you're actually in the game and I'm passing the ball to Kawhi, and I'm really going to pass the ball to Kawhi in real life! So it's pretty dope! Q. Since you guys know each other so well and since you're new in this market, what is a little known fact about each other that you can tell me, Terance, about Fi and vice versa? TERANCE MANN: Well, for Fi, I just know that when I'm around him, he likes to listen to music a lot. Q. What kind of music? TERANCE MANN: He likes a lot of rap, a lot of -- he listens to Gunna, probably. Well, Fi is interesting. Let me tell you all a little story about Fi. He'll get songs and he'll look up the lyrics and read them and learn them. So he knows like every lyric to every song that he likes, and he listens to it over and over and over. So I have to get used to that like him coming in the room playing the same song again. I'm like, yo. I'm used to it now. I just listen to it with him, act like I like it, yeah, yeah, yeah, get him all happy. (Laughs). No, we like the same music, though. That's one thing about him, he likes to listen to music all the time, no matter what we're doing, he has to turn on his phone, play music, and I have to get used to that. But now I'm used to it, so that's a good fact about Fi. MFIONDU KABENGELE: Fun fact about Terance, the same way I am with lyrics, he's the same thing about food. We go out to restaurants, he's very loyal to Chipotle. Since he's been in California, we've been going to Rio Cafe. So he's a big fan of that. Same toppings, same everything. That's him. Q. The Clippers have a whole staff who have going to help you eat better than Chipotle. TERANCE MANN: Yeah. I've heard. I've heard. Everybody is on me about it. Q. Piggybacking on the regimen you mentioned, about the daily regimen. They always say daily routine gets you to your dreams. So regarding your routines with your eating, speaking of food, do you guys see the importance of that? And I know you like the Rio place, but have you tried the new nutritional way and see how it makes you feel? MFIONDU KABENGELE: Yeah. Recently our nutritionist has been really great, giving us so many good options, especially when we leave the facility. And just certain foods that she tells us -- people just tell you that certain foods are nutritious, but I appreciate them because they tell us the effect that it has on the court specifically, because that's what it comes down to, how slow you feel, the sluggish, recovery time and the foods that help with that and don't. So they've been really great since I've been here about presenting those kind of things to me. TERANCE MANN: Yeah, I mean Fi and I are pretty good about eating healthy, though. For the most part we're really good about it. I think we started in college. Like last year we started doing that. Our whole team really started it. But, yeah, that's just what we do. We've always been kind of into eating healthy food and stuff like that. So we're going to bring it with us here, I hope. And LA is really like friendly for eating healthy, so it's easy. THE MODERATOR: All right, gentlemen. Thank you so much for your time. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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