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NBA DRAFT

June 23, 2011

Kenneth Faried

NEWARK, NEW JERSEY

KENNETH FARIED (No. 22)
DENVER NUGGETS

Q. Kenneth, your thoughts on being drafted by the Nuggets?
KENNETH FARIED: First, I want to thank Allah for the Nuggets being able to draft me and being in the first rounds and I want to thank my dad and my daughter just for getting me over that hump.

Q. Talk about going to the Denver Nuggets, playing under George Karl and Kenyon Martin is a free agent and most likely they are not going to sign him, talk about how you can make an immediate impact on the defensive ends and the glass?
KENNETH FARIED: I plan on making an immediate impact because I'm a relentless person with a work hard ethic and since they are not signing Kenyon Martin, hopefully I can come in and fill that void. But he's a great player and it's going to be really hard but I'm going to push myself to get to that point.

Q. Did you work out for the Nuggets, and did you have a sense that there was a chance that they could take you?
KENNETH FARIED: Yeah, I worked out for them and I had a great sense they was going to take me. It wasn't really a long shot them taking me because of the fact that I played up there and they know how I played, I played really well even though the high altitude and when I did go to work out for them, I played even better and it just seemed to be the right fit for me.

Q. What does it mean to you as a Newark native to be drafted in the NBA at the Prudential Center with your family on hand watching?
KENNETH FARIED: Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me overall. My family, just for being here and my family being able to watch, and a lot of my family, just to basically take a bus ride down to come see me get drafted is a great feeling to have and your supporters and everybody is just cheering. It was overwhelming.

Q. Could you ever have envisioned four years ago before you went to Morehead State that you would have this moment?
KENNETH FARIED: I had a vision I was going to have this moment, but I didn't know what team or I didn't know if it was going to be in the first round, but I just believed that I was going to be able to get to the NBA, because that was my biggest dream and I wasn't going to let it live down and I was going to keep pushing myself and finally this moment is here.

Q. Talk about what you've heard from the Denver Nuggets, what they said to you during the workout process, and how do you feel like you're going to fit?
KENNETH FARIED: It's kind of funny when we did do the workout, the coaches after the workout was with me in the gym and we were just shooting and they were showing me certain post moves and shots. It's really different defending in the NBA. I didn't know certain things and they were showing me that, and when I learned that, I went to my next workout and utilized what I learned so...
It was kind of funny that they drafted me, because we were in the gym working on a lot of things.

Q. I hate to be the downer, but are any of the prospects talking about the labor situation, when you guys were just meeting the last couple of days?
KENNETH FARIED: We don't really say too much about it. We were just trying to get to this point to get drafted. Everybody was just talking about the workouts and how tough they were and how everybody was going to push each other and be happy for each other and just get to this point tonight.

Q. Did your family actually ride the bus to watch the Draft and how far away from here did you grow up?
KENNETH FARIED: Probably about, I would say, I say two miles, but that's me, because I've been around here a lot, but it's probably about ten miles away.
Probably some of them, I really don't know. But my mom and stuff, we took a car service, but that's a different story.

Q. Express how special it was to bring Morehead State out to the national landscape, especially winning over Louisville and just leaving a substantial legacy behind with Morehead State.
KENNETH FARIED: It was extremely special for me, and my school, and my coaches, and just overall, everybody at Morehead State, even some people in New Jersey, basically they were so happy because I was on that stage and I was a hometown native, and just for us to upset Louisville was even more ecstatic for the people in Kentucky, period.

Q. Who is with you tonight? Who was sitting there in your section?
KENNETH FARIED: My mom, my dad, my daughter, my grandmother, and my mom.

Q. Were you surprised -- because you're from here and you were projected to be a first round pick -- that you did not get invited to the Green Room?
KENNETH FARIED: It was a little surprise, a little depressed, but just made my chip on my shoulder grow a little bit more, and it's just going to make me push myself that much harder to be hopefully be invited to the All-Star Game and things like that.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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