Larry Bird: “Good Afternoon. Today, we’re introducing our new players, our new young players to not only the media but to our fans in Indianapolis and throughout. We’re very honored to have two individuals as talented as these young men to not only be good on the court but off the court to represent the franchise and the city well. I just feel very honored to have them here because we know they’re going to add something to our team that we don’t have and hopefully as we go along here, they’ll be able to get more minutes and produce the way we like for them to produce and play the way we want them to play. We’re very thrilled and very honored to have them up here today.”
Jim O’Brien: “We had a brief moment today just watching them more on the court working with our staff. We studied them up close, Brandon (Rush) and Roy (Hibbert) quite a bit in college, especially between the end of our year and the draft. As Larry said, they’re very unique individuals on the basketball court. Brandon is going to give us ability to play right away at both ends of the court. I think he can be an outstanding defensive player with some work and some growth. He already knows how to put the ball in the basket. Roy is a guy we’re very excited to have. (He has) unique size and that’s the least of what he’s going to give us, size and great touch. Both guys have a great work ethic. Larry said this last week, we kind of wish training camp was starting tomorrow. We’re all very excited about the future and we’re glad to have them.”
Brandon Rush: “I’m really glad to be here with this organization and this type of franchise. I just want to thank everybody for having me (here).”
Roy Hibbert: “First of all, I’d like to thank my parents for helping me out. I’d like to thank Coach O’Brien for having faith in me and drafting me. This is only the beginning. This is a great organization and we have a lot of work to do. We just need to get our feet in the ground and start working right away to help this team out as much as possible.”
Bird: “By the way, Roy has his mother and father here. Patricia and Roy Sr. came in today and Brandon’s got his uncle, Will, here. Roy’s got his representative David Falk so I don’t know if they want to speak or if you want to talk to them after but you’re sure welcome to.
Q. Roy, can you just talk about what you can do in Coach O’Brien’s offensive system? Obviously, you didn’t get the chance to show what you can do fully offensively at Georgetown.
Hibbert: “I think at Georgetown, it really taught me to be a fundamental player. Just coming into this organization and what they do, I think that I can help out as much as possible. Defensively, I’ll be bringing size. Obviously, the paint, the yellow is my area. I just have to make sure that defensively I can keep everything out of there and be a presence. Offensively, I’m just going to find my niche. Whatever the guys need me to do, I’m going to do whether that’s blocking shots, getting rebounds, diving on the floor, and just doing the dirty work. I’m willing to do that.”
Q. Roy, what do you think you gained from staying in college that extra year?
Hibbert: “Just being a mature player, Obviously, having the whole weight of the season on my shoulders, it really helped me out as a player. The learning experience helped me out. (I) worked on a lot of things (like) shooting from the outside and making sure I became an better all-around player. I think it helped me out.”
Q. Roy, one of the questions people had about you coming in was your athleticism. How do you fit in with a real athletic team?
Hibbert: “Just working. You can say all you want about my athleticism. I’m going to be in the gym every day working out and making sure I get the athleticism and being able to run. I think I’ve made some strides in the last (few) months. Obviously, not being in school anymore you don’t have to worry about studying hard for classes or anything. I can just finally focus fully on basketball. I know I’m going to keep working. I already started working with the strength coach and we’re working on my weaknesses right now but I don’t think it’s going to be a problem. I’m just going to go out there and play hard.”
Q. Both of you guys over to your right, first of all, welcome to Indianapolis. How much has the off-court side of things been stressed with both of you guys given the kind of recent issues the Pacers have had to deal with?
Rush: “We’re treated pretty good, knowing that we weren’t going to get to participate in summer league. We just came here early and started to get our work in and trying to get better.”
Hibbert: “Like Brandon said, we’re working with the team right now. This guy right here (Rush) is working extremely hard and I’m happy to be a rookie with him as well. We have a lot of things to do and we’re really proud to be apart of this organization. I foresee good things in the Pacers future.”
Q. Brandon, are you surprised that you’re here? I know when you were here for the workouts we talked to you and you said this was one of the places you didn’t think you’d end up because Kareem was here.
Rush: “Yeah, I didn’t think that at first but they brought me in. I had a great workout here and on draft night, I was kind of surprised a little bit. Other than that, I’m glad to be here. I’m glad to be around Roy and the rest of the guys.”
Q. Larry, you talked a lot about getting good character guys. How much research did you guys do on Roy and Brandon as far as off the court stuff surrounding the players?
Bird: “Yeah, well we do our research. This year we did a little bit different. (It was) more intense and got more people involved. I don’t think you have to worry about these two individuals. If Brandon would just pay his parking tickets, we’d be fine. I think that we’re doing alright. Roy here went to Georgetown and I know that they expect a lot out of there players there and are well-schooled as they are at Kansas. I don’t think we’ll have any problems with these two. They’re hard workers, they’re dedicated to get their games better and they’ll be involved in the community. What more can you ask?”
Q. Roy, can you just talk a little bit about two or three things that you really improved on during your time at Georgetown?
Hibbert: “I think I worked hard at becoming a better offensive player; in the paint, outside of the paint, being able to read the defense and trying to get my teammates open shot. Just being a vocal player out there. Obviously, I’m going to be a rookie this year and we have guys like Jeff (Foster) who is a veteran on the team. I’m just going to do my best to work with those guys, say whatever I have to say and make sure I don’t step on anybody’s shoes or anything. Just making sure if I see something I let it be known.”
Q. Brandon, every young shooting guard that comes to Indianapolis, there’s always going to be a comparison to Reggie Miller. That’s kind of the question for fans, ‘is this the next guy like number 31?’ Is that something you kind of embrace and relish?
Rush: “No, not really. I look up to Reggie Miller as a role model. He did great things while he was here in Indiana. I know his work ethic and I’m trying to follow in his footsteps.”
Q. Brandon, you’re an athletic player. How excited are you to be playing for a team that likes to push the tempo and get it up and down?
Rush: “I love playing with a team like this. We play pretty much the same way we did in Kansas so it’s easy to fit in, somewhat.”
Q. Jim, can you talk about how you see Roy fit in to your offensive style?
O’Brien: “Since the moment Larry decided to bring Roy on board, people started to talk about how he will fit into our system. Well, we don’t have a system. Our system is all about taking advantage of the strengths of our players. We want to run but how we run, we’ve changed depending on the strengths. We want to defend. If we have to tweak things defensively because of the strengths or the weaknesses of our players, we’ll do that. We had a weakness at the point guard spot and we had a weakness at the big spots. Certainly, we had a weakness at being able to guard the perimeter. Larry and David (Morway) spent a lot of time bringing in depth at the point guard spot and depth at the big spots (with) Roy and Rasho to go along with Murph (Troy Murphy) and Jeff (Foster). We have challenged Brandon and Roy. I’d like to contradict something Roy said and I did this the first time I met with Brandon. I said to Brandon, ‘What are your expectations for this year?’, and he said ‘I’d like to just come in and fit in,’ and Roy just said about the same thing right there. I’m not interested in these guys coming in to fit in and not step on anybody’s feet. As a matter of fact, I would like them to compete for starting jobs. That’s what we want. I said to Brandon, ‘If you want to come in and fit in, the veterans would be more than happy to let you fit in.’ We want you to compete against the veterans. The good thing about Brandon and Roy is we think they are guys that we expect to contribute at a high level this year. Certainly, they’re rookies and they have a long way to go but this will be an environment that is open-ended. We don’t believe that since they’re rookies they should play a certain role. That’s not where we’re coming from at all.”
Q. Larry, can you talk about the trade to acquire Brandon? Was there any thought of getting him at eleven? It seems like a lot happened between the eleventh and thirteenth picks.
Bird: “Yeah, we would’ve taken him at eleven. We didn’t want to pay him that couple hundred thousand dollars so we moved back to thirteen. Our thought process all along was to take Brandon Rush in the draft. I didn’t talk to Brandon’s representatives because there are always people trying to move up if they can to take your player but I did tell Roy’s representatives that we will take him at seventeen if he’s there, a few days before the draft. Going into the draft, we knew basically who we wanted. We targeted people. It just so happened in the course of conversations that Portland was interested in moving up to eleven. We knew that Sacramento wasn’t going to take our guy so we moved back and got Jarryd (Bayless) and made a trade with Ike (Diogu) (to) get Jarred (Jack) and (Josh) McRoberts and save a couple bucks.”
Bird -"We didn’t want to pay him that couple hundred thousand dollars so we moved back to thirteen"
O’Brien: “Your time will come Brandon. We’ll remember this conversation in about four years.”
So true.
