GM Rick Sund prepares for season

[HMFFL]

Q&A

Q. Coming off the season this team had and with the changes that occurred this summer, how cautious do you have to be in regard to not overdoing it with the “change” theme, that seems to be all the rage this summer, going into the season?

A. Well, and I think I’m getting your point, the one thing you have to be concerned with is that the season is a marathon and not a sprint. You don’t want to get off to a 6-2 start and think “we’re there” or get off to a 2-6 start and say “you’re not there.” I think you have to battle that to some extent with players as well. You can’t get to high on the highs and too low on the lows. You don’t want them thinking they’ve arrived if they get off to a 6-2 start because you know it’s a marathon. And you also don’t want them down and thinking they’re not that good if they start 2-6. Our schedule the first month is tough because we’ve got a lot of road games. So again, you don’t want to get too high or too low early. And that takes work.

Q. It’s one thing to try sell that perspective to your team but how do you cement that ideology into the way they go about their business?

A. The one thing I have to emphasize this year is that we’re a young veteran team. Josh Smith is a young veteran. He’s started for three or four years. You’re in a situation where Joe Johnson is a young veteran, relatively speaking. But we’ve also made a concerted effort to get some veterans in here with Mo [Evans] and Flip [Murray] and Bibby last year. We’ve got some veterans.

Q. In your experience, how tough a transition is trying to meld new faces and returning faces in such a short period of time?

A. The transition is easier with veterans than it is with rookies, provided they are in the rotation. It’s not something I’m overly concerned about with guys like Mo and Flip specifically, because they’ve been on different teams and have gone into situations like this in the past and done well.

Q. How conscious were you in your tweaking of things this summer to maintain some stability from last season while also trying to affect as much change as you thought was needed?

A. The thing that I think, and if we’ve done anything this offseason, is we took a team that didn’t have a great record last year but made the playoffs and played pretty well in the playoffs, and we had a nice assimilation of some continuity and some change. It starts with the coaching staff. We don’t have the same exact coaching staff we had last year. We’ve got some changes there. Same with management. We have some people that are still here with management and personnel and some that are new. And it goes on with the players. Take Mo, Flip, Randolph Morris, Hunter and Gardner we have five new players that are going to be on this roster. But you still have your core. With a playoff team we’ve managed to maintain some continuity while also adding some changes to the mix. And I think that’s a good way to move forward with a team that made the playoffs with an under .500 record and performed well against the eventual world champions in the playoffs.

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[NWO4Life]

Who is better BK who never talked or Sund who says nothing?