"We've been keeping in touch. We've been talking about the game and picking each other's brain about the game, about our team and our offense and what he wants from me."
Photo by: Jack Arent (NBAE/Getty Images)
Baron recently had a roundtable discussioin with Dena, Ramona Shelburne and Mark Medina. Here are a few questions that were asked.
MM: What do you think of the offseason acquisitions?
BD: I think it makes us faster and I think it makes us scrappier. When you look at a team like the Denver Nuggets and the success that they had or a team like Orlando, they were scrappy. This is a league now where people are playing fast-paced basketball, and I think that last year we didn't play at the same pace. We played slow, we were very methodical, we played predictable and we didn't create any points off the hustle or off of steals. You can't look and place the blame on one person. Coach and I talked and he was definitely not happy with the job that we did or how we performed. We both take the blame for that: him as the leader of the team and right behind him is me.
DBK: What are Eric Gordon and DeAndre Jordan doing to improve?
BD: Eric is great. I got a chance to player-coach him at Tim Grgurich's basketball camp in Vegas last week. Eric looks good. His game has gotten better. Eric and DJ are young. There are a lot of things that they still have to learn, and it's funny for me to say that. I've been here 11 years, and I'm sure there was a lot I had to learn my first and second years in the league. Basically they're young and there's a lot they have to learn. The main thing is they have to work and they're putting in that work. That's the most important thing.
DBK: Can you talk about what somebody like Blake Griffin brings to the team?
BD: I love Blake. I love him. The one thing I love the most about him is his personality. I like people who have fun. He's fun to be around. I think we have a team of great personalities and I think he's going to bring a lot of that. You can tell he just has a natural leadership and it's going to be great to be a positive light in his career. He's the kind of guy who I can talk to about all of the things that I did right and all of the things that I did wrong to prepare him to walk into this greatness.
RS: The team is really young this year. You just turned 30. Is it weird to think of yourself as one of the older guys?
BD: Outside of Marcus (Camby) and Ricky (Davis), yeah. And I consider myself to be very young. I just think that it's a new wave of young guys coming into the league, and I'm not that far removed from what they're going through. I'm in my prime. We're all in a good position. We're a young team. Turning 30 was a little difficult for me. Looking at where I was in life and where I was in my career, and for me, growing up I never thought I'd be alive at 30. I've been smiling ever since I turned 30. I've been smiling. I realized that there are things that I can't do at 30. It's a lot different, even just with the preparation. This summer I started working out a lot earlier and just make sure that I get more rest. It's important that I not go out and play pick-up games all of the time or try to play five-on-five. That's the whole reason why I'm going back to the basics and back to fundamentals; it's recognizing the things that you need as you get older that's going to keep you fresh and give you a leg up on the younger guys that are coming in. I think from doing everything from coaching that I could capitalize on all of that. The young guys will figure it out when they're turning 30.
Entire Q&A is up at myClipper NATION
