Interview with Kevin Pritchard

As you may or may not know, Kevin Pritchard did an online interview with Brian Wheeler on Monday. As expected, we didn’t really learn a whole lot of new information, but there were a few tasty nuggets. Snyopsis below.

1. Sergio Rodriguez: He’s in Portland, training at the Blazers’ facility. The type of guy who literally sleeps at the gym, and he might already be the quickest players on Portland’s roster. He’s very good at using his speed and changing directions. The problems that Pritchard anticipates Rodriguez having are in regard to size and strength (take a number), especially against some of the West’s bigger, more physical point guards like Baron Davis. He’s got a little bit of cockyness and is excited to play in the NBA.

2. Overall, Pritchard feels good about the PG position.

3. They’ve had a lot more guys in town early this year, which is something that Nate and the entire coaching staff has tried to instill and include as a part of changing the culture.

4. Joel Pryzbilla: When the team first traded for Jamaal Magloire, he initially wondered why the team would want to do that after they just extended his contract. Pritchard wrote him a long letter and had a long conversation with him to make it clear that he’s their guy. The bottom line is that they want competition at every position – especially after winning 21 games last year – and they want all their players to be challenged.

5. After losing so much last year, the team wanted to upgrade their talent. They feel that with the draft, trading for Magloire, etc, they’ve done that, and they want to provide Nate with players that fit his style.

6. Brandon Roy: will he play the point guard position as we’ve heard? Especially with Sergio looking so good? They don’t know yet. They’ll figure that out at camp and through the first part of the season. He’ll get a chance to play that position and they’ll see how successful he is.

7. LaMarcus’ Aldridge’s biggest goal right now is to improve his lower body strength.