Senior VP/Assistant General Manager Tony DiLeo sat down with Marc Zumoff and Ed Pinckney during the second quarter of Monday night's game to talk about the Sixers roster and the upcoming draft. Here are bits and pieces of their quarter-long conversation.
On where the Sixers pick:
Wherever we pick, we're sure we're going to get a very good player.
On how good (deep) the draft is in comparison to recent seasons:
It's a very good draft as far as the top 10, and we'll probably be top 10 picks, so we are sure in the top 10 we are going to get a very good player. And if we get lucky enough to get in the top 3, we could have a franchise or star player.
On scouting:
We scout all the schools whether it's top 10, or division II or division III. We have a great scouting staff. We work hard. We've been together for 7,8,9 years. We know each other, and we're a good team just like a team on the court. We're a good team in the draft, and we feel like we've done a good job in past drafts.
On drafting BPA or based on needs:
It's always been our philosophy -- we try to identify players in the draft no matter where they are, and we try to go get them, whether we're moving up, or moving back and getting something else, or combining picks. So that's what we try to do -- identify the best players. We feel that if there's a player who's going to be a star --because it's so hard to get star players in the league -- that we will draft that player no matter, if we have that position filled or not, because it's so hard. But if there's like-talent or even-level then we go to position. We will evaluate our team after the season, and look to see what positions we need, and if we can fill them in the draft, we will. If not, we will look to make trades or sign free agents.
On when he'll evaluate roster:
After the season's over we will definitely sit down as a group, and look, and evaluate, and see the things that went wrong, and the things that we did good this season. And we will definitely correct the things that went wrong, and try to fill those needs.
On the workout process:
[Workouts are the] most important thing for us, is getting the players in, talking to them, looking them in the eye, evaluating, working them out. If you going to make a large investment you want to see that first.
We do a lot of background checks, we talk to a lot of coaches, we have a sports psychologist -- Dr. Fish -- that's been with us for over 10 years. That's the thing that's hard to gauge -- what's inside, their drive, their heart, the intangibles, but we feel by talking to a lot of their coaches, going all the way back to high school or AAU -- talking to some of their professors, people, and friends -- that we get a pretty good gauge of what they are, and that's very important. We do pay a lot of attention to the intangibles.
On Jrue Holiday:
He was one of the players we targeted in the draft. We tried to move up to get him. We were very fortunate that he slid to 17, because if we did the draft over he'd definitely be a lot higher. We love his intangibles. People didn't see it so much at UCLA ... but going back to AAU and high school, we saw it.
On Jodie Meeks:
We like his intangibles. He has great toughness. He's a big-time scorer at Kentucky. But he does other things. We like his defense. He can handle the ball some. He can pass some. He's a player -- a winning-type player. He has toughness, both physically and mentally, and he has decent size for the two-guard spot, but he plays a lot bigger because of his toughness and body-strength.
On the off-season:
It's a big summer for us -- first with the draft, and we'll get a really good player in the draft. Then we'll look around, and we're always looking to make trades, but we're not looking to make trades just to make trades. We want to upgrade our team. At the trade deadline we looked at a lot of different possibilities, but we didn't think any of those possibilities would upgrade our team.
On foreign-born players:
In this draft -- where we're drafting -- there aren't any foreign players that really would come into consideration. We're looking at a couple, but right now, we feel that there are probably 10 players better than some of the foreign players.
On whether he thought Wade would be this good:
I don't think anyone thought he'd be this good.
On big men:
There really aren't a lot of skilled-bigs around, but if you can find one, you better grab one.
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The only quote you might be able to draw conclusions from is the foreign-player quote. You can probably kiss our chances at Donatas Motiejunas or Jan Vesely good-bye.