Comcast Insider Interview with Rick Adelman 3/21/06

[tubiscus]

I caught this Thursday late on Comcast "On Demand" A 3 part 22 minute interview of Adelman by Mike Lamb. I thought it was the best interview I've ever seen Adelman give. Marty Mac mentioned it in the Friday Sac Bee.

Since no one else mentioned it, and i don't have a clue how to post the video or even a .wav file of it, I bit off several hours (at my speed) of transcription. Here's part I.

COMCAST INSIDER 3/21/06​

Mike Lamb Interview of Rick Adelman

ML: For seven straight seasons Rick Adelman has led the Kings into the postseason. Those first couple of years they were learning their way. Then they became contenders. Today, they are expected to be there come playoff time. There was some doubt during the early part of the season though, but thanks to a trade for Ron Artest, as well as the voice of their steady leader, Kings fans are once again talking playoffs. I sat down with Rick Adelman to get his thoughts on the season, his feelings about the Artest deal, and if he wants to be the Kings head man come next year. I first asked him if he was more surprised by the start of the season or by the way his team is playing now.

RA: I think it would have to be the beginning of the season, cause I thought we would be a competitive team. I didn’t know how good we’d be, but I felt with the guys we had coming back we would at least be .500 or above that. But I think I’m surprised that this group, since the trade for Ron, they really have come together with a sense of what they have to do to win. I’ve said it before, we have nine guys who’ve been here 60 games or less, and we have eleven guys who’ve been here one year or less. So that’s a lot of change and we’ve been able to turn around a negative situation into a positive situation right now, and you’ve got to hope we keep going the right direction.

ML: I think a lot of people perceive that it’s all Ron Artest, that since he has come it’s changed the attitude of the team. How much of that is truth and how much is fiction?

RA: I think it’s true. I don’t think it’s the whole thing. I think he certainly adds. When you add a guy who is one of the best defenders in the league, not just individually, but as a team defender, he’s extremely good. He never quits on a play, and that’s what makes him special. The other thing is, he’s a guy who sat out basically a year and a half, and so he had a lot of energy, and he wanted to play, and that really changed things. When he came, our guys got new energy, but I still say with Kevin and Francisco, things changed, we had basically three new guys, who were giving us energy and athletic ability and it picked Kenny up. Mike became better because we didn’t have to rely on him and Brad so much. It’s just a combination of things helped, but Ron certainly the catalyst with the trade, but I think you have to give the other guys some credit too, because they turned around their attitudes and we’ve become a much better team.

ML: So you mentioned that defensively Ron has been there and done everything that you’ve expected of him, but with what you’ve wanted him to do offensively, how close is he to being there?

RA: It’s hard. It’s difficult, and it’s difficult for him and it’s difficult for us. We’re trying to run things and tweak it as we go, but I think we still do too much standing. Ron does too much one on one. He goes to the post too much when he shouldn’t be there. But that’s him. Once the game starts, he wants something to happen, but it’s hard on us as a team. I was surprised, we went on that five game trip and won four out of five, everybody said “you played good defense.” No we didn’t play very good defense on that trip. We gave up 100 points a game, but we scored 107. I think, just by playing, we developed different ways to attack teams. We’re still a good shooting team and were a very good passing team, now we’re just doing it in different spots, so I think the offense is gonna be the last thing to come and it’s probably gonna come, for the most part, next year.

ML: Rick, you’ve had a number of different teams that you’ve dealt with. Portland was a certain type of team. The Kings that you’ve had the last five years were different then the team that you have now. Have they had to adapt to you, or have you had to adapt to that?

RA: I don’t think it’s changed that much except we’ve tried to put a, some type of defensive scheme in there, now we have the players who can do it. But now with Ron, and like you said Kevin is active, Francisco’s active, and now Bonzi comes in and we’re pretty physical all of the sudden with Bonzi out there, suddenly you see it on defense. You see it on the boards. Bonzi’s been around. He’s a good team defender himself. Brad’s always been a good team defender, but now he’s got people around him and I think we still struggle some with the point, the way people have hurt us at the point and inside, because we’re not real big inside. But we’re pretty good as far as a team defensively, and I always thought we were with the team we had with Chris and Vlade. We didn’t get enough credit for the way we defended, ‘cause when we got to the playoffs, we were pretty darn good, because we were smart, and those guys knew what they were doing.

ML: You alluded to Mike Bibby and his defense, and fans are quick to point that out, but can you imagine where you’d be without Mike Bibby right now?

RA: No. He’s carried us offensively. He’s just been….The thing about Mike, it’s not that defensively…..when you get beat and there’s no help, and anything like that, you have a tendency to get down. You don’t know what’s happening. The only problem I have with Mike defensively a lot of times, is he stops playing sometimes when he gets beat. You can’t do that. You’ve got to continue to play, but offensively, he’s carried us, I mean, three of those games on that eastern trip, he won, in the fourth quarter, the Jersey game, I never saw a guy have a better first half than he had. So, no, he’s been terrific, and I think getting Ron in there and getting Bonzi back, it takes some pressure off him to have to do it all the time.

ML: You mentioned something about Shareef last week, and I know you’ve talked about Corliss Williamson. Those are guys that are willing to take their role and they don’t say anything. How much easier does that make your job or how much have they contributed to this team turning it around with their team attitude?

RA: Oh, I think it’s terrific and I’d include Bonzi in that too, where he’s accepted that it’s better for him to come off the bench right now, for this team. Shareef has been terrific. He’s just starting to play well, and that’s one reason why you only see seven guys playing, because I want to give him all the minutes behind Brad and behind Kenny. He’s the best basketball player we have, but his attitude is, he just wants to win. He wants to do whatever it takes, and sure, he gets frustrated. I know Corliss is frustrated, but right now, it’s just hard to get guys in the game. You try to do it, but right now, to get a continuity in our games, game in and game out…unless we have a lot.. We’re gonna have a lot of games now, where we play back to backs, and those guys are gonna become important, but Corliss is a real leader on the bench. He’s always talking to the guys. He gets down. He gets frustrated. I’d be disappointed if the guys who aren’t playing aren’t frustrated. But those guys are key. They’re gonna keep the young guys going. They’re gonna keep talking to ‘em and if I put them in the game, I have confidence that if I put them in the game, they’re gonna go out there and play hard.

ML: Kevin Martin, obviously the media has caught on because of the numbers he’s put up. Last year, when he was a rookie, did you have any doubts about him and did you envision him being able to play as well as he has this year?

RA: I don’t think I envisioned him being able to play as well as he has this year, but we had a lot of confidence that he was gonna be a player. I think last year was good for Kevin in a lot of ways. He came from a small Division 1 school. They gave him the ball and he shot it whenever he wanted to, otherwise he just stood around and watched. He didn’t really do anything defensively in college. So everything last year was new to him, so he had to take the lumps that he wasn’t playing, and it wasn’t good enough. He understood that, and the time that I really noticed him was when we left him off the playoff roster and he became Ray Allen in practice, and he was a son-of-a-gun. We always saw the talent in practice, but it never carried over into the games, he was too submissive to what was going on. He wasn’t aggressive. Defensively, he just watched and didn’t use his quickness. He worked his tail off all summer and he’s become a player. He hasn’t come close to reaching it yet. He’s got a lot of natural ability, and you’re just gonna see Kevin get better and better.

 

[tubiscus]

Part II Spacesaver


PART II.

ML: What does Francisco Garcia have to do, in your mind, to get to the level that you think he can get to?

RA: I think experience is probably the biggest thing for him, ‘cause he can do a lot of things. Experience, and a little self discipline as to when you do things and when you don’t try to do things. He came from program where they trapped, they did all this stuff defensively, and sometimes I think he’s still there, ‘Cause he’ll just lose his guy for whatever reason. When he locks in and just plays solid, he’s a good defender and offensively, the same way. He’s taken a lot of threes and missed a lot of threes, ‘cause they were bad shots, and now he’s much more comfortable with what he can do. You’re gonna see him become better and better with more experience, because he can handle the ball and he can really pass the ball and just that he has to pick his spots and he has to understand that you don’t get more points for this dynamic pass. You get just as many by making the obvious pass to the guy who’s wide open by making a great pass, and once he learns that and he’s more consistent in his play, he’s gonna be a very good player.

ML: Brad Miller obviously has a lot of attributes as a player. In your mind, which of those attributes led to him being selected to team USA?

RA: I think he’s a very intelligent player. Brad’s basketball IQ is up there. He sees everything going on on the court. It’s a natural thing for him. He’s a lot like Vlade was. They’re both a lot alike. I think when you’ve got a big guy you can throw out there, whether it’s a zone or man to man you’re playing. He’s gonna make shots. He’s gonna make passes. He’s gonna run the offense the way you want it run, and defensively, he’s gonna be very smart. I just think he’s a natural. I’d be really surprised if, once they get around him more, and see his skill level, that he’s not on those twelve guys that, cause he’s ideal for that kind of competition.

ML: Ron Artest is a guy who’s been written about, talked about, filmed, followed, it’s been well chronicled what’s been going on with Ron. A year ago, what was your perception of Ron Artest and now that you’ve had the chance to work with him, how has that perception changed?

RA: Number one, he’s a much better player than I thought he was overall. I think he’s just starting to understand what he can do when he gets the ball in situations. He’s so used to getting the ball and he’s supposed to just score all the time, that’s what he did at Indiana. Post him up, do this, and that’s what he did. I want him to be more of a guy you can go through and he can make the play and he can score, and he’s learning that now. But off the court, he’s kinda what I thought, where he had situations where he could not control his emotions, throwing the TV, of course the thing in Detroit was really off the wall. I think that even when he said he wanted to be traded, he’d been through so much there, he just didn’t want to go through it anymore. But what I see is a guy who’s so very, wants to play so badly, and he’s kept his emotions really in check. He’s been super to work with. I haven’t had any problems with him at all. He listens. I think he’s very receptive right now, but when a guy goes through problems like that and they’ve had all that stuff, I’m amazed at how he controls himself and puts it all away, cause every city we go to, it’s the same questions, not only for him, but for me. He’s handled that. He’s gotten through it. I think when he gets through this year, and gets back next year he’s gonna be the same way. He’s really on an even keel right now, but he’s an emotional guy and he’s a competitor. If things don’t go good, guys respond differently. I think he’s learned that he’s got to control what he does. You don’t see him this year on the court….He hasn’t got any technicals. He gets frustrated, but he’s been able to maintain it, so I think it’s a guy who’s grown up a lot.

ML: Tell me if my perception is wrong. When I see his team mates around him, I see respect for him, and I think that he relishes that role and that’s something that he wanted. How much does that help him maintain his emotions and play well for you guys?

RA: I think it helps him a lot and I think he’s the type of guy who will be vocal in the right way. He talks to the guys and talks about what they have to do, especially the young guys. He’s been very good that way, but I think that helps him, but our guys do, sometimes it takes awhile to get that respect. I mean, even the guys now, when he’s out on the floor offensively, he does go on his own sometimes. It takes awhile for guys to understand that it isn’t selfishness on his part he’s just trying to make something happen. I think that there’s a definite respect because of the way he plays and the way he prepares, probably just the way he plays on the court and the energy he brings, you have to respect that, and guys are gonna react very positive to it.

ML: Did you or do you relish this year and the fact that you’ve had to change everything and a lot of coaching, a lot of teaching has had to transpire?

RA: Yea, but I’d be less than honest if I didn’t say it’s been a very difficult year. With the way we started out. The way we played. Everything going on and changes again. It’s hard, and we were not getting anywhere. You get to a point where it kinda beats you down after a while. I give my wife a lot of credit, cause she kept saying, you’re the guy in charge, they’re gonna look to you, but I got really down. The trade came, and things started to change. The young guys started to play better and so you get re-energized yourself and you like what’s going on. You see when you go out on the court now, we can win every game. Before that, I didn’t feel that way, because not only we weren’t playing well, but we had injuries and we were shorthanded a lot of times. It got frustrating. But now I think everybody around the team as a different sense and you just hope that we can just go and pull this off and not have any injuries and get to the playoffs and see what happens.

ML: You talk about your family. How hard is it on you and on your family, because, you’re a very public persona. You read in the paper the next day what everybody thinks. You listen to talk radio everyday, what everybody thinks about your job. How important is it to have support from your family?

RA: I think it’s crucial. But they need the support too, because it’s not easy when you go through a year like this and every week you’re either gonna be fired or who are they gonna hire? and your trying to do the best you can and you’ve got a son who’s a junior in high school and family in Portland. They’re all worried about it. It’s been such a big part of our life for so long. The ups and downs, I think are the hardest thing. I can go on the road and I can get away somewhat on the road, because it’s not the every day thing you hear, but my wife can’t do that. She’s around it every day. So I think, she’s been really supportive of me and I’ve been less there for her sometimes, because you get so down, you lean on her a lot. But I think it’s hard, but I couldn’t do it without her and I couldn’t do it without my kids.

 

[tubiscus]

Part III Spacesaver

PART III

ML: What were your feelings about the Peja for Artest trade when it went down?

RA: I was really on the fence. I knew Ron was a good player, but the unknown was what was gonna happen. I didn’t know if Ron was gonna come here and two weeks later, say, I want to go somewhere else, and I’m not coming back here. I didn’t know and I knew I had a player in Peja. A guy who came when I came and I was very close to. I thought he got a really bum rap from a lot of people because his game changed because of who we had and who we didn’t have. It was really hard, I, at first I did not want to make the deal because I knew what I had and I’d rather go with the people I had and on the court was one thing but off the court was something else and how was it gonna effect the team. I didn’t know that, but as we talked about it and it was pretty obvious it was gonna happen, I said. If it was me and I had to decide, Peja’s gonna be a free agent, and are we gonna be able to sign him? Bonzi’s gonna be a free agent and what’s gonna happen to him? You’ve got a guy who’s a valuable commodity still in this league and who you know is a player under contract, it made sense to do it. But I wouldn’t say I was completely in favor of it because, how was it gonna effect me? I’m not gonna lie to you, I knew I’m in the last year of my contract, things weren’t going good. All I needed was one more thing to fall apart and that’d been it. So for me it was really difficult, but Joe and Gavin and Geoff decided that that’s the way they wanted to go and I’ve tried to go along with all that stuff and try to make it work cause that’s my job. I’m under contract to coach the people that they have here.

ML: How much input do you have in those types of decisions and in particular how much input did you have on that decision?

RA: Geoff and I talked every day. We talked about all the negatives, all the positives. I think this was a little bit different in that the Maloof’s got more involved in it. They wanted to do this deal. They listened to Geoff. Geoff just laid it out. Here’s the negatives. Here’s the positives. We don’t know how it’s gonna work out, but what do you want to do? So I think that in the past, it’s always been Geoff and I and Coop. We’ve talked it through and we’ve always been kinda on the same page. But I think everybody was kind of on the fence on this. It wasn’t something that everybody was in favor of or not because of like I said the unknowns. But when they decided that this is probably something we should do. I think everybody had to go along in order to make it work. So you have input, usually, but this was sort of a different situation. I think it’s all the reasons I said. The uncertaincy (sic) of the free agents in summer. The way the team was playing. The way we weren’t coming together. They rolled the dice and so far it’s worked pretty good.

ML: I think because of the turnaround this year, peoples perception of you might have changed a little bit. You’re starting to get a little more credit for the coaching and the teaching that has gone on. Have you felt underappreciated in Sacramento?

RA: Yeah, I think so. I would be less than honest if I didn’t say that because, I think everybody was part of our success, from the Maloof’s to Geoff, to the players, to my coaching staff. It really irritated me when you won sixty something games or fifty nine games and you lose a playoff series like we did to the Lakers, where you miss fourteen free throws and you take it to overtime, and yeah, you should’ve won, but everybody wins and everybody loses. It’s just part of what happened. The year we lost to Minnesota, and we had Webb coming back and Bobby out basically, and I only had seven guys I could play, and we take ‘em to seven games and lose by three. It’s like that’s not good enough. So yeah, when you’ve had success like that, you get tired of, even when you’ve won sixty games and they’re talking about firing you. You go, wait a minute? Why is this happening? I guess I got used to it, but it really irritated me when they started talking about the job we did by my staff! Because we’re the same staff who got this team to be the best defensive team in the league one year, with the best FG% against them, better than San Antonio. It’s the same staff that’s working now, trying to do the same thing. It’s a very good staff. They work their tails off and when people talk about, we don’t do this, we don’t do that. That’s irritating. I think we should get a little more respect, but you know its part of the business. You’re in it. I mean it’s the talk shows. There’s so much more coverage, even our paper. We have four or five people covering the team. So you’re always gonna have an angle coming at you, and usually the coach is the one angle that they’re gonna attack. I’m used to it, but it’s not easy and I don’t like it.

ML: Joe Maloof said something very supportive of you in Sports Illustrated, about your situation and the fact that he wanted to have you back. I think people want to know do you want to come back. Do you want to continue on after this year?

RA: I’ll find out. I think definitely what’s going on right now has been a real positive step. I like being part of it. I would like to come back and be part of this group. I’m not going to hang my whole life on it. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. I can go somewhere else and I can do something else and I still have my family. We can go where we want to go, but certainly I’d like to come back. All the rhetoric is fine, but it’s gonna come down to the end of the year, they’re gonna make a decision on what they want to happen. If I’m part of it, I’m gonna listen to it and I’m gonna make a decision, but right now, I feel very positive about it, but it’s just not gonna be like we want you back and, certainly, let me come. I want to hear. I want to talk about it a little bit. That’s gonna happen when the season ends. That’s gonna happen when we’re done. We’ll all sit down and we’ll all figure it out at that time.

 

[loopymitch]

Interesting interview, thank you very much tubiscus for taking the time to type it for us.

 

[Entity]

that was a great interview. Rick says he feels positive about coming back. I just kinda wonder if that would give this team a little more confidence knowing rick will be back

 

[JJ22L]

wow- thats a great article...usually i dislike all ML spews...

Thanks for typing it up - one of the only ones i have taken the time to read thoroughly.

I laughed at the "Brad is a good defender part"

Good to see the TEAM recognizes Bibby is a pee poor defender...and im glad Artest is happy.

 

[DocHolliday]

Unless someone like Pop became available I want Adelman back, but this is the one problem I have with his coachin style. It think this quote sums it up.

It was really hard, I, at first I did not want to make the deal because I knew what I had and I’d rather go with the people I had

He's more comfortable going with what he knows, and who he knows, instead of shaking things up and trying to see if someone he's not used to coming up big for him can.

I've seen glimpses of it this year where he's tried to shake things up, but it's only when things were so bad. It was out of desperation.

 

[Padrino]

Unless someone like Pop became available I want Adelman back, but this is the one problem I have with his coachin style. It think this quote sums it up.

[/color][/b]

He's more comfortable going with what he knows, and who he knows, instead of shaking things up and trying to see if someone he's not used to coming up big for him can.

I've seen glimpses of it this year where he's tried to shake things up, but it's only when things were so bad. It was out of desperation.

he definitely is a very cautious coach when it comes to his rotations and such. 8-man rotations do not bother me. 7-man rotations do, however. fatigue is a huge factor in nba basketball, especially come playoff time. if we're not completely healthy when the playoffs start, adelman's gonna need to put some faith in at least one player who hasn't seen much time this season: corliss williamson. he's a guy that he can be "comfortable" with, a guy who plays a certain way. he knows what he has with corliss. corliss is undersized, older, over the hill, out of his prime, whatever...but he's solid. a 7-man rotation is not gonna cut it in the playoffs, so if adelman can own up to his words, and extend his rotation a bit, then we're probably gonna see corliss (and possibly jason hart, depending on whether or not cisco gets hurt again) in the playoffs, especially if we're not 100% healthy.

 

[bozzwell]

Wow! What a great interview. At no point did I think that RA was BS-ing or being political.

 

[VF21]

Thank you so much, tubiscus! I really enjoyed reading the interview.

 

[tubiscus]

You're welcome. And by the way, I think SUPERMAN wears JOE MONTANA pajamas!!

 

[ParniValjak]

Great work tubiscus!

Thank you for the interview

 

[BigSong]

You're welcome. And by the way, I think SUPERMAN wears JOE MONTANA pajamas!!

wouldn't surprise me

 

[may3one]

That was a great interview. Thanks again for typing it all out! I'm glad that Rick was pretty honest in his answers, like how he flet about the trade and Mike's defense. haha.