The Hawks introduced Travis Schlenk as the team’s new general manager and head of basketball operations Friday.
The following are questions asked of Schlenk during and after the formal news conference on several subjects, including the Hawks’ draft preparation, his scouting eye and the luxury tax.
Q: Where are you in your draft preparations?
A: Obviously I'm a lot more comfortable with the second-round guys. Right now, all I'm doing is calling around to all the teams and see where all the teams are with their picks, seeing what the options are with our picks whether we package our picks to move up, whether we move back. Just trying to get a feel for what our options are with our draft pick. Our staff has been on the road. There were a bunch of agent workouts this week. Next week, we'll start our own draft workouts. That's when we really going to start focusing on the guys. We have a list of nine guys we are looking at at (No.) 19 right now.
Q:What was your intended career path?
A: I always wanted to be on the coaching side. But when I worked for Don Nelson in Golden State, he said you really have a good eye for talent because in our coaches meetings about game planning and prepping he said you should take a hard look at the front-office side. He said the other person I told that to was my son, Donnie, the general manager and president of the Dallas Mavericks. They started putting me on the road going to D-League games. Larry Reilly the next summer became the general manager, and he asked me to come on the front-office side to be director of player personnel. It was a hard decision because coaching is what I always wanted to do. Quite frankly, there is more stability in the front office than the coaching side, and my oldest daughter had just been born. I was like, 'You know what? Let's give this a shot.' It's obviously worked out well for me.
Q:What do you look for when scouting a player?
A: One of the real core values that I have and we are going to have when looking at talent is character. So when I go to a game, I look at when a player comes out of the game how they interact with coaches, how they interact with the assistant coaches, what kind of posture they have on the bench. Those kinds of things. When we go to practices, how they interact at practices. Are they easy to get along with? With these guys, as you know from following the team, they spend so much time together. If you have bad-character guys or guys who are just tough to be around every day, it brings everyone down. So that's going to be a big thing we look at.
Q:Is anyone on the current roster untouchable?
A: We like this team. This team was a playoff team. They could have had home-court (advantage) if they get a couple more games here and there. Let's be honest, if (an MVP candidate is available) we are going to have conversations about acquiring that. We have to be realistic about where we are. We have Paul (Millsap) who is an All-Star. He is our best player, so it would take more to acquire Paul from us. But there are other guys. You go from there. I don't like the term untouchable, but you evaluate each deal as it comes along.
Q:How would you describe your personality?
A: I'm a fun-loving guy. That is something the staff has already noticed. I don't think that environment existed here necessarily in the past. I'm light-hearted. I certainly make fun of myself because if you can't laugh at yourself, who can you laugh at? Pat (Riley) always used to say that we work in the toy department of life. If you can't have fun working in pro basketball, where are you going to have fun? … It was certainly the culture in Golden State. It's a lot easier to feel that way when you are winning 60-70 games a year.
Q:What is your plan to attract free agents to Atlanta?
A: Free agents typically sign places where they want to go to be successful. That's what we've got to do. We've got to turn Atlanta into a place where a player looks at us, he says he can go there and win. Kevin Durant last year, we can say he came to Golden State because of Steve (Kerr), Bob (Myers), myself or ownership. He came there because he wanted to play with Steph (Curry), Klay (Thompson) and Draymond (Green). That's where we've got to get to, a place that has players other players want to come play with.
Q:What is your philosophy on moving into NBA's luxury tax?
A: I don't think it makes sense for a franchise to go into the tax unless you are competing for a championship. To go into the tax to try to get an eight, seven seed, to me, being fiscally responsible with these gentlemen's money, that's not right. If we can make a move that's going to put us in the tax bracket by a few million dollars and it gives us a better chance to win a championship, that's when I'll knock on Tony (Ressler's) door and say 'Listen, this is something we need to do because it will get us to where we want to go.' Until we get to that point, I can't sit here and say it's a smart business decision to go into the tax. (It's worth noting that Ressler then chimed in and said "I share that view.")
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