Donovan Clingan Introductory Press Conference | Portland Trail Blazers

Donovan Clingan Introductory Press Conference | Portland Trail Blazers

hello everyone welcome thank you for coming today um here to introduce our newest draft pick Donovan kingan obviously very excited and we’ll we’ll talk a lot about it would also like to welcome his family his dad Bill his grandmother Debbie sister Olivia girlfriend Maddie um great to have you a part of this organization um I talked to you all a couple days ago so I’m going to give this to chony but just to reiterate love uh the fact that Donovan’s here and can’t wait to get started uh yeah I’m I’m obviously really really excited uh to have Donovan uh to have drafted him obviously I think all of y’all know um how I feel about defense you know um and being a competitor and he’s he’s both of those things I love the fact that he’s been coached really hard obviously uh with Coach Harley but more than anything he’s been coached well though um and he’s a winner he’s just a winner he got a winning Spirit he got a winning habits obviously his record is is is just he just wins you know backto back National Champion um two in a row before he got there in high school just a winner you know and that’s what I believe in that’s what I’m all about and I’m really excited to coach him um and to try to teach him um just the ropes in the NBA the NBA is a different game um but at the end of the day it’s all about basketball and being a good teammate um and be being willing to sacrifice for the betterment of the team so I’m just really happy and excited about it I thought we had a great day uh when we was able to get him yeah I first off I just want to say thank you to everyone um you know welcome me into Portland it’s been great you know first day here you know all the fans have you know supported me to the Max and you know I can’t be more grateful you know for that um you know I’ve had a great past two years in college you know one one back toback titles which you know was something that changed my life forever um you know I’m really excited to you know get to Portland get to work learn more every day get better every day and compete for championships what’s the the best uh defensive advice you’ve been given throughout your career that’s kind of stuck and who gave it to you um yeah really just stay in front of the ball moving your feet as fast as you can and you know really just trying to be you know as physical and wall up as best you can in the in the paint you know really the beginning of my sophomore season you know struggling to stay on the floor and follow trouble at times you know coach really helped me just realize you know Walling up be physical um you know and just stay vertical and protect the rim at a high level and that’s something that really stuck with me this year can you describe what you what attracts you to playing defense um you know something my mom always told me is you know defense wins ball games offense sells tickets you know so you know you got to you got to you got to play great defense in order to win games and you know I want to win games so you know I’ll take a I’ll take a block off the backboard over a dunk any day of the week hey Donovan welcome people talk talk obviously about your your winning uh experience and the fact that you have have won at a high level or the highest level you’ve been to at least at this point um what do you think actually translates what what what qualities do you think that your experience you know hoisting those trophies will you bring to the NBA how does that help you at this level um you know just playing against the best every single night and being able to show up and play your best every day um you know throughout the tournament especially these past two years you know we didn’t have an easy game you know we had a play our best every single day we’re playing against the best of the best and you we you know for myself in particular you know just showed up ready to play ready to work every day and you know in the tournament you never took the foot off the gas and you know when you come to the NBA that’s how it’s going to be every single night because you’re playing against you know the best of the best you know to ever touch you know the basketball floor so every day you have to bring your all and you know I’ve played against the top of the top competition in you know in practice you know my freshman year against Adama he prepared me for you know for everything that I experienced in college and then you know really this year just the the matchups that I had um in the post were something that got me ready Donathan when did it when did would you first realize that that the NBA was was a real possibility for you um I think my freshman year when I got into Ukon you know after battling with ad dama for a couple months and you know starting to get a hang of you know how college ball was and realizing that I could hold my own on the floor and was you know able to compete against Adama and and you know when the game started you know my freshman year you know just how I saw myself you know having an impact early in the season and you know as the season went on you know coming into my sophomore year I knew I had a chance to do something special Donovan you’ve obviously you know the last several years both you know in high school and in college you’ve done a lot of winning kind of at the highest level at those levels and you’re kind of coming into a situation now where they’re you know at the beginning stages of a rebuild and it’s kind of more about building and developing is that going to be adjustment for you are you kind of ready to come in and kind of be more about building something than you know at least early on yeah no I’m I’m excited you know I really want to put the work in I want to you know learn every day to you know help this organization build from the bottom to the top and um you know it’s it’s a lot of hard work it’s not going to be easy um you know I’m willing to learn I’m willing to do whatever you know it takes for this team to win and you know I I just I just want to learn you know whatever I have to do to help this team win whether that’s offensively defensively you know just as a teammate um you know in the locker room whatever it is you know I’m going to give my all every single day Donovan you know a couple days ago you talked about wanting to be the most coachable player uh you just what are some of the questions that you’re you know coming into the NBA with you know what are you trying to answer in your first year whether it’s about the league or opening up your game you know what questions do you have um I feel like you know first year is really just coming in and trying to have an impact any way I Poss can whether it’s on the defensive end you know protecting the rim at a high level you know being impactful in the ball screen game um you know and offensively you know being able to knock down the three ball space the floor with my playmaking my passing abilities and you know setting great screens to get my guards open um you know great off ball screens to get you know Shooters open you know really you know I’m a team player I’m a guy that you know if the coach tells me you know something to do I’m going to do it no matter what it no matter what it what it entails coach uh does his skill set change the way that you will approach defense um not really Jason um we played pretty much in a drop most of the time last year um and obviously he’ll be at lead at that you know just protecting the paint protecting the rim he’ll spend a lot of his time with that red paint under his feet in our defense you know but we also played a little Zone we switched a lot of things so I’m I don’t think that it changes much um other than how effective we are you know um it was our Rim defense defense I’m sorry was a problem for us last year we struggled there and so I love what we did you know we went out and got the best in the draft at protecting the rim and so I don’t think it changes that much um I think that will most teams will reconsider attacking our paint um that changes it you know so again I’m I’m really excited about that Donovan you’ll most likely be backing up DeAndre this year is there anything from his game in particular that you really want to learn from him and pick up yeah I mean he has a lot of experience you know he’s a very you know very well-rounded big that could do a lot of different things um you know I feel like I really enjoy the way you know he plays in the ball screen game offensively you know how quick he is in you know getting off the ball screen for the lobs you know out the short roll you know that mid-range you know knockdown jumper he’s always hitting I feel like it’s something that you know I want to take to the next level um you know working off that short role finding Cutters finding you know Shooters lifting drifting um you know really just being able to playmake out of the short r Joe um often times when you have an established veteran like DeAndre and you you draft a young guy uh at his position it can create some angst uh have you dealt with that with with DeAndre have you kind of approached him or or tried to talk to him and communicate your vision and and what was that sure uh DeAndre and I spoke um the morning after the draft he’s overseas playing with the Bahamas national team so we talked that morning and DeAndre was incredibly excited I mean a great thing about DeAndre is is he loves his teammates he wants to win he wants to learn from guys he wants to teach guys he’s been really good last year he was really good with all of our young guys and he saw us get another highlevel player like Donovan and he was excited he’s like okay where can we take this what can how can he help me how can I help him um what can we do together like his attitude was great about the whole situation Donan your experience at Yukon with Coach Hurley you guys operated in an offense that was more sophisticated than I think most college offenses uh particularly on the decision-making side of things so you have an opportunity kind of coming in the league as a big man that’s usually a kind of a sliding scale to figure stuff out do you think that gives you kind of a leg up at least getting your foot in and trying to figure how things out working on the short roll working on high post those kind of opportunities yeah um you know coach the way our offense was ran at Yukon was it was wild um you know just how many different sets how many different actions out of each set um but you know just the way that you know coach early introduced the offense to me and the whole team and the way he taught it to us I feel like he made me you know understand basketball offensively you know in a whole another perspective um you know I feel like you know at times I could see things before they even happen just you know I just read the defender read you know the my teammate on offense um you know so I feel like you know the way our offense was ran and the positions that coach Earley put me in have prepared me to you know definitely be ready for you know the offensive scheme of the the NBA chony the theme of your tenure so far has really been turnover with the roster and you know something you’ve talked about many times I know it’s still kind of early in the off season but with what you guys were did this week and bringing in Donovan and other unspoken moves um do you feel like you’re seeing that foundation and and kind of can you see some continuity going forward and how does that sort of affect your outlook for where this organization and roster are yeah I’m I’m I’m super excited about where we are you know when you’re trying to rebuild and trying to do it the right way um you first have to do that with really young talented players you know and by anybody’s account we’ve done that you know we’ve done that in a major way and um you look at just how brutal this western conference is um I just know that we’re doing it right you know we really are we’re doing it right we’re getting a lot of collecting a lot of good young talent that we know are going to be special special players in this league and when they all make the jump then we’re going to take off you know um so I’m very happy with where we’re at I’m very happy with what Joe and the front office they working butts off and you can see it you know the proof is is right here it’s in the pudding so I’m happy where we’re at um I’m happy with the guys that I have the pleasure of coaching and I I love it I really do I love it I’m happy that our fans are happy you know about Donovan and excited about our youngans you know um getting shading back healthy and sco I mean I’m just I’m really happy about that you know so our young our young pups are they going to be starting grow up soon so I’m happy with with all of those things Bill hey coach I know you just drafted Donovan so you probably don’t have everything put together but do you kind of have like a mental timeline of when Donovan will be more ready to take on more and get more PT on the court with the team well um I’m confident that he’s ready to you know he’s ready to to take on whatever you know whatever I give him right now um I think there has there’s some things about his game that that are really underrated you know that will translate to the NBA I think his passing is really underrated you know the positions that coach Hurley put him in and just watching their games offensively and defensively gives me so much confidence to know that he’s ready for those things um his shooting which is something that he didn’t do very much at Yukon I know y’all heard him say he’s ready to knock be a knock down three-point shooter but I’m pretty sure y’all have never seen that um we seen it when we worked him out and it really surprised me cuz I hadn’t seen it either um but he gave me one of the best answers that a kid gave me I asked him that when I was interviewing him and I just said well you’re such a great shooter why didn’t you shoot more and he said I just wanted to do what coach needed me to do to win and to me that’s just a winner you know so um um however many minutes you know I play him I’m confident that he’s going to be ready to do it and you guys know that I’m willing to try things you know um there are several teams that play really big in this league Cleveland with Jared Allen and Evan Mobley and you know um obviously denber Aaron Gordon is pretty much a big and uh Memphis now with Edie and J there’s a lot of teams that play really big you know so I’m y’all know I’m willing to try things you know and have him and da out there on the floor together so um we’ll see it’s going to be a lot of fun um the versatility that we’ll have the size now that we’ll have I know we spent I spent a lot of time talking to you guys about you know how much smaller we are than most teams and giving up that disadvantage most Knights well I know me as a player when I played I felt so good being aggressive guarding the basketball when I know if I made a mistake that big fell was going to be back there helping me that Ben Wallace and Kenya Martin and rased Wallace I could be really aggressive knowing that I got that guy to help me and clean up my mistakes well that’s a lot of things that you’re going to see you know from us so just so many things offensively defensively that uh I’m excited about where do you see yourself offens in a few years what’s that um you know I feel like someone who could do you know many different things you consistently knock down you know three ball you know someone that you know kind of you know leading the offense just being able to see everything from the top of the key from Beyond the three-point line just being able to playmake being able to find the open Cutters um you know being being very efficient out of that short role game you know with making making moves to The Rim finishing around the rim um you know finding the Cutters being able to you know ball hand ball handle even better you know as time goes on and you know I just really want to get better every single day learn more every day and just continue to develop my game the right way Donovan are there uh any players or a player that you’re most excited to match up against and why um I mean I I really don’t have a single player you know I’m just really excited to you know battle against the best you know when you try to prove yourself as you know being one of the best you know in the sport you have to go up against the best so you know I want to be able to go out there and compete against the best and you know just try to help my team win you know that’s all at the end of the day that’s the only thing that means anything to me is winning you know it’s not the points it’s not the rebounds it’s you know if my team won and your team lost [Music] big old dude man what number you wear got it thank you everybody thank you man good job

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