Blazers Coach Terry Stotts：Demotion to第三串是“对抗Meyers Leonard的东西”

Portland Trail Blazers coach Terry Stotts addressed Fridayhis decision to move Joel Freeland over Meyers Leonard在his depth chart, a move that essentially squeezes Leonard out of the rotation to start the regular season.

Here's a transcript of Stotts' statements.

决定将Joel Freeland放在Meyers Leonard上

就像我昨晚说过，乔尔已经赚了几分钟。我们需要辩护。到目前为止，我们作为一支球队的辩护的重点已经支付。乔尔已经获得了它。他在防守地对游戏产生了影响。他有一个非常好的夏天。这对迈耶斯没有任何东西。我认为迈耶有改善。他比去年更好。他会继续变得更好。 At this point, Joel has earned it.

Areas of improvement for Meyers Leonard to get back into the rotation

It's a long season. 82 games, opportunities happen. He'll get an opportunity. He just needs to keep working. Things happen throughout the season. When his opportunity comes, when his number is called, he has to be ready.

你和Meyers Leonard谈过了这个举动吗？

我和他谈过。这是游戏的一部分。

What is Joel Freeland doing that Meyers Leonard isn't doing?

I think he's protecting the rim. He's putting his body on the line. He's been consistently doing the dirty work. He's gained the respect of his teammates by all the hard work and the dirty work that may go unnoticed, but his teammates sure notice it.

Joel Freeland's teammates have also spoken up about his training camp play

I think everything generally works itself out. It's a credit to Joel that he's played as well and as hard, made the improvements that he's made. He had a rough rookie season and he made a concerted effort to make strides over the summer.

Any turning points that helped you make the decision to place Joel Freeland above Meyers Leonard?

I think it was just over the course of time. I've said from the beginning, because we have a deeper bench, we have a lot of versatile players, there's going to be tough decisions to make. It wasn't just one thing. I gave it a a lot of thought. It's one of those things, you come into the beginning of the season, you have to make those decisions.

Blazers Gm Neil Olshey有this to say关于伦纳德到Chris Haynes的CSNNW.com.

"This is only Meyers Leonard's second year," he said. "One of the things you have to realize is bigs take a while to develop in this league, especially young bigs that left school early. Meyers is going to contribute to this roster just like Joel Freeland is, but when you have the opportunity to get Robin Lopez who fits in so well with exactly what we needed which was a rebounder, a defensive-minded player, a rim protector that will have LaMarcus' back in the paint, we couldn't have designed a better player to go get."

Leonard did not take questions after星期四赢得了金国勇士队，他只参加了三个垃圾时间。周五，媒体上的许多燃烧者玩家（包括Leonard）都没有，因为该团队在实践之后立即拥有NBA安全会议。一支团队发言人表示，伦纳德预计将于周六可供媒体提供。

回到媒体日, I wrote this about Freeland's offseason work...

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Most Honest Self-Assessment

我肯定一直在非常困难的乔尔·弗里兰机汇er the last year but hats off to him for his approach to the summer. So often, players on the fringes look to external factors (playing time, coach, teammates, situation, etc.) to make excuses for their struggles. Freeland not only took total ownership of his poor rookie season, he spent all summer trying to get himself into position to take a real step forward.

Freeland选择在Eurobasset为英国的比赛，而是致力于他的夏天增加他的较低的身体力量。在2012-13赛季在14磅开始后，今年夏天Freeland增加了大约七磅。他的上半身仍然看起来很瘦。

Here's how Freeland explained his current predicament and what motivated him to commit fully to NBA workouts this summer.

“我认为自己是4/5。我仍然试图做出这种调整。我的整个职业生涯都是一个职业的家伙。对我的调整为四个，避免，纯粹是在那个中期- 漫步，这对我来说很艰难，那就太难了。在我职业生涯中的其他游戏中，我能够在帖子中玩耍，击中两个或三个钩子射击，然后走出去，跳投很漂亮当你有信心时，很容易。但是当你的第一次射击通常是跳投时，这是一个不同的心态。

"Of course i missed [EuroBasket]. I would have loved to play for my National Team. It was just a decision I had to make for myself and my career going forward. I do plan on playing for them in the future. I would love to help them out any way I can. At this moment in time I had to think about myself and try to take a step forward in my career going into next season and helping help the team. I wouldn't say it was a bad move for me. It was a move I had to take.

“我不想恢复一步。在夏天玩你的国家队不仅仅是一个为期两周的事情，你只是在这里玩Eurobasset。这是大约两个月的时间。如果你在玩两个月的话一种不同的风格，特别是在调整上，我不得不通过一定的方式玩七年，欧洲的方式，然后不得不将你的游戏调整到NBA，我不想回到两个月的时候可以在我的比赛中工作两个月，并在我需要进入NBA方式的方式进步。这是我的思想进程。“

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-- Ben Golliver | benjamin.golliver@gmail.com |推特