Indiana Pacers GM David Morway was on 1070 The Fan with Kravitz and Eddie Friday afternoon for an in-depth interview on his thoughts heading into the draft after attending the Orlando pre-draft camp and watching the initial team workouts.
I found this exchange interesting while discussing the depth of the draft and how players helped themselves in Orlando. Morway was indeed taking notes while working under Donnie Walsh. Donnie always seemed to enjoy the vagaries of misdirection while setting up a surprise. Beware Knicks fans.
Morway: Actually, you know interestingly enough, I could probably name 6 to 8 to 10 other guys that really played well and helped themselves and there are a number of guys that also played well but I think there was an expectation that they would. So, overall it was a very good camp.
Kravitz: Where do you learn the most? Do you learn the most watching the scrimmages, watching the practices, or are there other things you look at that helps you form your judgment?
Morway: You know we learn the most during their career, watching them play during their college careers on their teams. I think Orlando is more just to get a feel for them playing against each other. Gives us a sense to see them all in one place at the same time. Gives us a feel for their actual height, and their length. So, I don't think there's, you know Orlando is, in a way, a reaffirmation. But I've also often times said and was taught this by Donnie, that if you really like a player going into Orlando, then you hope he plays poorly because he might hurt himself in the eyes of other teams, but you've done your homework and you've scouted properly and you know the player is a good player.
Morway never tipped his hand on pick 11, but when asked about Westbrook and Augustin he praised both guys and broke down their differences nicely.
I'll tell you, both guys are very, very good. I don't know where they go in the draft at this point. They're both very different. Westbrook is a young guard with great size and physicality and athleticism who hasn't played much of the point guard position but certainly can and did do it at some point for UCLA.
And DJ White (corrected Augustin) excuse me, DJ Augustin, is a smaller point guard but who has a great feel for the game, great instincts, can really shoot the basketball. Seems to be able to use different paces to get to different places on the court very easily. So, they're both intriguing guys but, you know, I have no idea where they're going to be in the draft and there's a number of other guys we're looking at, as well.
If I was judging body language through a radio interview I'd say he perked up a little more when talking about Augustin, but that would also be reading WAYYYYY too much into the comments. Of course, that's why I'm here.
In closing the interview, Morway addressed a comment about some of the great work the Pacers organization has done in the community lately. The organization has also been more open with the public than in past years with blogs posts and interviews from the basketball voices and he shed a little light on why.
The other thing, in terms of where we're going, it's an exciting, exciting time. We're going in the right direction. Larry and myself and Coach O'Brien we're really excited about the draft and about the prospects of improving this team and I think it's important for us to communicate with the community and make sure that everybody knows, you know, where we're going. So, we're going to do the best we can with that and hopefully everybody will be proud once we're done with this.
Link to audio: David Morway interview