Miami Heat Press Conference with Daequan Cook, Pat Riley and Randy Pfund – Ohio State Buckeyes
7/3/2007 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Pat Riley: “One thing that I’d like to say prior to introducing Daequan, is that I’m so glad that we didn’t get to the point where we had to trade out. We had a lot of opportunities to do a lot of things in the draft but when it came down to making the pick, with the position that the team is in, the possibility of free agency and what we could lose, we felt we got the very best player for our team. He is not just a shooter; all of the reports that we have has said that he can score, and be a very prolific scorer and we are very happy with that. We have another guy who can score and he needs a little help. We felt that Cook has size, an NBA-ready body, youth and had a great workout with us. We also heard he had great workouts throughout the whole process and he was on the board when it came to number 20, with what Randy, Adam and Chet had done over the past three or four months, putting those names up there, they are exactly the way they have always been. They have never missed with the names they have on the board and we have always been true to that, when the name is there, that’s the one we are going to take. Not only was his name there, but also the need for depth at that position is vital for us. So we are very happy today. It has nothing to do with how young he is, nothing to do with the fact that he may have come off the bench at Ohio State as a sixth man. We feel that Daequan is a player and we can’t wait until next Wednesday when we get him down here in black and red and a number on his jersey and get him working and by training camp, he will be a lot better.”
You were a starting guard at OSU and everything was going great when Greg was injured, then Greg comes back and things change. Did that humble you? Can you talk about the second half of the season and the Orlando camp?
Daequan Cook: “Those things make you stronger. It was a lesson that I learned. Coming into the NBA, you are not going to start or play right off the bat. To this day, I don’t really know why I didn’t play towards the end of the season, but it was a lesson that I learned. To have the opportunity to play with those guys and to win like we did, it was a great experience for me. A lot of people, their freshman year, don’t have the chance to make it to the national championship game and I had that opportunity and that meant more than what was going on between my coach and I and why I didn’t play that much.”
What part of your game haven’t we seen?
DC: “I’m a great rebounder, a great shooter, a great scorer and I’m getting better and better on defense. I have the all-around game. I’m a two guard, but I can go down low. In high school I had the opportunity to play on the block a lot. So that helped my game a lot.”
How much does playing with Greg Oden translate to playing with Shaquille O’Neal?
DC: “It helped me a lot, having the opportunity to play with great players. Greg is one of the best big men to play the college game and now I’m playing with Shaq, the best big man in the game. I also had the opportunity to play with Mike, the floor general, just like Dwyane Wade. Playing with great players mean they are always getting double-teamed and are looking to pass the ball. You have to be the type of player who can knock down shots.”
Why did you pick Ohio State?
DC: “I made that decision for myself. Mike, Greg and I always talked about going to the same college, getting the opportunity to play together at the college level, since we all got scholarships to go there. But my decision was about my family. My family is the most important thing to me and I feel that it was important for my mom to come see me play at least 18 to 20 times out of the season, being only an hour away from home. That was very important to me. I owe my mom a lot and for her to be able to come see me play was important.”
At the beginning of the season, you were doing very well at Ohio State before Greg Oden came back from injury. Talk about how you felt and the sense of accomplishment.
DC: “I was just playing my role knowing that Greg (Oden) wasn’t there and we didn’t have our dominant big man. I knew I played a big role in coming off the bench and doing the thing I was good at doing, and that’s what I did. I took it upon myself as a challenge to step up to the plate. I felt like Mike (Conley, Jr.) and the rest of the players couldn’t do it by themselves, so I felt like coming off the bench and giving that spark the starters needed would help us out a lot.”
PR: “One of the reasons why we drafted him, we expect that in four years from now he will continue to talk to Greg and Mike (audience laughter). I think it’s about four years (audience laughter). I’m only kidding. They’re good friends, so you never know what may happen down the road. There’s a team who won a world championship this year by the name of San Antonio. One of their best players is Manu Ginobili and he came off the bench. I understand and I value as much as anybody who can start and who can play and players who can come off the bench and play. We have always had players like that. He started at the beginning of the year (in college) and played extremely well at the beginning of the year. I watched a lot of those at the beginning of the year when he was getting minutes and then he sacrificed because he had a couple of veterans ahead of him. As a freshman, sometimes that’s the way it is. The fact that they got to the final game of the NCAA and he was a guy who was coming off the bench, we never looked at that as a negative at all. We looked at all the upside that we felt he had as a player. He came in here on the last day of workouts and I felt like he was the best player of the six players we had in here. I fell in love with his stoke. We don’t give these guys a little 15-minute workout. They were out there for a couple of hours, and in a couple of hours you can see a guy’s work ethic and his conditioning. I was impressed with his overall game. Not only did the workout help me, but that in itself is not the only reason you draft him. It’s his body of work and what he’s done in high school, what he’s done in college. I can remember Dwyane Wade having the worst workouts that we’ve ever had when he came out of the draft, and we still picked him at No. 5. If we would have gone by that work out, then I wouldn’t be here today, neither would Randy (Pfund). I don’t think the fact that his coming off the bench is going to do anything else but to help us because that’s where he’ll probably start here unless he just comes out and shows it.”
From this interview it sounds like Cook is ready to be a rotation player. In recent history, you have been reluctant to play younger players. Are you now changing your philosophy about putting young players in the rotation?
PR: “They have to be players. It isn’t about putting a younger player in a rotation, it’s about putting a player in a rotation that beats everyone else out and forces you to play him. We have always had veteran guys, and we have a lot of depth here. I’ll probably always lean to the guy who I’m going to feel a little more comfortable with. However, I’ve never had a problem with playing any young player who could play, ever, and can contribute. We’ll find out shortly. We’ll find out during training camp, but I do know because of our vulnerability in the free agent draft with some of our players, we had to cover our tail with getting a guy who can shoot and score. But so far from what I’ve seen, he has the best stroke of anyone that we brought in here; just flat out shooting stroke. He has great lift on his shot. It’s just true. Every time it leaves his hands you feel like it’s going in. A lot of guys aren’t mechanically gifted like that. This is about developing the total part of his game.”
Is his skill set sort of like what you had with John Starks?
PR: “No. I tell you a player who he sort of reminds me a little bit of; that player didn’t have the same size; Voshon Lenard. When Voshon came in, he was 6-4, 6-3, but he had a stroke and we saw it immediately, and Voshon started for us immediately. That’s what impressed me the most about him, plus his overall size at 6-5 . He also has great length with a plus-4 wingspan and we’ll make him a better defender.”
Daequan, we understand that you have a bit of a sweet tooth, tell us about it.
DC: “I was in love with it, just something sweet. My favorite candy was Skittles. In high school I used to eat a bag of Skittles before every game. Just growing up and being the oldest grandchild, my grandfather used to always spoil me and give me candy. That just led to candy being one of my biggest loves. I love candy and sweets.”
How much did you consider going back to college?
DC: “I considered it a lot. If I felt like I wasn’t ready, I was going to go back, but after going to Orlando I proved to myself that I was capable of playing on the next level with the best players in the world. It said a lot for me to go there and make that decision knowing that a lot of people felt like I wasn’t ready. But proving it to myself, that I was ready to make the next big step, made me more confident in the decision that I made.”
