00:03I'm Lacey Hawthorne with D210 Sports and with me I have Daniel Gafford. How are you?
00:08I'm doing good. How are you?
00:09Good. So you're one of the returners on this team. There's a lot of the young players that
00:14are looking up to you. Tell me about that and what you've been doing to pass things on down
00:18to them.
00:20Really the main thing, of course, leading by example. I'm not really too vocal when
00:23it comes to just like the leadership side of things. So whenever a question is asked
00:27to me, I definitely try my best to give my best advice in any given area that they
00:32ask me about. But the main thing is just coming in and just, you know, putting my
00:36head down and working, letting guys know kind of like what it takes to really kind
00:39of like make it in this league. You know, I've been blessed to be able to go. This
00:43is my eighth media day. So it's not every day you get to, you know, say that when it
00:47comes to this league. There's a lot of new guys coming in, the spot changes being
00:51made year in, year out. So I definitely have taken the time to just really just
00:55give thanks to being in a position that I'm going to be in the next week.
00:57Okay. Speaking of those changes, you guys have got a new head coach, new coaching
01:03staff, lots of new players on this team. Tell me a bit about how you're fitting
01:08into this system and some of your first impressions on head coach Dusty May.
01:13Well, Coach Dusty, I mean, I've been saying it to everybody today, man. He is a basketball
01:17like head for sure. Like he loves the game, implements all his energy, all his time, all his focus,
01:25everything, and to really just finding ways to be the best at anything. Honestly, best
01:29at coaching, best at anything. And if he could lace up, put a jersey on and some shorts and
01:33be able to go out there and play with us, he'd definitely do that. But really just
01:37fitting into his system, you know, he obviously got the chance to coach one of our draft picks,
01:42Morez. So it's just like, you know, picking up basically where he left off and just trying
01:46to implement just like that ideal of just like the big man making the majority of decisions
01:51on the floor when it comes to the big having the ball in his hands. But like, you know,
01:55I can definitely evolve when it comes to just like my craft, my play style, into doing some
02:00of the things that he's expecting me to do. So we conversate on it almost every day and
02:04he's helping me for sure.
02:06Okay. And you are known as one of the more athletic bigs on this team. Tell me a bit about
02:11how running the floor is going to be very important for you this season and fitting into this system.
02:16I mean, it's going to be big because of course, you know, it helps you get in shape, being
02:20able to run as much as I do. And, you know, it gives us opportunities on the floor to get
02:25threes up because I mean, as much as I can put gravity, you know, and put, you know, I would
02:30say a lot of, this is what I'm looking for, a lot of pressure on the rail gives us the
02:35opportunity
02:35to get threes up that we want to shoot or the transition buckets that we want to keep, so
02:40on and so forth. So really just being in the best shape that I'm going to be in, that helps
02:44us out so much.
02:45All right. So a couple of fun questions here. Who throws the best lobs on the team?
02:52Oh, man. I think right now, with the lobs that I've been getting with all the workouts
02:57that we've been doing, I would say one of the new guys, Kariq, definitely him. The list
03:02of mine would be like Kariq, maybe Kai, you know, him and Kai are kind of like neck and neck.
03:07And Cooper's learning how to throw some lobs.
03:10Okay. Last question. What is your dream destination spot?
03:13Dream destination spot. Um, ah, that's a good question. I'd say somewhere in the mountain,
03:21for sure. I don't know just the pinpointed destination really in the mountain, but somewhere
03:26far off in the mountains where it's just me, my people.
03:29I don't know.
03:30All right. Well, thank you so much for your time and good luck on the season.
03:37Yeah.
