David Griffin press conference

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Griff says Lonzo has told the team 1-on-1 that he wants to be with the Pelicans.

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......for the right price.

Griff on the kids.

He said after the New Year's break Jaxson

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came back with a totally different mind set and he has attacked the weight room the last 6 weeks or so in a way that he hadn't. I think he's completely bought into the realization that he can play multiple positions and that he can guard virtually anybody. He knows what his strengths are and I think as he continues to learn how not to foul he'll continue to be on the court longer because offensively he's incredibly, incredibly gifted and I think you're seeing that night after night now.

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On Kira

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I think Kira Lewis is playing significantly more than we anticipated when we drafted him. I think we even said this about Jaxson last year, if he redshirted it would have been fine with us. Unfortunately there was no GLeague season really at the time that our season started for him to continue to get reps and Kira came into this with no Summer League, no GLeague, no Pre-Draft workouts. So for him to be as good as he is already in NBA games as a 19 year old kid is mind numbing. And like Jaxson he's among the very hardest workers on our team, he's incredibly diligent in the weight room, his attention to his player development workouts with Theresa Weatherspoon have been incredible. So I think you're seeing him grow and evolve rapidly, far more rapidly than we had any right to believe he would.

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On NAW

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Nickeil Alexander-Walker is somebody that we believe very strongly is a starter in this league. And when he's had consistent opportunities to play minutes I think he's shown that. I think he had a stretch of games where he was not particularly very good playing consistent minutes, but he's also shown incredible flashes of brilliance and we think as he grows and evolves as a player he's going to show more and more of those and less and less of the frustrating times.

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Griff says

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Griffin admits he probably didn't give the coaches enough defensive versatility on the roster to start the season.

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If we re-sign Lonzo, we'll likely have four quality guards next season who could all start somewhere in the league: Lonzo, Hart, NAW, and Kira.

We really need to find a PF to backup Zion, or a guy who can play SF/PF. Maybe we can get one in the draft.

Assuming that we re-sign Lonzo and Hart, that means that (absent a big trade like Bradley Beal in the summer), we'll almost certainly be bringing back:

Zion
BI
Hart
Adams
NAW
Kira
Lonzo
Hayes

No one else is essential to bring back, though I think that Hernangomez on a minimum deal is worth it. That's 9 players. (I am currently assuming that Griff finds finds a way to dump Bledsoe this summer.)

But the point is that we have now developed a core going forward and can draft several players to develop. We aren't going to use all our draft picks, but I think that we should draft three guys and also bring in Didi. If we try to develop four players, there's a good chance that we'll hit on a couple.

And hitting on a couple more young talents is the key to sustaining a title run. Yes, we could trade Hayes/Kira/NAW in a blockbuster trade for someone like Beal, but then the cupboard is bare for the future.

tldr: We'll have minutes next season for young players, so we should draft three and bring in Didi and see if can find a couple of studs.