As you know, I don’t comment on trades. I will say we’ve had discussion with them. I can’t go into specifics other than we’ve had discussions.

There are certainly a lot of bugs to be ironed out, but it’s a good step in the right direction.

I was very surprised. I had no idea this was coming. They told me they want someone with more experience.

There’s a lot of players on our team who are young . . . and we think they’re going to be good players for us in the future. It just depends on how quickly they...

He gives us insurance at the point guard position and will help our younger players develop.

We signed Rafer to a six-year deal last year without any really healthy point guards other than Milt Palacio. Things kind of changed over the summer. Rafer still would have been a good fit for...

We certainly would like to have him back on our basketball team. But we have to take a look at everything when the season ends, that gets into money situations, roster spots, draft picks. We...

Of course I’m still pulling for (the Raptors).

It’s unrelated, since we still could have signed another player now without waiving anyone, … That’s not to say for sure that we won’t sign someone next week. But we still may wait until just...

No one is going to force me to make a trade. I’ve made it very clear the only way I would trade any player on our team is if it’s a trade that makes us...

We had to do something with our roster. We could have waited but we looked at all kinds of different possibilities, two-for-one (trades), things like that. We just couldn’t come up with anything that worked.

It just made sense to do it, … He was the least likely of them to get any playing time.

When we looked at the other (free-agent) point guards who were available, we determined a lot of them weren’t worth the money. And of the ones we were interested in, we had to ask ourselves,...

We still have some trades we’re pursuing with regard to balancing our roster.

He’s a real man who has a strong character. He’s not one of those guys who will come in and complain that they aren’t staying in a five-star hotel.

We more or less have the same team back with the exception of Donyell Marshall, who was an integral part of our team last year. We’re replacing him with rookies.

There is a good chance of that,

Matt is more than just a good basketball player. He is the consummate professional who places his team first and gives a total effort every night.

[Toronto’s Jalen Rose, appearing on] Best Damn Sports Show Period, … I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard anybody in professional sports make a comment so negative that early in the season. … The Bad News...

Other point guards in his range are not likely to want to come in here and compete with Rafer and Calderon, … He wasn’t afraid to come in here knowing what we had.

We can’t get him unless he suddenly turns into a minimum-salary guy,

Waiving a player never is easy, because you essentially are firing someone, … But looking at our team, this was the most logical choice.

The message that we want to get out there is basically what our plan is,

But those things usually work themselves out during training camp.

He was the logical choice. We’re loaded at his position. He wasn’t going to play that much so this makes sense for both parties.

That was the best trade out there. There was no better trade.

I would say it’s probably a long shot,

Even bad teams have optimism. The Bad News Bears’ coach wouldn’t even tell his team that.

I think if you look at us on paper, we probably will not win as many games as last year.

Things didn’t go as well as we would have hoped last year, but I was very optimistic that would have been turned around based off our discussions and the way things were going with our...

I don’t make comments on any trade discussions or rumors,

We’d be getting the opportunity to be as strong a team as possible (by adding Duhon) and it would give us a lot of flexibility,

It was a tough situation for him,

We had expressed some interest in him, sure. I’m not trying to hide anything. We spoke with his agent. But he falls directly into that category where we determined we don’t have enough money left...

We’re pursuing trades and other free agents as well. We’ll just have to keep pursuing them and see which one pops up and take the best one we can get.

We still have a long way to go, but we have the guys here now who see what the plan is, and they understand it, … They realize that there’s no cutting corners, that it’s...

We are excited to have Pape back with us. He has worked very hard on his game over the past year, both during the season and throughout the summer.

[Alston really smoothed things out in the locker room following the game, telling the media that he was] tired of getting into it with my teammates and my coaches. … might not even play the...

First, we eventually are going to need that roster spot,

There will be growing pains, no doubt about it,

We are very close to agreeing to something with Matt. I anticipate it getting done quickly.

I can’t go into any of the financial details, but some things were worked out that will help us,

The owner calls every Monday 9 a.m. sharp. The cafeteria closes for lunch at 2. The washroom is down the hall to the left. And, oh yeah, Vince Carter wants to be traded.

We’ve got some good young kids and it depends on their learning curves and how quickly they develop.

If I had to guess, I’d guess they would probably match, … … But there’s a little chance they might not. You have to be aggressive and see what happens.

[ ”²Toronto’s Jalen Rose, appearing on] Best Damn Sports Show Period, … I’m pretty sure I’ve never heard anybody in professional sports make a comment so negative that early in the season. … The Bad...

Chris, along with Rafer Alston and Jose Calderon, would give us flexibility in the guard positions. Chris was the starting point guard for a playoff team in Chicago and won a national championship with Duke....