After the Jazz announced yesterday that the team had promoted Michael Sanders to be an assistant coach and added Brad Jones to the coaching staff, coach Tyrone Corbin spoke to the media about his staff and his roster heading into the season. Brian T. Smith of the Salt Lake Tribune rounded up Corbin's comments, so let's take a look at the highlights:
On Sanders' work in player development:
"I think I was fortunate last year being able to get Mike as a player development coach. With his experience as a player; the fact he’s been a bench coach in this league…. I thought he did a great job with Enes [Kanter] and Derrick [Favors], even Al [Jefferson] and Paul [Millsap]. After practice, getting them shots in the post and teaching. Working with Enes, especially, on how to use his body some, using low-post moves, and got him up to speed. When we started camp, I didn’t know if we was going to have the opportunity to play Enes in the beginning of training camp. And he continued to work with Mike and did a good job of learning – we were able to get him in the games some last year. I’m extremely happy with the work Mike has done so far."
On adding Jones to Utah's staff:
"For the last few years, as an assistant coach, I thought he’d be great to work with as an assistant coach. Then when I became a head coach, he just became one of the guys that I had — I always keep a list of guys if something happened may be candidates for joining us."
On whether the Jazz players are working out together before training camp:
"They are aware they have to be in great shape when camp starts. We talked about it at the end of the year, we talked about it during the course of the summer. We’ve been out to see some guys. We have a group now in Santa Barbara — we have a great group working to get better. So the guys are working. They’re working together, they’re working individual when they depart and go back to where they’re from or where they stay in the summer."
On having a full offseason and 82-game regular season to incorporate the team's offseason acquisitions:
"I’m anxious to get started, because we have so much expectation of where and who we are and how to get better. We’re anxious to get started to see where we are individually. And we have to build the team again. We’ve added some guys with Mo [Williams] coming over and Marvin Williams… Randy Foye… There’s a lot of questions still around. We have to build a team again. That’s going to be working everyday from day one, to understanding who we are and how we have to work together to be an effective team on the floor."