Rod Thorn on impending sale, trades, and Thursday's draft

Does the news of the potential sale alter anything the basketball side is trying to do?

'You know something, it really doesn’t. We operate under the idea of business as usual. I’m sure if and when the sale is completed, that if there is a new ownership, every owner is different as to how they deal with their quote-unquote basketball people. So we’ll have to see how that goes, if and when it finally happens. Right now we’re operating the way we normally do."

Have you had any contact with the potential new owners?

"I have. I’ve had a couple of conversations with the various members of the potential new group. You know, again, it’s basically business as usual."

When you have these meetings, are they picking your brain?

"Yes, they have questions about how we do things, why we do things, what we think of our personnel, what we think we need. Those type of information-type questions."
Would you say you guys are eyeing a big man in this draft?

"That’s one of the things we’re definitely looking at, a big man be it a power forward or center type. But we also, in our estimation, we also need a shooter. So that’s something that we’re looking at also. So to say that we’re going to pick big, there’s a good chance that we will, but we also may not."

Can you address those needs in the draft or will you need to do it via trade?

"We feel that we can get a player at 16 that can help up, hopefully play in a rotation. I’m not saying next year, but hopefully will be a rotation player for us. We feel in this draft there aren’t a lot of players who I think might be real stars, but there are a lot of role, rotation-type players. It’s deep in that. Where we are, that’s what we’re looking for. We think we’ll have two or three guys that will get to us that will be good players."

Is it safe to say that Andre Iguodala has been the main topic of conversation when talking with other teams?

"I would not say that. Obviously with all of the speculation, there have been conversations that have involved him, but we’ve had conversations that have involved other players on our team, too."

Do you initiate the majority of the conversations involving Iguodala?

"I wouldn’t say that we initiate the majority of the conversations, but maybe some of them."

Do you think in order to get a big man that would be impactful that you’d have to trade Iguodala to do that?

"I don’t necessarily think that. Big men are at a premium, they’re very hard to get, they’re very hard to find. And normally when teams have top-flight big men, they don’t trade them. That’s a commodity that’s hard to find."