Head Coach Jordan Ott Media Availability | Phoenix Suns Training Camp Day 4

Head Coach Jordan Ott Media Availability | Phoenix Suns Training Camp Day 4

You got nothing better to do. This is a good thing. Wanted to ask about what have you seen from him as far as his body development since he got I think that’s the plan day one. You know, anytime you get a 19-year-old young guy to come in the league, um the biggest piece is usually the strength. It’s not the skill and obviously it’s not his size. He has both of those. It’s just a strength piece. um just for him to function in in in the NBA and also uh for his health and you know to try to prevent you know those those big collisions that he he’s going to have. So he’s attacked it day one in here multiple times a day set a great foundation of his professional habits which we’ve been on and um he’s done a great job. You can see it obviously with his body. What have you noticed the added muscle weight as when he played? What can you see at the moment? Okay, that’s a function of him being big or strong. I think you look at young bigs and how they run like their gate and how they run. Um I think because a lot of times you’re going to get into the lane or around the rim and there’s going to be other bodies. So, how do you maneuver um with him before contact or after contact? So, I think some of that just how he’s running, how he’s carrying himself. Um there’ll be a conditioning piece to all this um based on how fast the game is playing and how fast we want to play. So those are the the key parts that he’s he’s now attacking. I think those first couple months when he comes in the summer it’s weight gain, strength gain. Now there’s a conditioning piece that uh you know he’s he has to get after every day. So when I say run part of that, right? Yeah. That’s all a plan too. It’s you know it’s you know there’s a build up to everyone’s season to opening night to be ready to play as many minutes as we need. So, you know, if you don’t happen to get into some of these scrimmages as much, like we still need you to get to your spot um of what today’s supposed to be. Yesterday was a no practice day. Today’s a higher day. Um you still got to get there even if you don’t get all the reps. What stood out to you so far about Kobe? The shooting piece is real. I mean, every day felt it in in summer league feel every day here. He has great confidence about him. He knows he can shoot it. That’s he knows it. He knows he can shoot it at this level. He has good size. I think, you know, one of the things he can he can really pass. I think that’s something that we didn’t quite anticipate. I think he saw it a little bit in summer league. You see it show up at times when people run him off the line. He’s got to put it on the ground to get into the inside the paint. His thing is going to be can he rebound at the NBA level on the defensive end and can he guard his position. We know he’s already a really good shooter and the NBA skill of shooting is the one we need. He has it. It’s going to be on the other end. Um, he knows it. He’s going to have to compete every day to learn and grow in that area. Was saying day with such a young team, he needs to use his voice more. Have you seen that over these first four or five days of camp? Yeah, I think Book has probably always used his voice. You know, when you’re when you’re that good of a player, I you know, you always have the ability to speak in front of the team and when you speak everyone listens. Um you know from day one here he’s been great great around the guys. He’s not just talking the talk he’s talking when he has points that he really wants to emphasize and that’s very important to us. That’s who he is. He’s a thoughtful, high character person that when he speaks, everyone listens for a reason because he’s very, very on point with what he says. When you look at Kobe, um, when you look at him working off the ball specifically, does his routes stand out to you at all? Yeah, just watch Book. I mean, he’s got a great um person to model his NBA skill set after. Um, I think that that piece of the NBA offense is is kind of dying out. There’s not as many guys that can shoot off the move or off off screens as there were five or 10 years ago. So, um, he can do it. He can do it off the move. Now, we need to add it off the dribble, add something to a closeout game. So, um, but definitely off off of screens, catch and shoot, he definitely has that. When you look at your your offense in the half court, it feels like a trend with the NBA doing a lot of that single side pick and roll with your offense. Does it matter for that because of how much movement is happening as primary action takes place? We never want to compromise pace into an action with someone filling that corner to balance out the offense. So if we flow into our offense and uh that corner is not filled, we have actions with that corner empty. So um whatever if there’s a person in the corner, if there’s not, we’ll have reads and situations that we can quickly get to. Um, but yeah, empty side pick and roll is is hard to guard. Definitely hard to guard. To the to the pace point in the half court, uh, how do you create that? Because teams don’t want to just concede that to you. So, how do you kind of go about creating that in the half court being to play so I think you just um, you know, do you have an advantage? Do you not? Cross half court. Do you have an advantage? Do you not? Once you don’t have an advantage, now you got to get one. So, where are your chess pieces at at the time when you’re in neutral and you don’t have an advantage? Um, where’s your five? Because that’s usually the next domino that that gets played. If he’s already down the floor in the dunker, it’s probably quicker to get something else. Um, that way you can get the next advantage into the possession. And then also the confidence to if anyone’s open, shoot it. And there might not be a better opportunity later in the possession. So everyone knows if you get to your spot, if you’re open, go ahead. We have the full faith to let it go. And once that thing gets up on the glass, we’ll have a solution for for that, too. You look at just what you guys were able to do today coming off an off day. What do you feel like you guys accomplished today? Yeah, those are uh tricky days, you know, after first off day, Sunday, football, Mercury game. You know, they think there’s a lot that goes on on on Sundays, especially in the fall, but our guys had great intent. Great u purpose to come in here and get something done. I think the competitiveness of our group, like when you start to play against each other, that that picks up the energy of the practice, you know, live play today against each other, tomorrow won’t be as much. Wednesday will be more of of player on player u playing. And then, you know, Thursday, the day before the game, there probably won’t be as much. So they know exactly upfront what these play days entail. We try to give them as much heads up as we can um for the week and the next week. Um so they know when they walk in the building that you know this is a high day we have to get after it. Who jumped off the board like in the scrimmages who maybe you did hadn’t seen before, hadn’t seen a lot of you co I know you probably seen most of these guys coaching against them, but who’s jumped off the board? What players jumped off the board? Those are hard, Dwayne. We’re so early in the season. I I think uh you know some guy some guys have been here for a while. You know um some of those younger guys know kind of more of the system than than than the others. I think that helps them right now. Um I think you have some veteran players that know how to get themselves ready by October 22nd. So um but it doesn’t matter where you’re at when the ball’s jumped up and it gets super competitive. Um that’s when it really gets going. So, I think overall that competitiveness is what we’re that’s the big rock. That’s the big bucket that we’re we’re talking about each day. Um, you know, once we get that level of competitiveness, physicality, everything else we’ll we’ll refine. We’ll we’ll dive into a little bit after that. The first pieces we got to get after it um which we have. What kind of things have you seen from Rashir? Um, going through his first training camp has what things have stood out to you from him? size, wingspan, um athleticism, great great human, great professional, really cares, wants to be really good. Um just an overall high character young guy that you know, you can tell without knowing his career path from high school to college to how he popped late in his career, you can feel it like he he is a really good basketball player. He’s an NBA player. It has just come along for him. It wasn’t like as an younger age he he was that you know he has worked to get to this spot and now we have to reinforce he is a really good player and he has a long career ahead of him because of his habits because of who he is. The skills will follow. Um so he’s in a good place. It’s we have to give him confidence knowing hey Rashir you’re you’re really good and we’re really excited about you. um because he still has that, you know, um mentality of I I, you know, where am I at? Am I really in the NBA? Some of that stuff we’re got to give him confidence to know, hey, you’re a good player and we’re thankful that you’re here. Some of that shown up in the last few days of practice. Yeah. I don’t know who prepped you with this, but yeah, he had a really good day today, so someone must have brought that up, but yeah, he had a really good day today. Speaking of the Mercuries, I no coincidence that you’re sporting some Mercury gear. Just talk about, you know, being associated with them organizationally, but some interesting parallels too, like completely new team for the most part. It’s kind of what you guys are setting out to hear. Just talk about their success and and I don’t even brought it up with the guys or if it doesn’t even need to be spoken. We definitely the guys care, you know, the guys it’s it’s really cool to see them follow them care about the Mercury. Um actually again was talking to Nate this morning and he wanted to relay how important it was for his group that our players show up for them and I’m I’m speaking to our team about it as we started the day in our film session. You could see the guys bobbing their head like they’re really behind and they’re obviously it’s a really good season. Their success creates our energy and you can see the fans show up for them. Our guys go to the games and see the fans show up for them. So that that stuff is is really cool. And I think how they play is um they formed their own identity even with all the roster flux, how aggressive, physical, gritty, tough their team is is because their best player plays that way. Um she plays a style of play that, you know, every coach would love to coach. Um she’s downhill in the paint making the right plays, plays super hard, physical, and everyone else rallies around her. So um I think our guys have really enjoy being a part of some of those atmospheres. A player like Rashir having a motor like do you look at that as a skill because it feels like it feels like that’s not something that everybody has and it’s a choice to have it and lean into it for productive ways. Yeah, totally. I think playing hardy is now a skill. I think before it was just taken for granted there probably in the NBA even before I was around and then for a while you know the outside thought oh you know you can’t play hard every night the way this game is played right now uh you have to play hard uh just because of how fast and how how many times you got to change ends how athletic these this you know player these players are playing hard is a skill and not everyone has that for 82 games if you can do it more often than the other team. It gives yourself a really good chance even when the shots aren’t falling. Thanks, coach. Thank you all.

Head Coach Jordan Ott speaks to the media following Day 4 of Phoenix Suns Training Camp on September 29th, 2025. Ott talks about day 4 standout Rasheer Fleming, Khaman bulking up, Koby Brea, Book’s leadership, and the Phoenix Mercury heading to the WNBA Finals.

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