Masai Ujiri Quotes

Smart drafting is a wonderful thing. A smart free-agent signing is a wonderful thing. Smart trades are a wonderful thing, and that's a function of management.

We draft mostly high school kids and we have one of the finest, if not the finest, player development programs and coaching staffs and we teach our players the right way to play. We also have a game plan in scouting, and there are certain types of players that we look for.

The important thing is to get the right players on the team so Mike can be successful.

Now, would we like to have that super quarterback? Absolutely. And if we have the opportunity to get that person or develop that person, that's what we'll do.

I think I have the skills. I'm a great judge of talent. I just know basketball.

What you don't want to do is to hang on to the aging superstar past his prime and take resources away you can otherwise use to build a better overall team.

General managers - I like to talk about the 'golden gut': general managers that not only can have a sense for the players that are going to perform beyond what people expect and get team chemistry right, but they also have to be able to make trades.

Every team in the league is always looking to upgrade its talent.

I think it is inevitable that I'll be coaching or be a GM.

If you buy too many bad players, you don't last in this game.

My job is to bring in players I think can help this team, regardless of where they're playing.

There are certain guys you just take from different teams that you watch.

You buy the right players for the system that you believe will be successful.

You always want all good players at your team.

At the end of the day, Coach Belichick does a great job of bringing in people he knows that will fit well.

My goal is to outwork everybody in recruiting, sign the best players in the state, and turn these guys into the best team we can.

It's all about putting the best team together - not just in the front office but the players on the field.

My job, when it comes to free agency, trades, is not to pick players, but support the personnel department and the coaching staff. We have to have the financial resources to make things happen and that's my job.

We probably spend more time talking about individual players in our coaching sessions than anything else.

So I'm going to tell you, it's going to be a good year. There are good players all over this country, and it is our job as a scouting department to find them, draft them, sign them, develop them, and help us to continue to win championships. So it's going to be a good year.

I've always thought that having an attractive free agent is better than a guy who was picked in the seventh round.

You win pennants in the off season when you build your teams with trades and free agents.

I'm so grateful to Ferguson. I think he's the best there's ever been, especially his squad management skills.

All of us that have teams want to pick the right people. I've thought a lot about that. In the NFL, we've got 13 scouts traveling the country. We're trying to pick 22 year-olds coming out of college who will be successful in the NFL. It's very hard to do. What I've learned is it's always character first.

If it wasn't for Paul Brown, I probably wouldn't have a job because he basically evolved scouting.