Marcin Gortat had a breakout game in game 6 of the first round against the Philadelphia 76ers when he filled in for Dwight Howard during his suspension and posted a double-double. The NBA took notice and the Dallas Maverick gave him a five-year contract. The Magic surprisingly matched the offer for the Center and retained Gortat. He talked about this and much more at Media Day Monday.
On Patrick Ewing’s impact
"Patrick, he works with me more mentality. We talk a lot and he’s just telling me what I’m suppose to do but right now, I work with Brendan Malone. That’s the main guy."
On Stan Van Gundy’s training camp
"It’s long. The main thing, what I’m trying to focus on, is to stay focused in whatever – three hours in the morning and two hours in the afternoon. That’s thing, you just have to focus, that’s the main thing. You just have to stay focused for many hours. It’s obviously hard, like every training camp, but if you come in in great shape, especially in my situation, I’m coming off a whole summer where I was playing."
On his love for cars
"It’s just making my small dreams come true. I always wanted to have a BMW F5 and the way I wish to have it. Some people like houses, some people like a lot of cars, some people like diamonds. I like cars, that’s how it is."
On which nickname he prefers – Polish Hammer or Polish Machine
"Polish Machine. That’s the one since I started playing basketball. First of all, because I’m running like a machine and I’m never getting tired. I’m working like crazy in the weight room ever day and just lifting up and down. And because of my robotic moves under the basket, they’re like machine moves. You can put a wall in the middle and I’m still going to go through this wall because that’s how I learn."
Why he’s glad to be back in Orlando
"Great team where we can win the championship. Great coaching staff. And fans."
His favorite memory from last year
"My sixth game against Philly where I was replacing Dwight and I had a double-double.I think we just played well. We had a good day."
On if he felt pressure in game 6.
"Hell yeah. It was right after a lot of stuff in the media and I just knew that if we were going to win all this stuff must go away. It was just my day. I was praying for this day and my mom went to the church and prayed for me and a lot of people back home Poland were watching the playoffs and I just tried to win. That’s all."
On his new offensive moves we heard about in Poland
"Well, you know, it’s not always about new offensive moves. I don’t think there’s any move which I haven’t seen. It just depends against who you’re playing, how you’re feel every day, if you’re focused and coming concentrated to the game. It depends who you play. If you play against a slow guy and guy who has a low basketball IQ that’s not the highest then trust me, you can do every move on him but you know playing against Dwight, trust me, you just got to do everything perfectly, smart, quick, you just got to be brave to do it. If you hesitate one time, he’s got you."
On playing with Dwight and all the other NBA players in EuroBasket and if he’s more prepared than ever for the upcoming season
"Oh yeah. I feel like I’m in great shape and conditionally, I’m really good. Hopefully, I’m not going to be tired in the middle of the season.Dwight is a really good defender but his defense is a little different than mine. He relies a lot on blocking the shot because of his ability to jump, his ability to go up is way different than mine. I like to work a little bit earlier before the guy gets position. Our defenses are different, but if he learns something new, I’m learning something new."
On if he’s looking forward to guarding Shaq
"Yeah, why not. It’s cool Guarding Shaq is really good. Especially, you know, he’s got a round back and he has to play defense, so he has to catch me up too."
On playing against Hedo in EuroBasket
"Yeah, Hedo. We had a lot of talk with that. I was hoping that this year I was going to win against him and obviously I didn’t make it. I had a good game but still we lost. We lost. We lost and I was switching every pick-and-roll just to play against Hedo one on one but every time he passed the ball out. Every time, so I won this battle."
I really like the confidence that the Polish Machine (not Polish Hammer) showed. He should see more minutes and I believe he is the best backup big man in all of basketball.
Next up: Jameer Nelson
(Andrew Melnick is Howard the Dunk’s lead blogger. Subscribe to his RSS feed and add him on Twitter to follow him daily.)