Nick Nurse talked about his first meeting with Kawhi Leonard following his trade to the Toronto Raptors.

“I’d never talked to him before. I don’t think I’m alone in that. So you get a perception of him,” Nurse said. “I’ll be honest with you. I kind of went in there thinking, ‘What if he doesn’t say anything? What am I going to do?’ ”

Nurse was pleasantly surprised by how engaged Leonard was with him.

“I sat down and said, ‘Do you have any questions?’ And he started firing them,” Nurse said. “And it just led us to a really easygoing (conversation). Not what I was expecting. Very smart. Very intelligent. Very engaging. Really enjoyed it … (Management) had to drag us out of there in the end because they had to go do something else. But it was great.”

Nurse and Leonard met for approximately 45 minutes.

“We could have gone forever. (Raptors management) kept knocking on the door and I was like, ‘A couple more minutes.’ Because we were really into it,” Nurse said. “It was fun to listen to his take. He asked me, ‘How are you going to use me? Where are you going to get me the ball? What do you see?’ And I told him, ‘Listen. To me, you can do pretty much everything. You can post. You can drive. You can handle it up the floor. You can play screen and roll. You can come off pindowns.’ I said, ‘Did I miss anything?’ He’s like, ‘No, that’s about it.’ I said, ‘You’ll probably be doing all that stuff.’ ”

Trae Young revealed he patterns his game after Steve Nash more than Stephen Curry.

“I try to be Steve Nash more than Steph,” Young told Yahoo Sports. “I do blend Nash and Steph a lot, but my favorite player growing up was Steve Nash. I get a lot of Steph comparisons, and I agree I do have a few attributes that are similar to Steph. But Steve Nash is a Hall of Famer, though, and Steph will be one day, too. I know I always have to show and prove my passing ability. I have to get better on that aspect, and I definitely work on that a lot.

“I shoot my shots, and sometimes they’re going to go in, sometimes they’re not. I live with that. Everyone on the outside might come down on me, but I put in the reps so I’m confident every time I shoot.

“This Summer League has been a good test for me to stay focused, a good test to make sure that I keep a good mindset. It’s a test and I have to continue to handle it well. I want to be the face of us continuing to grow as a team and rise as a franchise.”

Young knows his body will have to hold up to the rigors of the NBA. Young gained around 12 pounds of muscle during the pre-draft process while working with strength and conditioning trainer Travelle Gaines.

David Fizdale talked about what he believes will turnaround the New York Knicks.

"Staying with the process of it," said Fizdale. "Not getting overzealous and trying to hit a home run or do something that deep down inside we probably know is not a home run. And just being patient with our development, the way we build our culture from the ground up. Doing it the right way, not skipping any steps, treating each other well inside the walls of the organization with what the Knicks stand for. Feeling proud about the name ‘Knicks’ and really trying hard to hammer that down.

"With time, people will see that it is a different New York Knicks. The recruitment will take off. We will get the right type of free agents in to go along with these talented kids."

Fizdale is frequent communication with Kristaps Porzingis and will visit him in Latvia this summer.

"Yeah, we talked. We WhatsApp all the time and check in on each other. And my wife and I are flying out in two weeks to go spend a week with him and his family."

Steve Kerr spoke about what he expects DeMarcus Cousins to add to the Golden State Warriors from a stylistic point of view.

"I think it’s going to be fascinating," said Kerr. "I think we’ve had a style of play here that we’ve been successful with. So we adapted a little bit when (Kevin Durant) got here and we’re going to have to adapt it some more with DeMarcus. He’s not a player that you just say, 'Go complement those guys.' He’s a dominant figure. And so you have to account for that. We have to account for it as a staff and try to give the team a vision for how this can work and then everybody has to sacrifice.

"It’s why we talked with Kevin and Draymond (Green) and Steph, Andre (Iguodala) about all this stuff because it’s going to be different, it’s going to feel different, but I think it’s important to keep evolving. You know the league keeps chasing us. Everybody’s getting better; you saw what Houston did. You’re seeing everybody switch everything against us. They’ve kind of figured out a set of rules to try to defend us. It doesn’t mean it’s going to work, but they’re constantly tweaking and adding and trying to figure us out. I think this gives us a whole ‘nother dimension that they’ll have to account for so we’re just trying to stay ahead of the pack."

Kerr spoke with Cousins before an agreement was reached.

"Sure. That was a prerequisite," said Kerr of the conversation. "I wanted to talk to him about how this was going to work and I told him a little bit about KD’s transition into the team and how there is sacrifice involved, but the sacrifice is relative. It depends how you look at it. If you want to win, if you want to be part of a great team, is that really sacrificing?

"So DeMarcus is a really smart basketball player. He’s a great passer and we talked a lot about how this gives us the option to throw the ball into the post to him and play our style with all the shooters around him but with the ability to get right to the rim too. With a big man. We’ve had that a little bit with David West but not this type of power and size down there. So there’s going to be a new dimension, but I told him there’s also going to be six straight possessions where you’re only going to see the ball because we’re playing so fast we’re jacking it up. Steph’s shooting, Klay (Thompson)’s shooting, KD’s shooting. So you have to understand this is not going to be the usual for you where you’re getting all these touches, but he understands all that. That’s the key.

"He understands that it’s going to be a different role for him, but he’s excited about it. He wants to win. He’s never played in the playoffs. He’s played with these guys before, some of them in the Olympics and Team USA, but we needed to talk about all that to create an awareness and an understanding before we all sort of committed to this. It’s not necessarily going to be easy, but we all have to commit to the team and go for it."

While the New York Knicks have played some small lineups with Kristaps Porzingis at center and his preference is to play power forward, David Fizdale envisions the possibility of playing him at small forward as well.

“Anthony Davis, you name him, he’s that,” Fizdale said. “It’s that dynamic guy who can outrun everybody but you can’t put a small on him. You put somebody too big on him he can pull him away from the rim. Defensively, he can guard everybody.”

Fizdale told Porzingis about his interest in playing him at the 3.

“In our conversations I just told him, ‘I don’t have a position for you. Are you cool with that?’ ” Fizdale said. “He’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t like being put in a box.’

“I’m not going to put him in a position to fail. I’m not going to throw him in a situation where he’s going against some brute out there and get beat to death. At the same time, our league doesn’t really have a lot of those guys anymore. He gives me a lot of flexibility to move him four, to five and even some three.”

Fizdale said he’s already thought of a lineup with 6-9 rookie Kevin Knox at shooting guard, Porzingis at small forward, 7-1 Luke Kornett at power forward and 7-1 rookie Mitchell Robinson at center.

“Put a whole bunch of wingspan with Kevin at the two and see how teams deal with that at the rim and with our length,” Fizdale said. “I can’t lock him into nothing.”

Magic Johnson outlined the Los Angeles Lakers' roster building plan for LeBron James during their initial meeting at the start of free agency on July 1st.

Sources say James has been consulted on their moves but have been executed at the direction of Johnson and Rob Pelinka.

The Lakers are attempting to chart a new course for James' future with the Lakers than the style of basketball he played with the Cleveland Cavaliers.

"Unlike most free agents changing teams, LeBron is arriving with the Lakers as an all-time great," a source close to James said. "He doesn't have pressure to prove anything. He wants some changes and he can afford to let the process breathe."

Cleveland prioritized specialists, many of them shooters.

Johnson pitched James a team stocked with tough-minded playmakers like Lance Stephenson and Rajon Rondo, which could free up James to finish in the lanes and from the post. Rondo and Stephenson are also switchable on defense.

"I know some people are rolling their eyes but I like what the Lakers have done," a rival Western Conference executive said. "You can find shooters. They've taken some in the last few drafts. Playmakers matter and are harder to find."

James has studied the careers of Kobe Bryant and Michael Jordan, realizing that both players moved from the wing to the post as they aged.