ChrisHaynes, CSNNW.com Trail Blazers Insider (@ChrisBHaynes)

Yesterday in his hometown, Portland Trail Blazers assistant coach Kaleb Canales served as a co-host on The Bryan Benway Show on KLNT 1490 AM in Laredo, TX. He spoke about his experience during the month-long coaching search and what it was like going to London to interview with owner Paul Allen among other topics.

Here are some excerpts.

 Bryan Benway: Whatwas it like going through the coaching search?

Kaleb Canales: Wellto be honest with you, like I've mentioned before you know in theNBA, I'm blessed enough to be born a Portland Trail Blazer and I'malways going to be a Portland Trail Blazer. And right after theseason, my focused turned onto the draft and our draft workouts andhaving competition, high level environment for those. And right afterthe draft, my full focus turned onto Summer League. A lot of ourroster players were going to be involved in Summer League. (I) feltwe had a good Summer League. It kind of felt like a little bit like atraining camp, like a two week training camp and that's how we triedto approach it. After that, obviously my focus has been on ouroffseason program which is big for us because it contains a lot ofplayer development. So after our Assist 13 basketball Camps here this week,I'm headed over to see LaMarcus (Aldridge) and spend some time withDamian (Lillard) and the rest of our guys, Wesley (Matthews) so it'san excited time for us."

B.B.: Whatwas it like to interview with Paul Allen in London

K.C.: It'spriceless and it's a blessing. I've mentioned it before, we're veryvery lucky and fortunate to have Mr. Allen as our owner. I feel he'sthe best owner in sports. He cares so much about the city, he'sinvested in our team, our players, our coaching staff so much. Andthat's very very important to us as an organization. It was greatbeing in London during the Olympics. As soon as you get off theplane, you could feel the energy. You can feel the environment. It'sjust live. Even though I was there for a short period of time, youcould just kind of feel it and it was a pretty cool experience."

B.B.: Howlong were you in London?

K.C.: "Myflight landed about 6:30am and I stayed the night until the next dayand my flight probably left around 1:30 London time...It was a quickturnaround...After my meeting with Mr. Allen, I had a chance to walkthrough Olympic Park and Olympic Village."

B.B.: Whatwas it like when you found out you didn't get the head job?

K.C.: Again,my focus has always been on the organization. And it was during thatweek in Las Vegas it was a basketball camp (Tim Grgurich's camp) that I've gotten a chanceand very fortunate to work over the past couple of years. I thinkthis was my sixth season working there. It's about 60 NBA players andabout 30 NBA coaches. So, my focus was just on my players there andtaking it in stride and finding a way for our guys to get betterduring the week."

B.B.: Howlong did it take for you to decide that you wanted to stay with theBlazers?

K.C.: Again,like I mentioned , Brian, it's something that's in my blood. I'vebeen born a Portland Trail Blazer. They've given me such anopportunity to grow and improve and develop. I'm always going to be aPortland Trail Blazer."

B.B.: Doyou get compared to Erik Spoelstra?

K.C.: I'vegotten that before. Coach Mike Brown with the Lakers, he also startedin the video room. And there's similar coaches that didn't play inthe NBA. Obviously, I get those comparisons a lot also. But at theend of the day, I'm just very fortunate. We have pretty similarbackgrounds because we did start our NBA careers in the video room.And like I've mentioned before, I wouldn't change a thing in terms ofhow I came up. Because the way I look at it, it's like a ladder. Youcan't really skip a step and I felt like I haven't skipped a step tothis day and it's something I really take pride in.

Full video here... Jump to about the 1:04:00 part for the start of Kaleb's appearance.
   
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