Byron Scott sat down for a wide-ranging interview with the Register’s Bill Oram on Wednesday. Many of his comments made their way into the story that appears in Friday’s Register, which you can read here.

However, the entire conversation, in which Scott expounds on his feelings on the roster, Kobe Bryant’s future, and his much-criticized comments about the 3-pointer, can be read below.

Q. You guys missed on some pretty high-profile guys in free agency. After everything settled, how do you feel about roster construction and where you guys are going into October?

A. I don’t look at the summer as a big disappointment, to be honest with you. We missed on a guy we were after, obviously, in LaMarcus (Aldridge, who signed with the Spurs). But to get Roy (Hibbert) and to get Lou Williams and to get Brandon Bass, I think (General Manager) Mitch (Kupchak) did a hell of a job of recovering and making it a summer that you kind of looked back and said, ‘Man, that’s a pretty good recovery.’ I’m happy with the roster we have. We’ve got competition it seems like at every position, which I think is going to be fun to watch in training camp. We’re still very, very young, with the exception, obviously, of (37-year-old) Kobe (Bryant), so I’m excited about that.

Q. When you talk about trying to establish a defensive identity, last year 29th in defense. Do you feel like the moves that were made are moving you closer to that, and getting a team that is in your mold?

A. I think so, I think obviously it starts with Big Roy, Jordan being a year older, understanding our philosophy on what we need to do on the defensive end, Julius not playing at all last year but understanding what we want to do. So, yeah, I think it is starting to be molded in that direction of being a much better defensive team. We still have a long way to go. We have a lot to work on. And I think we’re probably ahead of schedule right now. These guys have been coming in every day, working out for the past six-to-eight weeks. So that’s something I’m very encouraged about. But from the defensive standpoint everybody that is here, they know how I am about that. They know how important that is to me and to us as a team for us to have any type of success.

Q. How big of a different does having a defensive-minded center in the middle make?

A. I think first of all it’s a mentality. And I think Roy has shown that from Day One. When he’s out here, the No. 1 thing is he’s a great communicator, which is something we didn’t have on the back end of our defense last year. Our No.2, he has a reputation for protecting the rim, so he knows that’s his bread and butter. And No. 3, the one thing I saw so far with him is that guys are going in for layups the first day he was like, ‘No easy layups.’ And that’s something we didn’t do a good job of last year, is protecting the rim or giving up easy layups. So I think he’s bringing that mentality to our young guys and to the rest of the team and I think hat’s going to be huge for us.

Q. What decisions are you facing with Kobe?

A. I think the biggest decision is playing time, trying to make that as limited as possible and also back-to-back games. That’s something we have to talk about. Other than that, there really is no other decision to make. He wants to play, and he wants to go out the way he wants to go out — if this is indeed his final year. He and I have talked a number of times on the phone, we’ve talked about playing time, we’ve talked about back-to-back, we’re going to probably sit down as we get closer to training camp or as we get in training camp and even talk more about it. Because the one thing I want, if this is his last year, I want him to go out standing. I don’t want him to go out hurt. I want to make sure I do everything in my power to make sure we stick to the game plan, as far as his minutes and as far as back-to-back games.

Q. What do you mean by as “limited as possible?”

A. I didn’t mean play as limited as possible. Obviously we want to keep him as efficient as possible, but I know he knows his body better than anybody. When we start talking about those minutes, I want to listen to him more than anything. I’m not going to go by what I think he can play like I did last year, I want to really go by what he thinks he can play. Then I want to make sure we stick to that.

Q. To what extent do you regret the way that decision was made last year? There was a lot made about you playing him more minutes than he thought he should play. Is that a burden for you? Do you feel some guilt?

A. I felt bad about it. I don’t know if I would say guilty. I know Kobe’s a competitor and he’s going to play as many minutes as you want him to play. I’m also a competitor, so I want to win and I know having him on the court gives me the best opportunity to win. But I also know that I’ve got to think about him more than anything. And I thought there were points in time last year where I thought he could play a certain amount of minutes. He told me Day One the minutes that he thought he could play in and like I told him at the end of the day, ‘You were absolutely right and I was wrong.’ I won’t make that mistake again.

Q. How do you avoid making that mistake again when it’s December and you guys are on a bad run and Kobe’s playing well and he seems to be OK? You don’t do it?

A. I don’t do it. Stick to my guns. This is what we talked about, this is what we felt would be the best way to use you and to make you the most efficient that you could be, I’m going to stick to it. Win or lose, I’m going to stick to it.

Q. Last year there were some overtime situations. You’re going to make the decision to not play him in an overtime if you hit that ceiling?

A. We hit that ceiling I’m going to stick to it.

Q. Have you two talked all that through?

A. Not all of it. I know him, I know how strongly he feels about certain things and how strongly I feel about certain things, and like I said, the best thing for me is to make sure I take his best interests is the best interest I got to take it at. I’ve got that in the palm of my hands pretty much. We’ve got to stick to the guns, if we agree on a certain amount of time we’re going to stick to it.

Q. You said you and Kobe have been talking regularly, is it all about him or are you discussing the full roster? What do your conversations sound like?

A. A little bit of everything. Some days I’ll talk strictly about him, then other days I’ll talk strictly about our team. Other days, I’ll talk strictly about rotations, what I see, and then I’ll end up the conversation saying, ‘What I see right now, what I envision, probably ain’t going to happen.’ Because somebody’s going to step up, somebody’s going to take a step back. It’s probably going to be a whole different thing than I think it’s going to be. So being in this business as long as I have I always have what I think is going to happen on paper and it never seems to happen that way.

Q. What’s the latest on his rehab? Does he have full range of motion yet?

A. Full range of motion. He’s been shooting for the past three weeks, he says he feels fantastic, our last conversation was more of how he felt and he said he feels great. We also talked about everybody saying he wouldn’t be ready for training camp, he wouldn’t ready until November. Stuff like that. He used a couple of words that I can’t repeat that tells me that he will be ready for training camp and we’ll go from there.

Q. You’ve never had a season like last year (21-61), at least record wise, as a coach. What was the toughest part of it for you personally?

A. I think the toughest part is just always, when you’re losing games the way we were losing games and you don’t have your full complement of players. That makes it even tougher. So we’re losing games with a bunch of the young guys that we have, and we’re losing those games without Steve Nash, without Kobe Bryant, without Julius Randle. So that makes it real tough because you’re right there. But you don’t have guys that can close those games out. Those are the things that kind of make you lose sleep because you just with you had your full complement of players and then you don’t know what happens.

Q. But that’s not necessarily about you. That’s not something you can control.

A. No, that’s nothing I can control. I can’t control injuries, nobody can control that. As much as we go into the season this year saying we hope and pray to god that two or three year span of injuries that we’ve had is gone – that we have the Golden State type of dust sprinkled on us, where we don’t have major injuries, that guys are out for the whole season – you’re going to have some injuries. But, hopefully, it’s just some that are little nagging injuries and that we can stay relatively healthy.

Q. Last year there was a lot of personal tragedy involving this team. You lose your mother; Mitch Kupchak loses his teenage daughter; Wayne Ellington, his dad is murdered. How did that affect the season? How did it affect the locker room?

A. I think it affects you to the point where you grow closer. When you’re going through those type of tragedies, it’s going to be one of two things, you’re either going to grow closer together or you’re going to grow farther apart. I think as a group our guys pulled closer together. Through all the tragedy that we had, I think we saw some silver linings through it as well. I think we all learned from it. And when you’re having death in the organization, with family members, that is kind of a way of life. You’ve got to go through those tragedies as bad as it seems and as bad as it is, it’s going on six months of my mom passing, and just the other day I was with a family member and I was talking to my sister and I was talking about how I think about her every day. It still hurts. But you still got to continue to move on and I thought that for the most part that what everybody in the organization who had that tragedy did.

Q. Were there things that you learned last year that you’ll apply this year that you didn’t know before or things you didn’t apply in previous seasons?

A. Not really, I think you always try to prepare yourself for the worst. You expect the best, but you always try to prepare yourself for the worst. I thought I did that last year with the roster that we had, with the injuries that we had, or games that we lost that were so close. You could probably count on two hands the games, the last four minutes that we lost in because we didn’t have enough. But again just proud of how hard our guys played or competed every night. But as far as anything special, not really. I learned that I still have to be patient as a person and as a coach, still have to do my due diligence as far as making sure we’re ready and prepared for every game. But that’s nothing new.

Q. Your detractors latched onto a few things you said last year, but particularly in preseason when you said 3-pointers didn’t win championships. And that came up before the season, then we see Golden State win a title. Would you want to clarify that statement or revise it now?

A. No. Everybody wants to take, ‘Well he said…’ Yeah, but if you are a 3-point shooting team in this league, you’re No. 1 in the league, but you’re last in defense, you won’t win a championship. They were the No.1 offensive team and defensive team in the league. They were the best team. They deserved to win the championship. The only thing I would say, or extract from that, is you can be a great 3-point shooting team, but if you don’t play defense, you won’t win championships.

Q. What would it look like if you guys tried to play that way?

A. We’re not going to play that type of style. We’re going to take 3-point shots that are given to us on a consistent basis. We’re not going to just come down and be launching 3-pointers. We have Lou who can make them, Jordan who can make them, Swaggy who can make them. Jabari (Brown). We have a number of guys – Ryan (Kelly) – who can make them on a consistent basis, but it’s not going to be the focal point of our offense.

Q. Does it bug you when those comments come back and you hear that again and again? And the analytics stuff?

A. No. I’m not putting you in this category, but you guys got to find something. You’ve got to find something. 3-pointers, he said this, analytics, he said that. You’ve got to find something.

Q. You’re so resolutely, stick-to-your-guns; an old-school guy. To some extent is that persona? And you trying to maintain kind of this drill sergeant image?

A. I think that’s a little part of it. I’m not the drill sergeant that everybody perceives me to be. I’m not the old school that everybody perceives me to be, but if that’s what they want to think then more power to them.

Q. To what degree have you had to compromise on those issues? Analytics is becoming a bigger part of the organization.

A. I wouldn’t say I had to compromise, it’s basically for me, it’s adding certain things to the element of us being a little more successful. The analytical part, like I said, I wasn’t a big proponent in it, but Clay (Moser) is a guy who’s kind of our go-between to make sure the analytical guys understand exactly what I want, and also to make us understand exactly what they’re doing. He’s kind of our buffer. Mark (Madsen) is a guy who knows it extremely well, so are we using a it a lot more this year? Absolutely.

Q. Are there areas you can say you’ll be using it a lot more on the floor than last year?

A. Yes, absolutely. I won’t go into those areas, but yes. … We will use them with every player we have.

Q. And you weren’t doing that last year?

A. Not to this extent.

Q. Guys have been in here since July, almost every day. Is there anybody you can single out as making strides?

A. So far there’s a lot of guys I really like, to be honest with you. They’ve been coming in on a daily basis since July. I’m not going to single out one or two guys. There’s a bunch of guys coming in who I really like what they’re doing. And just sitting down and talking to a bunch of our guys, and these are a lot of new guys and a couple are veteran guys. I just like their work ethic and what they’re bringing to the table and I’m looking forward to the 28th getting started.

Q. Will Metta World Peace be in training camp with you guys?

A. I don’t know.

Q. What’s he done for Julius? Having him here as a training partner?

A. He’s been great for Julius because he’s a guy that, seems like Julius plays and Metta’s playing he guards him. And we know what type of defender he is, he’s a guy who’s going to get on you, he’s strong, he’s physical, he’s tough. He’s made Julius work which I think is great. Then when the game is over he’s always talking to Julius about certain things that he feels Julius can do better. So he’s been a good mentor for him, he’s been great for the other guys to see him out here playing the way he’s been playing. He’s still in great great shape his body looks fantastic and he’s been great as far as seeing him running up and down the floor.

Q. Last year Jordan really appeared to benefit from you bringing him along slowly, then letting him take a starting position mid-season. Will you try to approach things similarly with D’Angelo? How do you apply that to a guy who comes with such high expectations?

A. I think it all depends on how D’Angelo plays in training camp. Same with Jordan. I just knew Jordan wasn’t ready, everything was 110 miles an hour. D’Angelo is the total opposite. Everything’s about 70 miles an hour. He’s much more under control than Jordan was when Jordan first started. So a lot of it’s just going to depend on how he plays in training camp. He’s been here every day the past week or so and he’s been playing great. They told me, I wasn’t here Monday, but they told me he looked really good Monday. So I’m excited about this progress as well, a lot of this is going to play out in training camp and preseason.

Q. Similarly Julius has that year under his belt but not on the court. Very high expectations of, “Will he start?” How do you try not to give him too much too quickly?

A. Kind of the same way I brought Jordan along. I won’t throw these guys out in the fire unless I think they’re ready. No matter if they were the second pick or the 46th pick.

Q. Should we take that to mean Julius won’t start right away?

A. You should take that to mean that Julius has developed nicely, and I’m waiting to see when he can go a full practice every day for the next two weeks. That means training camp throughout the preseason games. And then we’ll go from there.

Q. Why did you decide to move training camp back to Hawaii?

A. It wasn’t my decision. Mitch Kupchak came to me and told me that we were going to go to Hawaii and I said OK. It wasn’t my decision so I’m rolling with the punches with that. I love Hawaii. I wasn’t one who was sitting there going, “Oh man, why are we going to Hawaii?”

Q. You guys did that when you played though.

A. Yes, yes.

Q. So it’s almost like nothing’s changed. Did you feel like there was a benefit to getting away. Less media, staying in a hotel together?

A. I always felt there was a benefit to getting away. Because you have to spend time together. When you have training camp here, or anywhere, when you’re at home and when training camp is over or that day is over you go home to your family and everything. I think that takes away a little bit of the focus. I think when you have to be together for 10, 12 days, in a hotel room, on the basketball court, back to the hotel room, you know, you start getting cliques. Everybody starts to hang out with certain guys. And I think it adds to that cohesiveness on the basketball court. That’s one thing that I am happy about is the fact that you do get away. We’ve got a young group, so the more time these guys can spend together the better they’ll get to know each other.