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Davis Bertans appeared on a morning show in his native Latvia to talk about signing with the Spurs, his performance in Summer League, and some of his hopes for next season. Unfortunately, I don't speak Latvian but, fortunately, there are a few Pounders who do. LatWeN T and Skookum #6 were kind enough to translate some of the more relevant parts of Bertans' interview, and I've included those excerpts below.
I couldn't embed the video into this article, but you can watch it all by clicking here.
Bertans on signing with SA:
I don't speak loudly about NBA and didn't want to. But I was pretty certain. Basically we had an arrangement that the next step this summer would be San Antonio. I just don't like to speak about things like that until it's 100 percent with the signatures on.
On playing in Summer League:
Before Summer League game I was a little anxious. It hadn't been like that even before the Euroleague Final Four tournament. I hadn't played basketball for a month -- only individual workouts with no contact. So I had to wait until I made the first shot before I felt that my game was on.
You can see that first jumper, and the rest of the highlights from Bertans' only Summer League performance here:
On what position he'll play next season:
In San Antonio I will play the power forward position. For now that's all I've been told. I know that defense and rebounds will be priority. Offense will come by itself. I've played for coaches who wanted me to play just at SF spot. For example, Ainars Bagatskis (coach of the Latvian national team) wanted me to play power forward. I've played both forward spots and don't have problem to adjust.
There'd been speculation around how much time the Latvian sharpshooter would be spending between the two forward positions, so hearing that we'll be seeing more of Bertans at the 4 does, in theory, help us begin to visualize what the new Spurs bench unit will look like.
According to one of our translators, Bertans was also asked who would win in the first matchup between his Spurs and fellow countryman Kristaps Porzingis' New York Knicks (he answered Spurs), while also sharing the only piece of advice he'd received from Coach Popovich so far: don't get hurt.