Q. Just an opening statement, what you'll bring to your new team.
OLIVIER-MAXENCE PROSPER: I mean, first and foremost, I want to say thank you to the Dallas Mavericks organization for picking me and giving me this opportunity. It's truly a blessing, and I'm really grateful.
To answer your question, I would say they're going to get a guy that is going to work his tail off every day to get better and help the team get better. I'm going to be the hardest worker on the floor, a guy that you can count on to defend multiple positions and a guy on offense that you can count on to drive, knock down open shots, finish above the rim. I'm going to be a guy that is going to make hustle plays on the floor. I see myself as a spark.
Super excited to play alongside guys like Luka Doncic. Playing alongside and being able to complement a guy like him, and to help this team get back to where they want to be and win a lot of games, that's what I'm here for. I want to help them win. I'm super excited to get there and get to work, grow and keep getting better and help this team get better. Super excited.
Q. I wanted to ask you about being part of the NBA Academy in Latin America and just living in Mexico, and how do you think that experience made you the player you are today?
OLIVIER-MAXENCE PROSPER: Absolutely. I always say, going to the NBA Academy in Latin America was one of the best decisions I made for my basketball career. Going down there was different, the different culture, but I embraced it all and it was an awesome time. From all the people, my coaches to my teammates, having teammates from all over Latin America, and all the tournaments we played in and all the competition, I grew so much.
I made brothers there, brothers from -- guys all over the world that you never thought you would meet but you meet them there. Just the entire experience helped me become a better player just because of the training we had supported by the NBA and also the competition that we played with and against.
Just the relationships I built over there, I grew as a person, as well. It was an awesome experience for me and definitely helped me a lot. It helped me on my path to get to this point.
Q. It looks like Chicago was a breakthrough for you and your workouts. Up until then, you've come a long way. Describe that feeling that you finally proved to people exactly what you knew all along and it was evident to everybody what you could offer the NBA?
OLIVIER-MAXENCE PROSPER: The biggest thing is to believe in yourself. There's going to be people that believe in you. You'll have people that won't believe in you. All that matters is to believe in yourself and go out there and be yourself. At the Combine, my workouts, I was just trying to be myself, in terms of being the hardest worker, loudest guy on the floor, making all the hustle plays, playing defense and controlling what I can control, and letting everything else be.
That's how I was able to have a really good performance in the Combine and really good performances in my workouts, because I focused on the things I could control and I outworked everybody out there. That's how you're able to shoot well and do all the other stuff, because you focus on the right things. That's been my mindset through this whole process.
Coming in, nobody thought I was going to be here right now. But I believe in myself. I'm going to do this. I'm going to show them. That's what I've done, and I'm going to continue to do that the rest of my career, no matter if people believe in me or not. That's my mindset. But it's a blessing.
Q. How do you think being part of Life Sports Agency has also helped you become the professional you are today?
OLIVIER-MAXENCE PROSPER: Oh, man, they've helped me so much. I'm so happy I chose them to be my agency. Both my agents, Todd Ramasar, Mike Simonetta, have been just awesome. They've believed in me since day one. They believed that I could be here today. They were like, O-Max, what's your vision? They believed in my vision, and they said, let's go, let's work.
I did everything under my control to be here and they did everything under their control. They pushed the envelope. They talked to a lot of teams. They were proactive in everything they did, and I'm so grateful for them.
They say it takes a village to make this happen, and that's true. It takes a lot of people in your corner to help you, and they've helped me tremendously.
Q. Is there anything that you learned from your time at Marquette that you believe you can bring to the NBA and contribute to the Mavericks right away?
OLIVIER-MAXENCE PROSPER: I think the biggest thing I've learned at Marquette is I learned a lot of stuff mentally in terms of focusing on the things you can control, embracing your emotions and just keep getting better, get 1 percent better every day.
As a rookie, there's going to be ups and downs as a rookie season, and how can you stay levelheaded mentally and always come with the same approach every day in practice and every night in games and keep being the great teammate you are and come in and work and keep getting better and grow every day, no matter what.
That mindset and that approach I think is going to help me a lot in this league, especially my first couple years in the league. It's going to help carve out the career I want to have.
But it starts all up here (points to head). I think Marquette has helped me a lot with that, especially over the past two years.
FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports