Will Wade Breaks Down General Manager Andrew Slater’s Significance to NC State Men’s Basketball

NC State Men’s Basketball Head Coach Will Wade appeared on the Aaron Torres Podcast last week. He discussed a range of topics, but spent some time explaining how Andrew Slater became the General Manager for the Wolfpack and what he brings to the program. You can watch the full episode below and read Wade’s specific comments about Slater.

AA: So you mentioned Andrew Slater. I know Slater a little bit from back in his recruiting days. One of a kind. I don’t know how much you can give on your recruiting pitch to him, but also the impact that he has had. I think everybody that would listen to this knows, but he’s a former recruiting guy, and then he went to the Oklahoma City Thunder. But even among the recruiting guys, I think there was a level of respect for his relationships and things of that nature. But what went into that recruiting pitch, because, you know, probably one of the more important ones you’ve done since you got the job.

WW: Yeah, we’ve been good friends for a while. Most people didn’t know that because he kind of operates under the radar.

AA: Oh, he’ll tell you that too, yeah.

WW: I try not to tell people everything we got going on. We’ve been good friends for a while. Something we had talked about, probably got solidified. We were both in Las Vegas for an event this year, around Christmas time. He was out there doing something for Oklahoma City. I was out there recruiting for McNeese at the time.

We went to breakfast, and we just kind of talked about it. We were at breakfast probably two and a half, three hours at this diner in Vegas.

And we talked about it there. Obviously I didn’t know what was going to happen or what could happen or how things were going to shake out. But I felt like then, ‘Hey, look, if it’s the right place and it’s the right timing, that he would be interested.

Certainly he was somebody that I was extremely, extremely interested in. He just brings a lot of different perspective.

He’s very quiet, but he’s always thinking. And then when he talks, everybody listens. You can hear a pin drop whenever he’s talking, because everybody’s going to listen.

It’s going to be well thought out. It’s going to be well-reasoned. It’s going to be well-researched.

And he’s just, like you said, he’s unique, and he’s like a unicorn. He’s one of the few people that has the relationships across kind of the grassroots, the parents, the NBA community, the college. I mean, he’s got just a wide variance in terms of his relationships that have been very helpful for us in helping put this class together.