I just got home from the Mark Jackson intro news conference. He is an interesting guy, well spoken. After the regular news conference part he fielded questions privately from repoters and naturally we asked about his backcourt — Can it defend? How would he feel about trading Monta Ellis? A possible Ellis trade was all over the news today. Jackson fielded the questions calmly.

Here are his responses, and now I’m going to write my Jackson column, back at you later:

Re: his two guards being too small:

You just look at the backcourt and our backcourt is bigger than the finals when you talk about J.J. Barea and Mike Bibby. There’s really no difference from our backcourt. I’m not Steph Curry and I’m not Monta Ellis and they’re not me. What I mean by that is I can’t wake up and get you 20, 25 points. I was a facilitator. I was a pass first guy. Those guys are flat out scorers and I’m going to use them to their strengths. All I demand is for them to get it done defensively.

Would you be upset if the Warriors trade Monta Ellis?

That will be something we will talk about all together. I want Monta Ellis on this basketball team. With that being said, if they traded Monta Ellis for Dwight Howard or Lebron James I mean . . . I think this guy is a big time player. He’s the third best shooting guard in the league. You could have Kobe obviously and Dwyane Wade. I would match him up against anybody else on a given night and feel extremely comfortable about it. In this league anybody is up to be traded.

Do the Warriors have worse defensive players than average?

No, you look at the teams that are still playing. They are more than capable of defending. The problem is I don’t know what was emphasized. I know what will be emphasized and we’re excited about being a very good defensive team.