Really enjoyed the write up, thank you Brian! I’ve often thought there’s little accountability w/ scouting also - there’s no database storing big boards and monitoring hit rate, eg, though that’d be fun to see in the world
The new generation seems to be better about mentioning past mistakes and maintaining old mock drafts and scouting reports, but others have been caught re-doing their mock drafts after the draft or a year or two later when they made irrefutable bad calls.
It's also difficult working outside the system, as, to me, the interview would be most important, especially when drafting for potential, as you need to know the type of person, which can be tough to ascertain just by watching film. My pre-draft workouts would be to evaluate psychology, not to see how many 3s they can make in a row or their time on some conditioning test.
And, you also have to account for players tanking workouts. I know of one semi-notorious instance of a potential #1 pick simply ignoring everything the coach's said during his workout and doing whatever he want on each repetition, presumably to prevent the team from picking him. Outsiders often lack this information.
Re-doing mock drafts after the draft.. no kidding! Not great! The psychology piece is a big one imo. As someone with a psych degree, I’ve long wondered if it was the missing third leg of the stool to achieve a more “complete” player evaluation beyond physical dimensions + skill measurement. Now.. is that MBTI? Enneagram? Neither are scientific per se. DiSC? Still, not perfect, but these are at least categories to work with in some capacity.
I’ve never been involved in drafting but I have recruited and signed players. I’m not interested in results from any survey. I just want to get a sense of who they are and what’s important. Sure, pre-draft interviews and recruiting is mostly marketing and people on their best behavior, so your BS detector has to be high. I made mistakes in recruiting, but very little surprised me. I knowingly took a risk and it didn’t pay off. I got impatient instead of waiting out my preferred choice. I waited too long for a specific player and had admin take away a scholarship, which left a giant hole. Nobody’s behavior, relative success or failure, etc. was that surprising, and I imagine very few coaches spend less time talking to players than I do. Texts, video, one video call and I usually know yes or no. Texts, 1-2 games, one in person chat, and I generally know for local players.
I forgot one player kind of surprised me but I warned her ahead of time what was likely to happen (she’d be #12 of 12 as a frosh). She never seemed like the person i talked to or watched on video. But I also knew she was a risk coming from a much different environment and much lower level of basketball. So really only her reaction to what I anticipated surprised me.
NBA teams have hundreds of millions more on the line, which I think forces over analyzing. You want to check every possible box. Analyze every data point. I imagine it becomes paralysis by analysis at some point, and a workout and a good conversation is possibly just as or more valuable 🤷♂️
Really enjoyed the write up, thank you Brian! I’ve often thought there’s little accountability w/ scouting also - there’s no database storing big boards and monitoring hit rate, eg, though that’d be fun to see in the world
The new generation seems to be better about mentioning past mistakes and maintaining old mock drafts and scouting reports, but others have been caught re-doing their mock drafts after the draft or a year or two later when they made irrefutable bad calls.
It's also difficult working outside the system, as, to me, the interview would be most important, especially when drafting for potential, as you need to know the type of person, which can be tough to ascertain just by watching film. My pre-draft workouts would be to evaluate psychology, not to see how many 3s they can make in a row or their time on some conditioning test.
And, you also have to account for players tanking workouts. I know of one semi-notorious instance of a potential #1 pick simply ignoring everything the coach's said during his workout and doing whatever he want on each repetition, presumably to prevent the team from picking him. Outsiders often lack this information.
Re-doing mock drafts after the draft.. no kidding! Not great! The psychology piece is a big one imo. As someone with a psych degree, I’ve long wondered if it was the missing third leg of the stool to achieve a more “complete” player evaluation beyond physical dimensions + skill measurement. Now.. is that MBTI? Enneagram? Neither are scientific per se. DiSC? Still, not perfect, but these are at least categories to work with in some capacity.
I’ve never been involved in drafting but I have recruited and signed players. I’m not interested in results from any survey. I just want to get a sense of who they are and what’s important. Sure, pre-draft interviews and recruiting is mostly marketing and people on their best behavior, so your BS detector has to be high. I made mistakes in recruiting, but very little surprised me. I knowingly took a risk and it didn’t pay off. I got impatient instead of waiting out my preferred choice. I waited too long for a specific player and had admin take away a scholarship, which left a giant hole. Nobody’s behavior, relative success or failure, etc. was that surprising, and I imagine very few coaches spend less time talking to players than I do. Texts, video, one video call and I usually know yes or no. Texts, 1-2 games, one in person chat, and I generally know for local players.
I forgot one player kind of surprised me but I warned her ahead of time what was likely to happen (she’d be #12 of 12 as a frosh). She never seemed like the person i talked to or watched on video. But I also knew she was a risk coming from a much different environment and much lower level of basketball. So really only her reaction to what I anticipated surprised me.
NBA teams have hundreds of millions more on the line, which I think forces over analyzing. You want to check every possible box. Analyze every data point. I imagine it becomes paralysis by analysis at some point, and a workout and a good conversation is possibly just as or more valuable 🤷♂️
Interesting, thanks for the discourse Brian!
Good points made about draft 'experts' being reluctant to change their initial assessments.