What's new
By:

Why do the Jazz spend so much money/time on International scouting?

Beantown

Beantown

Well-Known Member
They spend all this time/money and energy in International scouting and what the Jazz have to show for it? They have never grabbed some secret gem from overseas that has worn a Jazz jersey. Then in the draft the international picks lately have been pretty obvious mock draft picks (Tomic)(Gobert) and some will never play in SLC anyways (Tomic).

If I was Greg Miller I would start getting pissed. They spend so much on overseas scouting but Greg has nothing to show for his investments.

Dennis Lindsay has pulled even more money out of Greg's pocket for scouting....specifically Internationally. I would hope to start seeing some results soon.
 
Last edited:
Archie Moses said:
Rudy Gober and the PG from last year's draft are international players. Smh
Click to expand...

I'm not saying they are NOT selecting International players in the draft but Rudy was a projected 1st rounder. Lots of teams liked him. I will give some credit on Neto to Lindsay because that was an out of the box selection. He had an eye on him since his Spurs days.

I am more referring to getting International players to come over outside of using the draft.
 
Beantown said:
I'm not saying they are NOT selecting International players in the draft but Rudy was a projected 1st rounder. Lots of teams liked him. I will give some credit on Neto to Lindsay because that was an out of the box selection. He had an eye on him since his Spurs days.

I am more referring to getting International players to come over outside of using the draft.
Click to expand...

Has anyone else gotten international players to come over outside of the draft? Is that even possible in the NBA?
 
They scout US players extensively, why wouldn't they make the same effort with foreign players? All teams scout overseas. I don't see the problem.
 
Beantown said:
They spend all this time/money and energy in International scouting and what the Jazz have to show for it? They have never grabbed some secret gem from overseas that has worn a Jazz jersey. Then in the draft the international picks lately have been pretty obvious mock draft picks (Tomic) and will never play in SLC anyways (Tomic).

If I was Greg Miller I would start getting pissed. They spend so much on overseas scouting but Greg has nothing to show for his investments.

Dennis Lindsay has pulled even more money out of Greg's pocket for scouting....specifically Internationally. I would hope to start seeing some results soon.
Click to expand...

Certainly DL has placed a huge emphasis on it since coming aboard. He mentioned last year that they gave a whole day to the int'l scout in the pre-draft meetings, which was a departure from what had been done previously. And as mentioned, it netted Gobert and Neto. Why not just disband the scouting department altogether and go off the mock drafts and what PKM, PG_AB and others post on this board? Seems like we all come up with the obvious choices.

In the past, international scouting has brought us some stiff named Kirilenko and Raul Lopez, who would have been a pretty good PG had he not blown out his knee, Fesenko (via draft day trade), Carlos Arroyo, and to a certain extent, Enes Kanter, since he had no body of work in the US by which to be evaluated.

"Draft and stash" is risky. There's no guarantee a young, raw player will develop or even want to come over if he does (such as Tomic). But if even one in five does develop, I'd call that a success. It's certainly equal to the success rate of most 2nd round picks, who usually don't even make rosters.
 
  • Like
Reactions: ema
Stoked said:
Has anyone else gotten international players to come over outside of the draft? Is that even possible in the NBA?
Click to expand...

Yes, if no team has their rights and they are a free agent. I think that's also the idea behind Messina as a coach. He could "recruit" international players to Utah.
 
Core4 said:
Certainly DL has placed a huge emphasis on it since coming aboard. He mentioned last year that they gave a whole day to the int'l scout in the pre-draft meetings, which was a departure from what had been done previously. And as mentioned, it netted Gobert and Neto. Why not just disband the scouting department altogether and go off the mock drafts and what PKM, PG_AB and others post on this board? Seems like we all come up with the obvious choices.

In the past, international scouting has brought us some stiff named Kirilenko and Raul Lopez, who would have been a pretty good PG had he not blown out his knee, Fesenko (via draft day trade), Carlos Arroyo, and to a certain extent, Enes Kanter, since he had no body of work in the US by which to be evaluated.

"Draft and stash" is risky. There's no guarantee a young, raw player will develop or even want to come over if he does (such as Tomic). But if even one in five does develop, I'd call that a success. It's certainly equal to the success rate of most 2nd round picks, who usually don't even make rosters.
Click to expand...

I agree this thread is a little pre-mature since David Lindsay is still so new. But I would still like to see more progress on the international level.
 
Beantown said:
I agree this thread is a little pre-mature since David Lindsay is still so new. But I would still like to see more progress on the international level.
Click to expand...

He's so new some don't even know his real name :rolleyes:


As for progress, what do you realistically expect? All 30 NBA teams scout int'l players. All the non-NBA teams scout to fill their rosters. Do you think some European LBJ is going to be hiding out in a tiny town in the Alps, just waiting to be discovered? Compare it to the US. What would happen if some kid in Tabioca or Gunnison was tearing it up in a city league? He'd be grabbed by either his HS or a club team. He'd then be on the radar of PKM and several colleges. If not major, certainly Division II programs. Sure, maybe some teens in Iran, Afghanistan or Somalia have slipped under the radar. But good luck identifying these "diamonds in the rough."
 
Beantown said:
Yes, if no team has their rights and they are a free agent. I think that's also the idea behind Messina as a coach. He could "recruit" international players to Utah.
Click to expand...

So it is possible. OK, has it been done?
 
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is other than to complain about the Jazz scouting internationally in a international game. Just cause it didn't pay off too much last does not mean it won't eventually pay dividends.
 
Archie Moses said:
I'm not sure what the point of this thread is other than to complain about the Jazz scouting internationally in a international game. Just cause it didn't pay off too much last does not mean it won't eventually pay dividends.
Click to expand...

I think what we need is to have a pipeline of players for whom we hold the draft rights. We really have only had Tomic "stashed" until adding Neto last summer. With extra picks and dwindling roster space, I think the Jazz should start using their 2nd round picks on int'l prospects. If none pan out, no big deal. There are plenty of cheap FA's who can be signed to fill out the roster. But if just one "draft and stash" player develops into a starter or 6th man, that could put Utah over the top.
 
Stoked said:
So it is possible. OK, has it been done?
Click to expand...

As in: have there been undrafted Europeans who have come over, and had established roles in the NBA via free agency? Pretty sure there was two this season that were key players in the playoffs alone: Pero Antic, and Mirza Teletovic.

I'm sure there's even more that played in this last season. The one Italian dude in Detroit with the pony-tail comes to mind.


Dumb thread by Beantown.
 
I remember one time when the jazz drafted this dude who nobody knew about, and he ended up playing for them for a while. He even had one all star season. He always had some crazy hair cuts and his wife sang some pop music and crap. Anybody remember his name? I think he was Russian. He might still be playing, iirc.
 
Shved and Mozgov from top of my head as for the undrafteds. Shved turned out to be horrendous though.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top