mellow
Well-Known Member
Chad Ford @chadfordinsiderNo surprise, but Ben McLemore also pulling out of drills portion of NBA Draft Combine. Will participate in athletic testing....More top prospects pulling out of drills portion of NBA draft combine: CJ McCollum, Cody Zeller, Michael Carter-Williams
from an ESPN interview from the Combine:
Q. The other question is more generic about what the NBA teams get out of the combine as opposed to running drills, I suppose, and measuring and so on, as opposed to what they see in actual competition in college games or in other settings?
FORD: I think one thing is this is a lot of times the first time that head coaches and coaching staff are really seeing these guys. They are so busy during the season coaching their own teams and scouting other NBA teams they don’t have a lot of time to get out and really scout these players, so this is often their exposure to this. And depending on the NBA team, some coaches have more of a say or less of a say in that drafting process, so that’s big.
Frankly for some of these GMs they are out extensively scouting throughout the year and some of them don’t. So, again, for some of the GMs, this is the first time in the gym with these players and first impressions can mean a lot.
As far as what they learn from an actual scouting perspective, I don’t think there is much there. I think the actual interviews they do with the players are much bigger. This is the first time that they’re allowed to sit down with the players and actually talk with them, they have to bring team psychologists in, and they bring the team doctors there to check them out medically. This is the first time for them to have that one on one experience with the players. And I think if you talk to most NBA teams, that is the thing that they get the most out of it.
Maybe one other thing I’d say is it’s the only time that all of these players are going to be on the floor together, so you get to see relative size, relative athleticism, relative skill level compared to each other on the floor at the same time. But as far as changing scouting reports or things like that, that doesn’t really happen at this event.
FRASCHILLA: I think Chad summarized it, but specific to U.K., two years ago when Enes Kanter came here after not playing at Kentucky the one year that he was there, teams seemed to be very impressed with how good of shape he was in, the way he ran the floor, how hard he worked on the drills.
So it’s kind of window dressing a little bit for those people that have studied these players on a year round basis. But this is just one more slice of the pie, if you will, in terms of putting all the information together that’s going to go into the draft room on June 27.
from an ESPN interview from the Combine:
Q. The other question is more generic about what the NBA teams get out of the combine as opposed to running drills, I suppose, and measuring and so on, as opposed to what they see in actual competition in college games or in other settings?
FORD: I think one thing is this is a lot of times the first time that head coaches and coaching staff are really seeing these guys. They are so busy during the season coaching their own teams and scouting other NBA teams they don’t have a lot of time to get out and really scout these players, so this is often their exposure to this. And depending on the NBA team, some coaches have more of a say or less of a say in that drafting process, so that’s big.
Frankly for some of these GMs they are out extensively scouting throughout the year and some of them don’t. So, again, for some of the GMs, this is the first time in the gym with these players and first impressions can mean a lot.
As far as what they learn from an actual scouting perspective, I don’t think there is much there. I think the actual interviews they do with the players are much bigger. This is the first time that they’re allowed to sit down with the players and actually talk with them, they have to bring team psychologists in, and they bring the team doctors there to check them out medically. This is the first time for them to have that one on one experience with the players. And I think if you talk to most NBA teams, that is the thing that they get the most out of it.
Maybe one other thing I’d say is it’s the only time that all of these players are going to be on the floor together, so you get to see relative size, relative athleticism, relative skill level compared to each other on the floor at the same time. But as far as changing scouting reports or things like that, that doesn’t really happen at this event.
FRASCHILLA: I think Chad summarized it, but specific to U.K., two years ago when Enes Kanter came here after not playing at Kentucky the one year that he was there, teams seemed to be very impressed with how good of shape he was in, the way he ran the floor, how hard he worked on the drills.
So it’s kind of window dressing a little bit for those people that have studied these players on a year round basis. But this is just one more slice of the pie, if you will, in terms of putting all the information together that’s going to go into the draft room on June 27.
