OT: Mark Titus "My trip to NBA Scout School"

[niQ]

http://grantland.com/features/nba-scout ... rk-knicks/

Not sure if posted already but bumped into this article talking about scouting. Something we all sort of do on youtube. For all those people who think life as a scout is easy should take a look into this. Thought some of you might find this interesting.

As grim as these scenes were, I spent a couple of my days in Vegas with a group of degenerates who had sunk lower than any other sad sacks I encountered in Sin City. They may have been the most insane people in Vegas. You see, I enrolled in something called “Pro Scout School,” a two-day seminar organized by the company TPG Sports Group, whose mission is “Educating the Sports Industry Leaders of Tomorrow.” Scout school might be the only place in the world where any fan off the street can fork over $300 for a standard admission ticket to be taught what it takes to be a professional basketball scout. Thanks to the popularization of advanced statistics and the expanded coverage of and access to NBA-level coaching strategy through digital media, the public discourse around basketball might be more sophisticated now than it’s ever been. To some degree, all self-styled “smart” fans have a little bit of scout in them, but I decided to enroll in scout school to see what makes the professional talent evaluators the best around.

This was the TPG program’s first year, and even though I’ve been around my share of high-level basketball, I knew next to nothing about life as a scout, and there was no telling exactly what I’d gotten myself into. I guess I just expected a handful of guys with much more interesting lives than mine to explain how cool it is to travel the world, watch basketball, and have NBA teams pay them for their opinions. I half-expected to leave the school convinced I should quit my job and use all of my basketball connections to land a scouting gig.

Of all the things I learned at Pro Scout School, one thing stood out: Being an NBA scout is probably the single worst job in the world. That most of my scout school classmates voluntarily paid a decent chunk of change to fly to Vegas, hear how much their dream job sucks, and then leave even more convinced that they want to become scouts tells me they’re a kind of insane I can’t even begin to comprehend.

[Buffalo_Tim]

Great read. Thanks for posting.

I have zero interest in being a basketball scout, but going to scout schools seems like it might be fun/interesting. But then again, I like learning. It's a sickness.

The article had some great writing too. Loved this:

As cool as it was to experience watching games this way, I got the feeling it might be the worst part of being a scout. Sometimes I like watching the ball — after all, the player with the ball is the only one who can score. Sometimes I like watching the cheerleaders. Sometimes I like watching the bench react to plays. Sometimes I like watching that miniature blimp fly around and drop T-shirts into the crowd. And sometimes I like watching myself push over a 6-year-old so I can catch one of those shirts. There are so many great things going on at basketball games that limiting yourself to watching solely how plays unfold or putting an iso cam on a single player is like saying you want a Bloody Mary but then only making a glass of vodka with a stick of celery in it.

A nice reminder that I like watching sports for fun, and that scouting requires a level of analysis that sucks the fun out of everything that's going on (for me, at least).

[pbj]

Ronzone, who has experience as an international scout, provided my favorite moment of the entire two days when he recalled how he scouted a 7-foot-9 North Korean player named Michael Ri. Ronzone met face-to-face with Kim Jong-il and negotiated a “wheat deal” to bring Ri to the NBA.

Apparently, the Dear Leader told Ronzone he would allow Ri to leave North Korea and play professional basketball if the team paid Kim’s regime in wheat. Ronzone added that he’s missed a lot of flights in his life, but made absolutely certain he didn’t miss the one out of North Korea because “there are only two flights out of the country — Tuesday and Friday.”

LOL, this is good stuff

[Steven1562]

It isn't all glitz and glam i'm guessing .... you travel constantly and you have no family life plus you have to watch bad basketball played in a country you can't even name definitely not for everyone

[C_Money]

It sounds like college scouts have it the best. You get to stay in the country and the work you do is more useful to your team. Odds are they'll end up drafting somebody that you scouted.

[brownbobcat]

It sounds like college scouts have it the best. You get to stay in the country and the work you do is more useful to your team. Odds are they'll end up drafting somebody that you scouted.

Good point. Not only that, I think your evaluation is more likely to be validated quickly and correctly - you're probably only forecasting 2-4 years out in terms of player production.

[tsherkin]

Good read, that. Thanks.

[godkingleonidas]

Observe - collect data - submit data - repeat. How can this suck? Yes, you might impart some subjective anecdotes that may be dismissed/ignored but, so long as you remember that your job is to collect empirical data I don't see how it could be so problematic.

There are researchers who spend months living at the South Pole gathering data which will go unnoticed/unheralded but, they do it anyway. I suppose the problem is that in order to be a good scout one needs to be more Sheldon Cooper and less Raj Koothrappali.

[Left Side Drive]

The one scout that flew to Lithuania to scout Jonas Valančiūnas had one thing to say: "He gon be gud"

[Naija Boy]

I think NBA Scouting would be more enjoyable if there was a farm system like we see in baseball and soccer where players could be signed to D-League teams before even entering college.

[brownbobcat]

Observe - collect data - submit data - repeat. How can this suck? Yes, you might impart some subjective anecdotes that may be dismissed/ignored but, so long as you remember that your job is to collect empirical data I don't see how it could be so problematic.

There are researchers who spend months living at the South Pole gathering data which will go unnoticed/unheralded but, they do it anyway. I suppose the problem is that in order to be a good scout one needs to be more Sheldon Cooper and less Raj Koothrappali.

It's empirical, but not very quantifiable. The "data" in question is largely your purely subjective evaluation of how well they currently perform certain things, and how well they WILL perform certain things at a higher level. I suppose the sucky part is how competitive it is, and how poorly paid it must be at the low end.

Those researchers also get to spend a significant chunk of time doing their actual job, research, as opposed to endless hours on planes, buses and airports in return for seeing a few minutes of game time.

[LiSTWithLani]

Very different article from the norm, thank you!

[godkingleonidas]

It's empirical, but not very quantifiable. The "data" in question is largely your purely subjective evaluation of how well they currently perform certain things, and how well they WILL perform certain things at a higher level. I suppose the sucky part is how competitive it is, and how poorly paid it must be at the low end.

Like being a male pornographic film performer.