Jimmer, Knight, Walker showdown in Utah

[finnegan]

Is it going to happen tomorrow? I haven't see any news about it.

[qman]

Latest word is that Malcom Lee, Jimmer and Kemba will workout tomorrrow. Knight is going to do a one-on-none workout on Thursday.

[finnegan]

For all the Jimmer haters, give one good reason why Knight won't work out against him? At least Kemba is doing it. I am sure that they have an agreement with the prospects to keep the results top secret.

Jazz are one of the honorable teams, who hopefully won't leak the results if they agreed to keep them confidential with team Kemba and team Jimmer.

Knight must know that Jimmer with show him up!

[DelaneyRudd]

It's a chess match. It's the same every year and the players who work it to their advantage don't bust more or less than the others. Some players are workout stars because they have measurable talents, and some have more intangible talents that can't be shown in a one on fake play.

It's like other types of job interviews in a way, a grad will talk grades, an older person talks experience. In a different way it's unlike other types of jobs because you can't choose your best offer.

[StocktonShorts]

In about two weeks no one will care who worked out against whom. Every agent plays this game differently, but when you're listed on most mocks in the 3-5 range why would you work out against anyone? It's all risk, no reward.

[StocktonShorts]

And the reason Kemba is doing it is that since the Kings workout where he was a no-show he's fallen below Jimmer on some draft boards. It'd really pretty simple.

[carrottop12]

For all the Jimmer haters, give one good reason why Knight won't work out against him? At least Kemba is doing it. I am sure that they have an agreement with the prospects to keep the results top secret.

Jazz are one of the honorable teams, who hopefully won't leak the results if they agreed to keep them confidential with team Kemba and team Jimmer.

Knight must know that Jimmer with show him up!

David Locke has the best take on this, I completely agree with him, and I wish people would actually listen to a guy who knows the industry as well as he does.

Knight has absolutely zero reason to work out against anyone, no different than Kyrie.

Kyrie is the obvious tier 1 point guard. He has no where to go but down in a work out.

Knight is the clear cut tier 2 point guard. He's younger, bigger, and has higher upside than either Jimmer or Walker. Everyone has Knight ranked higher in their mocks because that is what they hearing from the inner circles, he's set to go higher than they are.

Why would he risk ruining that in a head to head match up? Hell, there are 2 head to head match ups with Kemba already on film and Kemba's team won both games, and still Knight is above Walker. Why go head to head against him in a non-game atmosphere?

If you were interviewing for a job, and you were the obvious choice for the job, and everyone told you that you were going to get the job, would you do a group interview with the other candidates with the risk that they can out interview you?

There is zero incentive for Knight to go head to head, he's making all the right moves right now, and nobody should be blaming him.

[DBJAZZ2]

For all the Jimmer haters, give one good reason why Knight won't work out against him? At least Kemba is doing it. I am sure that they have an agreement with the prospects to keep the results top secret.

Jazz are one of the honorable teams, who hopefully won't leak the results if they agreed to keep them confidential with team Kemba and team Jimmer.

Knight must know that Jimmer with show him up!

This has absolutely nothing to do with Knight and everything to do with his agent. Knight I know is a competitor and would be out there against anybody if his agent wasn't advising him against it. And I agree with Bat, it is a sound business decision by Knight and his agent. Nothing to gain, and honestly not much to lose becaue I highly doubt Jazz management would make their decision based solely on who wins a workout when they have a whole body of work to go off of. But not competing is still the smart move here. It doesn't by any means mean he is scared of Jimmer or anybody else.

[carrottop12]

For all the Jimmer haters, give one good reason why Knight won't work out against him? At least Kemba is doing it. I am sure that they have an agreement with the prospects to keep the results top secret.

Jazz are one of the honorable teams, who hopefully won't leak the results if they agreed to keep them confidential with team Kemba and team Jimmer.

Knight must know that Jimmer with show him up!

This has absolutely nothing to do with Knight and everything to do with his agent. Knight I know is a competitor and would be out there against anybody if his agent wasn't advising him against it. And I agree with Bat, it is a sound business decision by Knight and his agent. Nothing to gain, and honestly not much to lose becaue I highly doubt Jazz management would make their decision based solely on who wins a workout when they have a whole body of work to go off of. But not competing is still the smart move here. It doesn't by any means mean he is scared of Jimmer or anybody else.

Exactly right. Great early post.

I was listening to Locke earlier, he and Scott Girard were talking about the scouting the Jazz do during the year, Randy Rigby said between the three main Jazz scouting staff; Kevin O'Connor, Walt Perrin and Dave Fredman, they spend 13,000 hours a year scouting for each draft. Roughly 83 hours a week, every week for the entire year. The amount of footage these guys have seen of every player in the top 30 is absurd, they know these players in and out, a single workout head to head isn't going to change a damn thing.

This is why I have a problem with the Kanter work out videos, and the high school defensive videos. A mock draft website will get a hold of videos they haven't seen, and after watching 4 games they deduce that his stock is going to fall X amount of spots. Every single team in the NBA has not only seen all of those high school games 10 times over, they've seen every single European minute he's ever played, they've literally seen every single possession he's ever had at a competitive level. They don't leave guys who have the potential to be franchise changing players up to chance by not doing every ounce of research possible on the kid.

It's not like Kanter just jumped on the scene, he's been a top prospect for years now, and every scout or GM who is worth a damn has been eying him every chance they get.

If these guys get picked in the top 3 in the draft, it's not because the team that picked them decided to take a flier on a guy they didn't know anything about, it's because they've seen everything there is too see, and heard what they wanted to hear in interviews. The work out process must mean so little to these guys after watching every game Brandon Knight has played since he was 16 years old, it must just be a chance to have a face to face meet and greet. Not facing up against Jimmer or Kemba isn't going to hurt his draft stock in the slightest.

[DelaneyRudd]

Well, sort of. I mean, if they already had their draft board they wouldn't even bother with workouts to begin with.

[StocktonShorts]

I think the Jazz's main reason for a workout is to interact with the guy one and one and interview him.

[StocktonShorts]

This is why I have a problem with the Kanter work out videos, and the high school defensive videos. A mock draft website will get a hold of videos they haven't seen, and after watching 4 games they deduce that his stock is going to fall X amount of spots. Every single team in the NBA has not only seen all of those high school games 10 times over, they've seen every single European minute he's ever played, they've literally seen every single possession he's ever had at a competitive level. They don't leave guys who have the potential to be franchise changing players up to chance by not doing every ounce of research possible on the kid.

While I'm not sure Givony is right, I think his skepticism of Kanter is justifiable. As you've said, professional scouts like him spend a lot of time watching a lot of prospects and it seems like they develop a longitudinal profile for them. They'll watch to see how these players progress from year to year and from one level of basketball to the next. With Kanter there's a huge gap in the data and I think that's got to make it really tough to judge where he's at.

As I've said elsewhere, it's possible Givony is guilty of a confirmation bias, but I don't buy the grand conspiracy theories that he's got some axe to grind; and I just laugh at the newly-minted draft experts who think he's lost all credibility because he doesn't have Kanter as a top 5 pick.

[reapaman]

Well workouts are just doing your due dilligence. I mean theres no real point for the cavs to workout Irving if he's the consensus #1. For all we know, the jazz may have gone into this draft process knowing knight is gonna be there pick (if williams doesn't fall and they like williams). Its possible they never liked Kanter, their just keeping quiet and doing workouts with him just so they won't show all their cards. Some team that picks after us may really like Kanter and if the wolves don't pick him, that team that picks later might get nervous and offer a really good package so they can move up and get Kanter. On the flip side they may love Kanter and hate Knight or torn between the two, no one knows.

In the case of a site like DX, they don't know as much as the nba teams do about some of these prospects. So any reaction they make (whether good or bad) to new information (or Kanters case video) they get on a prospect, the nba teams may have made that same reaction a long time ago (they just keep it to themselves). For example, Many people and draft sites had Biyombo in their top 5 going into the draft combine stuff but many NBA teams may already had him as a late lottery pick because they knew some things months ago about him that we are just finding out (I'm not sure why he was that high to begin with). In the case of Kanter, what NBA teams think of him is really hard to guess because most people don't really know much about him while the NBA teams have a much clearer picture of who he truely is.

[StocktonShorts]

In the case of a site like DX, they don't know as much as the nba teams do about some of these prospects.

I dunno, I think I'd take DX's opinion on a lot of prospects over those of the scouts for some NBA teams, just based on how those teams have drafted. Some teams are probably very good at scouting and some aren't.

To get a feel for what DX does and what they're about I think it's worth reading this: http://www.draftexpress.com/aboutus.php

[finnegan]

I think the Jazz's main reason for a workout is to interact with the guy one and one and interview him.

Judging talent, whether it be singing, dancing, racing, or basketball is extremely difficult because our memories are so short. The BY FAR best way to do it is side by side or head to head.

This is a perfect opportunity for the Jazz, since they control the environment, and determine exactly what drills to put them through. I am totally guessing here, but this is how I would think that they do the process.

1. Come up with a comprehensive list of strengths and weaknesses for an individual player,
2. Put them in scenarios to determine how bad the weaknesses are and how far ahead they are with their strengths.
3. Evaluate the teams strengths and weaknesses and that players ability to help in those areas.

Some individual drills could include:

1. If you have two players, and they have the same strength, then put them in scenarios to see who is better.
2. If you have a player that is a strong defender (Marcus Morris) and another that is a strong scorer (Enes Kanter) let them go 80% effort at each other and see who wins.

There are too many scenarios to mention, but I disagree with you on this one Prole, and feel that the individual workouts are the absolute most important step in the ENTIRE process, but all most equally important is the character and compatibility issues (looks like they blew that one with Deron), which is determined by the face to face interviews.

What would also be interesting to observe is their ability to learn and adjust. For example, if they got drilled by their opponent in a workout, and could acknowledge and pinpoint the reasons why and how to correct, then you may have your self a winner.

[carrottop12]

The fact that the Jazz selected Eric Maynor despite never having him work out shows how much work outs matter. The jazz had other PG's in for work outs and passed on them in favor of Maynor.

He came in a day before the draft for an interview, and that was all the Jazz needed to draft him, I think that says pretty much all you need to know about work outs and where they sit as far as importance go.

Like Randy Rigby said, they'd like to think the 13,000 hours they spent scouting these guys means something as opposed to a 40 minutes work out between 4 players.

[carrottop12]

In the case of a site like DX, they don't know as much as the nba teams do about some of these prospects.

I dunno, I think I'd take DX's opinion on a lot of prospects over those of the scouts for some NBA teams, just based on how those teams have drafted. Some teams are probably very good at scouting and some aren't.

To get a feel for what DX does and what they're about I think it's worth reading this: http://www.draftexpress.com/aboutus.php

Well, if you look back at DX's draft history, you can see they are wrong just as often, if not more than NBA teams. That isn't DX's fault, you have to considering that millions of dollars are spent by these teams to scout these players, and they have multiple scouts all over the world at every tournament, as much as DX would like to do that, they just don't have the resources.

Going back to the validity of workouts though, just consider the Jazz worked out Michael Stockton and Jackson Emery.

What does that tell you about their importance?

[woodstock17]

I think the Jazz would love to have all three of them go head to head and I can see Walker and Jimmer salivating at the chance to prove that they are the 2nd best point guard in the draft but Knight is probably making the best decision. The Jazz are probably disappointed, but they know the Draft game better than we do and i am sure it wont hurt knights stock with the jazz (unless they fall in love with Walker or Jimmer).

As for the importance of the workouts, i agree with bat. they might be more important in certain circumstances but generally it seems like the interview carries a bit more weight and the workout is a bonus.

[outerspacefella]

... the Jazz selected Eric Maynor despite never having him work out... He came in a day before the draft for an interview, and that was all the Jazz needed to draft him... Like Randy Rigby said, they'd like to think the 13,000 hours they spent scouting these guys means something as opposed to a 40 minutes work out between 4 players.

Ronnie Brewer was the same; no workout, tiny little interview... and that was it.

[HammerDunk]

Meh, big deal