Does NBA scouting need to change their approach?

[elchengue20]

I think the big story of these Playoffs has been how undervalued most of these guys were coming into the NBA.

Only in the Finals we have :

Jokic - 41 pick !!!

Butler - 30th pick

Adebayo - 14th pick

Martin, Vincent, Robinson, Strauss - undrafted

Brown Jr - 42nd pick


Also other notable mentions are Brunson (33th pick), Reaves(undrafted), Booker (13th pick)

I think NBA scouting relies way too much on size and athleticism. Those tools get translated too easily into "potential". Also age, being younger it's seen as too big of an advantage relative to other players.

IQ, feel for the game, determination, jumpshooting, have to clearly have more value in scouting evaluations.

Jumpshooting? You can argue that sometimes it is overly valued, not undervalued.

Drafting is not a science, they are always going to get things wrong. Of course you have to keep adjusting and trying to improve, but some things you simply don't know.

Booker was on a stacked Kentucky team, so you only saw so much of the 18 year old who averaged 10/2/1 in college. You knew he could shoot and had skills, but so could Jerome Robinson who the Clippers jumped on way early based on shooting and skill and look where he is.

I'm not really sure what you're trying to argue though, good players will fall in drafts no matter what. Some players are "late bloomers", some players ability to adapt and improve is much better. Many players are drafted after one year of college, there's only so much data to evaluate on.

Late picks and undrafted guys have been contributing to the NBA for a long time. Ben Wallace's athleticism was underrated in his case for example. DeAndre Jordan had size and athleticism but was seen as too unskilled and undisciplined and went in the 2nd round.

You can draft the exact same idea of player and one works and one doesn't. Or the exact same idea of player can be passed up and one becomes a star and the other is done in two years. There are areas to do better for sure, but you can only know so much.

One thing is "good players falling in the draft", another whole different thing is the best player in the league being drafted #42.

Or the whole rotation of a Finals team being drafted outside the lottery, with multiple undrafted players.

Plus, you see a pattern in most of them, they are not athletic players but with great IQ, determination, fundamentals, coachability etc.

Also you see most of busts are players with great athletic tools/size but who lacked severly in those same areas.

I think it's worth discussing. Personally i think NBA scouting it's too oriented to the type of mesurables you can see in the Draft Combine, for example.

[Mirotic12]

I always thought NBA office job is half ass, because compare it to Euro management, every single signing you make there is from another league, country, level, everything... WHere NBA just sign already know players and only thing similar to Euro job is the draft.

That said tho, Draft to the NBA is just far bigger leap than most Euro signings, so maybe it is not the same, and is indeed very hard.

But also, as a Euro fan, I wonder why NBA teams are so not interested in European vet market, as I said many times, it is crazy how they only moving same names, paying role players 20 mil a year now, not even trying some euro FA and a minimum. I get that most of those guys are not NBA level, but you telling me they all aren't, NBA isnt even trying, over past 10 years they brought like 12 vet guys over, and apart of Facu and maybe Bjelica and Teodosic, none of these were even top tier Euro players, and then fans say there is no upside in EUro FA market, liek come on, you arent even trying to find a guy who would fit, like how in hell, prime Kyle Kuric, an AMerican player, never play in the NBA, in his prime he was one of the asbolute best off ball catch and shoot guys, NBA cant use that?

Facu and especially Bjelica were not top tier EuroLeague players. Bjelica won MVP because Fener fans stuffed millions of online votes for him. He was never even a top 10 EuroLeague player. Neither was Campazzo, at least not before he went to the NBA. Teodosic is the only one of those three that was a top 5 EuroLeague player prior to the NBA, and even he was never anywhere near to the real top EuroLeague players like a Bodiroga / Spanoulis, or even like a De Colo or Micic level.

[Doctor MJ]

I think the big story of these Playoffs has been how undervalued most of these guys were coming into the NBA.

Only in the Finals we have :

Jokic - 41 pick !!!

Butler - 30th pick

Adebayo - 14th pick

Martin, Vincent, Robinson, Strauss - undrafted

Brown Jr - 42nd pick


Also other notable mentions are Brunson (33th pick), Reaves(undrafted), Booker (13th pick)

I think NBA scouting relies way too much on size and athleticism. Those tools get translated too easily into "potential". Also age, being younger it's seen as too big of an advantage relative to other players.

IQ, feel for the game, determination, jumpshooting, have to clearly have more value in scouting evaluations.

A few thoughts:

1. I think we first need to recognize that basketball does a better job in scouting than almost any other field does. It does a far better job than most other sports, and sports in general do a better job than most anything else.

2. A major part of the issue is not so much that the things you mention carry too small a weight, but that they aren't able to quantify these things well. Every year a bunch of guys are hyped as having great feel for the game - heck I remember when DLo was hyped as being a generational passer. So what we really need is not necessarily more weight on this stuff, but a better able to actually recognize objectively how much of an outlier a guy actually is.

And to be clear, while I think these things are too intangible to be done as well as the run & jump stuff, I do think we can do better than we've done.

3. When you mention all these Miami guys, what you're actually pointing to is the importance of player development through coaching. Yes, they tend to be able to succeed most dramatically along certain dimensions like shooting, but more than anything else, this is a question of how we make better coaches, rather than identify better players.