Right now, just about every NBA decision maker — save four, and they sent key personnel — is in Chicago for the annual NBA Draft Combine. A chance to watch guys shoot, run around cones, work out and interview guys likely to be drafted by teams.
You can watch it yourself Thursday and Friday on ESPNU (it will not be on NBA TV as in years past, not sure how the coverage will change).
Nets Assistant General Manager Bobby Marks is eating some deep-dish pizza and watching prospects this week and he broke down what the week is like for Nets.com.
Starting tonight, from 6 o’clock to 9 o’clock, we’ll interview four or five prospects. We have a half hour each with each player in an interview-type setting…We spend a half hour with each guy .
The next day, the morning is designated from 9 o’clock to 1 o’clock for workouts, so we’ll go over to the gym, we’ll watch the guys partake in a skills workout — they don’t play 5-on-5 or game setting or anything like that. It’s all general workout stuff. That afternoon, we’ll start the interviews again; I think we go from 2 in the afternoon to 9 o’clock that night. We’ll interview another eight or nine players during that seven-hour gap. The following day, which is Friday, starts it all over again: There will be drill work and skill work in the morning, from 9 til 12, and then there’s interviews from 2 o’clock to 5 o’clock.
These kind of combine workouts and measurements are not going to impact what is up for Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Thomas Robinson or other guys up at the top of the food chain.
But if you’re a late first round/early second round kind of player who measures shorter than expected, is slower than expected of just come off like a turd in your interviews, it will impact you. Scouts tend to know these guys, but if the GM gets a bad vibe from you in the interview, you fall off a team’s radar fast. Again Marks.
The interview process is a good setting, just because you really don’t know much besides what you’ve done background on; you’ve never really met these kids. And you get to see the other people who are in your position, GM-wise, and get the dialogue going toward the Draft and free agency. It’s more about gathering a lot of intelligence and a lot of information.
While the media may not be in the room, word will leak out about who looked good and who did not.
