Contra Costa Times: "Nobody knows"

[CeltsSteve@AOL.com]

Published Sunday, June 24, 2001 
 
http://www.contracostatimes.com/sports/stories_localbrk/draftmain_20010624.htm


This draft is a game of chance 

Front-office personnel having a difficult time rating players 


By Matt Steinmetz 
TIMES STAFF WRITER 

For NBA general managers and player personnel directors, the pressure to win 
has never been greater. Every trade made, every player selected in the draft, 
every mundane transaction must endure intense scrutiny, be it from 
sportswriters, season ticket holders, radio talk show hosts or anyone who has 
ever wandered into a stray hoops chat room on the Internet.These GMs and 
front office types are often paid millions of dollars. In turn, they are 
entrusted with their teams' future. Every decision is critical. Every coup is 
a possible promotion, extension or raise, every blunder a potential pink 
slip.But when it comes to the NBA draft, never have these men been more 
clueless. 

"What could be a greater indication of how unknown everything is that only 
four or five days before the draft, people are still trying to figure out who 
is going No. 1 through No. 5," Detroit Pistons player personnel director John 
Hammond said. "Usually, you have a good feel for it by now, but people are 
having trouble going one through seven. Yeah, there's six or seven guys in 
that first group, but you can't place them in any order." 

Forget order. This draft is chaos. Six high school seniors, more than three 
dozen college underclassmen and a half-dozen or so early entry international 
players have made themselves eligible for Wednesday's NBA draft, which will 
take place in New York.The kids might be all right, but league executives 
sure aren't. The influx of young players, particularly the four high school 
players who are expected to be selected among the first 10 picks, have rocked 
this draft to the core. 

"Here, I'll give you a quote," said one Eastern Conference executive. "This 
is what I hear every day: 'This is the craziest draft ever.' Whatever that 
means." 

What that means is doing your homework doesn't necessarily ensure a good 
grade in the draft. Go ahead, watch film until your eyes blur. Bring in 
player after player for individual workouts. Administer all the psychological 
examinations you want. You're still dealing with teen-agers and because of 
that you're going to get teen-age behavior.Kwame Brown, Eddy Curry, Tyson 
Chandler and DeSagana Diop -- the four high school players in question -- are 
the ones most responsible for throwing this year's draft into a tumult. Kobe 
Bryant, Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady -- three recent players who made a 
successful jump from high school to the pros -- they are not. 

That's not to say they won't be good players. They might be. Probably not 
next year, or maybe not even the year after that, but down the line they 
might be good. Maybe even great. Or maybe they won't even be good at all. 
Sound confusing? Welcome to this year's draft. 

"It's unlike any draft we've ever been involved in," said Warriors general 
manager Garry St. Jean, who will select No. 5 on Wednesday. "This is the 
youngest draft ever. You have no certainties and it's wide open." 

Said Indiana Pacers president Donnie Walsh: "I'm kind of glad I don't have to 
pick near the top. I don't need that kind of headache. You take a (Michigan 
State guard) Jason Richardson over a high school kid, and if the kid 
surpasses him in talent over the next couple of years, you look bad. If you 
draft a high school kid and he doesn't develop you look even more foolish." 

So what's a team to do when it is expected to invest millions of dollars in a 
player who has only recently attended his high school prom -- and might not 
even have driven there? Well, you do what some teams already have done. You 
administer psychological tests, hire private investigators, talk to high 
school coaches and principals. You find out if a player's family is willing 
to accompany him to the city where he may be drafted. You do whatever you 
can. 

"We have lots of scouts that go to games, interview the players and study 
film," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban said. "Finding them is easy. 
Scouting them is easy. It's measuring the intangibles and then determining 
what their potential is, and whether they can live up to them, that is hard. 
Once a kid declares, we can't bring him in to have him play five-on-five 
against NBA competition." 

So in the end, you're dealing with an age-old problem: trying to figure out 
what makes a teen-ager tick. 

"When you start doing background checks and you're dealing with a college 
senior, you can start with the college coach and you can go on campus and 
talk to professors," said Hammond, who last season was an assistant coach for 
the Los Angeles Clippers, a team that took high school senior Darius Miles 
with the third pick. "You have four more years of life experience. But now, 
with a high school player it's more difficult. You just try to figure out who 
this guy is and you better get a handle on it." 

Duke's Shane Battier is the only player expected to be picked in the top 10 
who played four years of college basketball. The Warriors are looking 
squarely at the possibility of drafting a high school senior. It is likely 
that one or two of the top four will be available when they select.St. Jean 
refused to comment when asked if the Warriors had hired any investigators to 
look into potential draftees but said he knew of teams that did.

"For a long time most teams have done that," Warriors assistant general 
manager Gary Fitzsimmons said of looking into a player's background. 
"Basically you were dealing with collegiate players. Now you have a wider 
scope of players. Whether it be European players or high school kids. 
Obviously you're going to check everything you can as far as what kind of 
student he is and what his teachers say about him. What do principals say 
about him? All of those things. But those have always weighed in. Obviously 
you can't necessarily take a player and not take the person. I don't think 
that part has changed; I think the scope has changed because of the youth." 

The Warriors refused to publicize which players they brought in for 
individual workouts, although it is widely known they brought in upwards of 
30 or 40 players. St. Jean said he didn't want a young player who is not 
accustomed to dealing with the media being asked specific questions about a 
workout. The fear, he said, was that a player might divulge important 
dialogue that took place inside the gymnasium that other teams might be able 
to use to assess Golden State's interest in a player.The Warriors are not 
alone in their paranoia. Some front offices have instructed their employees 
not to comment at all about players. 

"The influx of high school players is driven by the popularity of the game, 
the economics of the game and the success of some of the players who have 
made the jump and been successful," said Sacramento Kings vice president of 
basketball operations Geoff Petrie. "Some of them will be very, very good. 
Some will fail. I've done more and more scouting of high school games over 
the last four years. Some of the high school kids who declare, that's the 
only time you're going to see them in person because they're not going to 
(predraft camps) Phoenix, Portsmouth (Va.) and Chicago. In order to get a 
good look at a kid, you've got to see high school games. You have to ... 
because you never know." 

Because these high school players have very little of a track record, teams 
are putting more emphasis on the individual workouts. But it becomes scary 
when you place a great deal of weight on how a player performs agility drills 
with a team's strength and conditioning coach. 

"It's ridiculous," said the Eastern Conference executive. "We're flying these 
kids all over the country for these workouts. But you know what? If you don't 
know by now, you don't know." 

And that's the one known about this year's NBA draft: Nobody knows.