My Improvement Plan as a Scout: 2024 Draft Cycle
If we aim to get prospects to improve, let's do the same with ourselves as scouts. Here's what I plan to focus on more
At the end of every basketball season when I was coaching in college, our staff would call an individual meeting with each player. We’d go over their season, watch some film clips, dive into the numbers, and then work together to customize an offseason plan for their development. The premise was simple: we, as coaches, knew what the roster would look like next year, our plan for how the pieces would come together, and felt objective in our analysis of what each player could get better at. I firmly believe that one of the major reasons we experienced turnarounds from losing programs to winning ones at each stop of my college coaching career was because we were so detailed and focused with these plans — and we were able to get the players to buy into following them.
After those meetings were completed, I always tried to do the same. I’d stick around and ask the head coach where he’d like to see me improve, what I can do better to serve our players or to prepare myself for someday becoming a head coach. Often times it included things I already knew, other times the feedback was difficult to hear or was illuminating of a new part of coaching I had never considered. But we as people never arrive, we never figure everything out or get to a place where we stop learning. We have to keep growing, adding new skills to our repertoire, or sharpening the ones we’ve built.
So if the summer is the “offseason” for scouting, then this will become my time to focus on what those improvement areas are. Self-awareness and honesty are required for these changes to be effective… I have to stare at my own weaknesses or shortcomings in order to really be able to improve.
Think of this as my self-written improvement plan, what I vow to get better at, pay more attention to, prioritize differently, or try to accomplish within the next 12 months. Some of this comes from a general feeling that I have for my own shortcomings, while other bits are farmed from feedback from those I respect within the draft space. Either way, here’s my development plan or wishlist for next year.
Get Out More In-Person
Okay… this one might be tough.
I miss the days of being able to get into a gym and scout players in-person. I think I’ve really gotten much better at doing stuff on film and seeing as much as I can through that lens. But being in the gym with guys is the absolute best, and unfortunately, my schedule being a full-time teacher and basketball coach hasn’t allowed me to take many individual trips to see different levels. That will get more complicated over the next few months as my wife and I welcome our first child.
I’d love to get down to OTE in Atlanta, to Vegas for the Ignite, to more college games in-person on weekends, to the Combine in Chicago. I just… need to make this a priority. Even if it’s difficult (or expensive), this is what I need to do. I miss being in the gym and around the action
Plus, you gain a little more when watching in-person and are around different conversations with others in attendance which can be really eye-opening. I’ve had plans to head to Portsmouth, to Vegas, to all these places that have been thwarted by real life. Time for the excuses to stop — let’s get out on the road a bit when time allows for it.
Get a better feel for each prospect as a person — character, work ethic, background information, etc.
In developing my team-building philosophy, I firmly believe that the overlooked portion within the public eye is in understanding the person, not the player, being drafted. I’ve developed this idea from years of being a college coach and in a locker room, from reading and hearing thoughts from other Hall of Famer coaches/ players, and thinking about the old recruiting philosophy one of my first bosses once gave me: only recruit guys you’d want to get a beer with someday.
If ‘the secret’ to basketball is that it’s about the chemistry and the people in the room, then I need to do a better job of prioritizing getting to know these prospects as human beings. Get a better understanding of their character, the path they’ve walked, and you often get a feel for how accepting they are of sacrificing for a championship, blending into the NBA and accepting the role they’re given, and staying as a model citizen for an organization to depend upon.
Over the years as a coach, I’ve added a belief that the best gift I can give my players is self-awareness. Sure, I can make them better basketball players, smarter and more skilled. But if they aren’t willing to do what helps their team win when the lights come on (or know what that is, even) then it’s all for nothing.
When I read Sam Vecenie’s draft guide at The Athletic every year, I’m staggered just how many tidbits about these players’ backgrounds I really didn’t know before that. I work in great proximity with Sam, and I feel like my Rolodex (do people even know what a Rolodex is anymore) of sources to find many of these tidbits is growing. This year, I want to get that information before doing my own analysis, and certainly before just flipping through Sam’s almanac of excellence.
The goal in drafting players and putting together a roster isn’t really to assemble the most talent. It’s to assemble a group that wins games. Personality, character, self-awareness, and willingness to sacrifice matter. Over the years, I’ve gotten better at finding those skills and traits on display on film. I need to do more to unearth those traits when the cameras are turned off and do my research to really understand these people as best I can.
Increase the value of/ remind myself of AAU and pre-college tape for one-and-done prospects
While this may seem like it’s influenced by one or two specific prospects, I promise you it is not. I think we get far too wrapped up in what we see in college basketball from many domestic one-and-done prospects. It’s easy to understand why: it’s the toughest brand of basketball they’ve played, and a simple narrative to construct is that they’ve met their match when they get to these levels and are no longer great players.
Look back at the long list of top players coming out of high school who never amounted to anything in the NBA and, well, it’s sensible to take poor showings at the college level seriously. But that exercise cannot be a one size fits all approach. I need to get better (or spend more time) going back into the high school and AAU film pre-draft — and not just of the guys who were injured or struggled — and getting a feel for what they did well, how they were utilized differently, and which aspects of their skill levels really translate.
I think there were several prospects I did that for this year, and found the exercise really helped. I was big on hitting that with Jarace Walker, Brandon Miller, Nick Smith, Dereck Lively, and Dariq Whitehead. Last summer, I did quite a bit of film review on Keyonte George, but didn’t invoke his high school role or performance enough in the pre-draft analysis.
The key to doing this right is to not handpick who I do this for. If I can get to this for everyone, that will be important. I think the 2024 cycle is one where I’ve been better at simply by being a high school coach and watching more AAU of players in their age group since they were younger. But I’ll need to return to that tape in the April-June period to do away with some (potential) biases that were formed in the context of their college roles.
Watch more G-League!
I know that there’s only so much time in the day, but man did Summer League do a number on me. I felt like many of my favorite draft prospects from 2022 or 2021 showed up and looked so much better and more developed in areas than I remember!
So much work goes into these guys in the G-League, and I feel like I miss it by not watching enough regular games that take place there. Sure, I’d catch guys a lot when tuning into the Ignite and have a general feel for who is succeeding and who isn’t. But I want to pay closer attention to the year-over-year growth of some of these guys.
As a draft analyst, it’s easy to have everyone on my radar pre-draft and then kind of lose track of them once I focus fully on the next cycle. Yet there’s real value in keeping my eyes on them throughout the year: not only do I learn and sharpen my own toolbox as an analyst, but these players are the ones future first and second-round picks will be competing with for minutes and roster spots. I think I can gain a greater context for the class as a whole by doing more cross-comparison between 2024 prospects and the 2023 players who are spending their rookie seasons mostly in the G-League.
Develop my own statistical filters, based on historical data and analysis, to use for sifting through which prospects I’ll buy into
Summers are difficult. While I have a little more free time, I’ll be honest and share that most of the general public does not give two shits about the draft that is 11 months or more away. Trying to keep growing the Substack and YouTube channel during those months is a tiresome activity, though growth is only possible if I keep putting out frequent pieces and capitalizing on the momentum coming out of the 2023 draft cycle.
What’s difficult is trying to balance those shorter, more frequent pieces with one big project that would take a ton of time and, as a result, cause me to do less on the video or written side for a bit.
If there’s one big project I’ve wanted to do, it’s in developing statistical filters and diving into the data to try and come up with my own statistical queries for what I believe is successful at each position (more on the idea of positions later). If I can carve out the time to do a huge historical study and create my own database, I think there will be a TON that I can learn from it as a scout that applies to the next cycle.
I just need to make sure that I have enough time to be complete and thorough in my analysis. Anything half-assed or incomplete from a data analysis standpoint will certainly skew results, and that would be a poor idea on my end. If it’s ‘go big or go home’, I really want to get better at prioritizing the ‘go big’ portion — even if it means doing fewer YouTube pieces and sacrificing that algorithm in the meantime.
Come up with a more sophisticated system for lumping players by position
For the past five or six years, I’ve used six positional categories to place players into: Point guard, combo guard, wing, forward, post, and athlete. The first five categories seem most self-explanatory, and the sixth of ‘athlete’ has been the flexible group to put all positionless guys into, or to fudge the numbers for guys who fit more than one category. It was a system designed around this idea of ‘your position is who you defend most frequently’, which I still believe holds merit.
However, I think there’s room to expand this and try to be a little more specific within these roles. Perhaps I won’t completely change the system and will just add a subcategory to further drill down what I’d project their role to be. I’ve seen other draft analysts do that before and think there’s real value in the exercise, or at least in clearly stating it on scouting report videos or other breakdowns.
I’ll need to fidget with this idea a little more to see if I can sensibly change things around. There’s value in simplicity for attracting the common viewer or relating to those who aren’t well-studied in massive amounts of depth. There’s also value in specificity, as it can make comparison of prospects a more accurate endeavor.
More Film Breakdowns on the Podcast!
Towards the end of the 2023 draft cycle, I started to do more film analysis on the Box and One Podcast. It seemed like a hit and something people enjoyed, but more importantly, I really enjoyed it.
My goal for this year (sure, this is more of a goal than an improvement area) is to do this regularly and make this what the podcast is about. I’ll need some great guests to come help, but I think this could be a tremendous way to teach the game and to contextualize these prospects from an early time.
Keep improving my understanding of European leagues and their level of competition
As an American, it can be really easy to focus on just what we see in front of us here and what we know. High school, AAU, college systems, the G-League… they’re fairly straightforward and easy to contextualize when you’ve grown up in the United States and been watching these levels your whole life.
Europe is a little different. There are dozens of leagues, farm systems within them, and trying to understand the nuances between each has been a challenge for someone with limited experience going overseas. While this has been a goal of mine for some time, there are only so many hours in the day, and frankly, I have to gravitate toward what is easier to follow with the time that I have.
This draft cycle is one where I vow to do better. 2024 features a ton of intriguing international prospects, many of whom I believe will go in the first round. By first glance here in the summer of 2023, I’d say anywhere from 5-8 European-born prospects could go in the first round next year. Understanding their backgrounds fully requires having a clear picture of what takes place in Europe at lower levels, not just in the ACB or Adriatic League, to name a few.
Give back, and share more single-game notes earlier in the draft cycle
By no means do I believe I’ve ‘made it’ as a scout in any regard, so please take what I’m about to say with a grain of salt. Hopefully, the context of this entire piece being about what I need to improve shows that I don’t view myself in that manner.
But holy shit… I feel like I’ve quickly turned into one of the old heads or more prominent platforms on the internet, and while that still feels baffling to me, I do feel a bit of a responsibility to help support the next generation of Twitter analysts who will parlay their interests into full-time jobs. I learned a ton from always reading DraftExpress and The Stepien (among others) and if some young hopefuls now hold me in that light, please know I take that seriously.
My DMs are (mostly) open — I’m going to try to be better at remembering to look at my Twitter message requests this year. I want to help the next generation as much as I can. One way I plan on doing so: doing a little more sharing of my single-game notes.
I learned to take notes while watching film from my old boss and college coach, and it’s an exercise I still do to this day. While I split my time between old-fashioned hand-written notes in a notebook and just random musings on a Google Doc (which is easier for searching for information down the line), I think it could be valuable for some to see what that process looks like and why having notes is so important.
Love this, keep going man. You’re filling an underserved need in the draft community; combining what i feel to be a disciplined, objective approach to analysis with the eye-test. I also think you do a nice job looking ahead to superimpose a prospects’ strengths and weaknesses with the evolution of the pro game itself. I’ve enjoyed your work very much thus far and greatly respect the humility to keep improving, especially if it means buffing up some of the rough areas. Well done, thanks for writing.