Tag: waste of time

Who Are These Guys??

You have to sign a general D-League contract in order to be eligible for the draft. The league has a vetting process to make sure that only the most qualified people are in the draft pool.

The final list of players eligible for the D-League draft was just released. I was not one of the 261 people on the list. That is going to make things quite difficult for me in the “getting drafted” department.

I had a small chance of being selected even if I was eligible, but it would have been nice to be included. Particularly because of some of the other players that made the cut.

I want to look at some of the shorter people that are in the draft pool, because they are presumably my competition. Keep in mind that everyone listed at 6’0 is probably 5’10, and everyone listed at 5’11 is more like 5’8. That’s just the way basketball works.
For instance, see Courtney Lee, and his 6’5 listing.

I played some pickup against Lee a few years ago, and he is MAYBE 6’3 if he is wearing thick soled shoes and did an hour of yoga that morning. But there is no downside to listing yourself as taller than you are, so you’d be foolish not to.

And just to be clear, I am the last person to denigrate someone just because they are relatively unknown. There are tons of people out there who can thrive if they get an opportunity. Maybe one of these guys will get drafted and have a great career, and if so, more power to them. One of them might have absolutely killed during a tryout. Who knows. It’s just from where I’m sitting, these people seem to be particularly under qualified for inclusion in the draft. Continue reading “Who Are These Guys??”

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How To Ruin a Negotiation Without Really Trying

1. Be angry from the moment you wake up.

From 10 AM on I was working myself up about my meeting with the team owner. I decided that there was no reason that he should have charged me for the car that he let me use for a month. There was no reason I should have to pay for a flight when we never the discussed the details before hand. There was no reason I had to go in there and be a kiss ass when I had not been paid in over 2 months. I was ready to really get into it with this guy.

2. Don’t Listen to Anybody’s Pre-Meeting Advice

Maybe my agent sensed the fury growing within me, because he called me around 11 AM. He told me that he had talked with the owner, that I needed to accept whatever money he offered me, and that he would work something out later. I asked him why everything always got pushed back around here. He insisted that nothing good would come of bringing the ruckus right now. Continue reading “How To Ruin a Negotiation Without Really Trying”

The Problems With Scouting Reports

Today was my first Israeli scouting report, and it was very entertaining.  There were no chopped up video clips detailing the strengths and weaknesses of each player. There was no going over every possible play they might run. All these things were replaced by watching the first quarter of their last game along with a with a simple 15 minute team meeting and a piece of paper with a sentence about each player.

This was all right up my alley. I know that coaches have good intentions and work hard to put together their reports, but do we really need to spend a half hour talking about their 8th, 9th and 10th players? You could probably feel it coming, so hear it is. Time to rant about college pregame scouting reports and walk-throughs! Continue reading “The Problems With Scouting Reports”