Kevin Mackey Had a Keen Eye for Basketball Talent
Kevin Mackey, who epitomized the phrase "basketball lifer," passed away on Tuesday at the age of 79. He made his mark at the high school, college, and professional levels as a coach, and as a scout with a keen eye for basketball talent. Mackey had a self-induced downfall at the height of his coaching career, and then he bounced back to finish his basketball career at the NBA level by working as a scout for the Indiana Pacers. He was inducted in the American Basketball Hall of Fame in 2024.
I told Mackey's story in detail in my January 2007 Basketball Times article titled Catching Up With...Kevin Mackey, but it is worth retelling the highlights here so that younger fans can appreciate the impact that he had on the game as a whole and on many specific players who he coached or scouted.
Mackey led Don Bosco Technical High School (Boston) to the 1976 Massachusetts state title plus three consecutive Class A Catholic championships before serving as an assistant coach at Boston College from 1977-83. Mackey earned a reputation as a top recruiter, and several of the players who he brought to Boston College later played in the NBA, including Michael Adams, John Bagley, John Garris and Jay Murphy. One of his top prospects was future NBA player Manute Bol, who Mackey attempted to bring to Cleveland State.
Mackey served as Cleveland State's head coach from 1983-90, posting a 142-69 record with back to back Mid-Continent Conference regular season titles (1985-86) and two NIT appearances. His teams employed a "run and stun" full court pressure defense adapted from what he learned while coaching under Tom Davis at Boston College. Some of these concepts were later borrowed by well-known coaches such as Rick Pitino and Jerry Tarkanian. The highlight for Mackey at Cleveland State was the team's Cinderella run in the 1986 NCAA Tournament, when the Vikings upset the Bobby Knight-coached 3rd seeded Indiana Hoosiers and then beat 6th seeded St. Joseph's before losing 71-70 to Navy (featuring Hall of Fame center David Robinson) in the Sweet 16. That was the first time a 14th seeded team reached the Sweet 16. Cleveland State used the proceeds from that NCAA Tournament run to build what is now known as the Wolstein Center, and in 1990 the school signed Mackey to a two year $300,000 contract. Unfortunately, midnight struck for Mackey and the Cinderella Vikings when Mackey was caught driving under the influence after leaving a Cleveland crackhouse.
Mackey admitted that he had been an alcoholic for many years, and that he began using cocaine shortly after the 1986 NCAA Tournament. He immediately went into drug rehabilitation, requesting that Cleveland State grant him a leave of absence to complete the 60 day program. The school president stated "I fired Kevin Mackey, but really he fired himself." Mackey completed the drug rehab program run by John Lucas--a former number one overall draft pick whose NBA playing career was ruined because of his drug addiction--and then Lucas helped him get a job coaching minor league basketball. Mackey spent 13 years coaching in a veritable alphabet soup of leagues in addition to coaching in Argentina, Canada and Korea. He won four championships, including three straight USBL titles. During that time, he coached 35 players who later played in the NBA, including Darrell Armstrong, Michael Curry and Adrian Griffin, who played on the Dallas Mavericks team that made it to the 2006 NBA Finals.
After Larry Bird became president of the Indiana Pacers, Mackey was the first person he hired. Mackey worked for the Pacers as a scout for 18 years before retiring in 2021. Mackey was gracious enough to provide a lot of time for me as my primary source for "A Scout's-Eye View of the Game," which is still one of my favorite articles that I have written. I had long wanted to have the opportunity to learn about--and share with my readers--how elite basketball talent evaluators analyze the strengths and weaknesses of players; the insights that Mackey provided nearly 20 years ago are still relevant today. I will never forget Mackey's concise, colorful descriptions of players he scouted, including one who "has hands like feet" and another who he dismissed as "JAG" (just another guy). Although intelligent use of statistics is part of talent evaluation, the value of the educated eye should not be minimized--and Mackey's basketball eye was as educated as anyone's.
In 2007, Mackey shared with me his all-time NBA team:
1st Team
Center: Wilt Chamberlain
Power Forward: Bill Russell
Small Forward: Larry Bird
Guard: Magic Johnson
Guard: Michael Jordan
2nd Team
Center: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Power Forward: Shaquille O'Neal
Small Forward: Julius Erving
Guard: Jerry West
Guard: Oscar Robertson
It may look odd at first to see Russell and O'Neal listed as power forwards, but in today's era of "positionless basketball"--or in any era, for that matter--such a squad would be formidable. Mackey said that if he could expand the roster to 11 then he would include Elgin Baylor. Mackey selected Red Auerbach as his coach, with Phil Jackson as the assistant coach (back in the day, teams did not have an armada of assistant coaches).
Speaking with Mackey and watching games alongside him is one of the highlights of my basketball writing career. We were kindred spirits because of our mutual love of basketball; we connected despite our differences in age and life experiences.
Mackey lived a life with no regrets; after I asked him if he thought about what he might have accomplished had he been able to coach longer at Cleveland State, Mackey replied, "I think that regret can be a cancer. I'd rather do a good job with
today. We had a great run—it was too short--at Cleveland State and that
was a great, wonderful part of my career. College-age coaching was a
wonderful opportunity and we had terrific success." However, he admitted that he missed coaching and that if he ever had an opportunity to coach again then he would take it.
That opportunity never presented itself, so I am picturing Kevin Mackey in basketball heaven now, coaching the "run and stun" and recruiting players who do not have "hands like feet."
Labels: Boston College, Cleveland State, Indiana Pacers, Kevin Mackey
posted by David Friedman @ 3:17 AM
Catching Up With….Kevin Mackey
This article was originally published in the January 2007 issue of
Basketball TimesIndiana Pacers scout Kevin Mackey has always looked for a certain kind of player: “the kid who was passed over, who is talented and maybe has a little bit of a chip on his shoulder—and terrific heart and terrific desire.” Mackey has recruited, coached and/or scouted such players for several decades now, first as a championship winning coach at Don Bosco high school in Boston, then as an assistant coach at Boston College in the early days of the Big East Conference and, most famously, as head coach at Cleveland State University.
Upsets are what makes March Madness special and in 1986 Mackey’s 14th seeded Cleveland State squad pulled off one that will never be forgotten, knocking off Bob Knight’s 3rd seeded Indiana Hoosiers in the first round, 83-79. Clinton Ransey led Cleveland State with 27 points, including 10 in the game’s final nine minutes. Eric Mudd, a 6-8 center, had 16 points and 18 rebounds. That Hoosiers team had All-American Steve Alford and, with the addition of Keith Smart the next year, won the 1987 NCAA Championship. Cleveland State received the final at-large bid in 1986, but the Vikings were hardly pushovers: they went 27-3 in the regular season and won the Association of Mid-Continent Universities championship. Mackey’s team played what he called the “run and stun,” pressing and trapping all over the court, a style later borrowed by Rick Pitino and Jerry Tarkanian. Cleveland State ranked second in Division I in scoring in 1986 (90.2 ppg).
Mackey did a lot of preparation for the Indiana game: “I watched 15 tapes of Indiana; I was very familiar with Coach Knight’s style of play through hearing him speak at many coaches’ clinics and (by reading) all of the printed material (that outlined Knight’s strategic philosophies). I was a fan of his and I thought that his defense was the base for all the defenses that are used—by me and by everybody else. I was very familiar with all of that. I thought that I basically understood his thinking and I wanted to play 94 feet rather than play 18 feet and in. We did not want to put Alford at the foul line because he was a great free throw shooter. Watching the films, I felt that he tried to draw fouls. He would jump into the defender; he would try to get the defender off of his feet. We wanted to keep him in the low 20s rather than letting him get 30-plus. We accomplished that. The other thing is that Coach Knight put Alford down the court against the press to score the ball and we felt that if they were having problems getting the ball in and bringing it down the floor then they would have to bring him back because he could catch the ball against pressure and he could handle the ball a little against pressure, pass it or whatever—but then he wouldn’t be on the other end to score. That was the case; he had to come back down the floor because they turned the ball over the first couple times and they were having problems immediately against the pressure.”
Cleveland State next faced St. Joseph’s, whose star player was Maurice Martin, a 6-6 AP honorable mention All-American who was later taken with the 16th overall pick in the 1986 draft. Mackey remembers that his team was not impressed by Martin’s press clippings: “We had a player who thought that he was better than their All-American. Our guy’s name was Clinton Smith and he wanted to cover him; of course I let him do that. Clinton, I thought, completely outplayed (Martin).”
Mackey says, “St. Joseph’s struggled against our press. We played 10 guys in double figure minutes that year and that is one of the things that I am proudest of about that team. Very few teams do that and as a result we had fresh legs in there all the time coming at the other team. They had a difficult time tracking who was in the game and who wasn’t in the game and then of course I felt that our energy level was usually superior—we played harder longer, which is one of the keys to winning games, to getting in the left hand column.”
Cleveland State earned a trip to the Sweet Sixteen with a 75-69 win. Point guard Ken “Mouse” McFadden scored 23 points on 10-15 shooting from the field. McFadden came from the New York City projects—specifically, an area known as Alphabet City—but received little attention from the Big East schools. Mackey recruited McFadden, who painted houses in Cleveland to pay his bills while he completed his GED before playing for Cleveland State.
In the Sweet Sixteen, Cleveland State faced Navy and David Robinson, who would later be selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA history. Mackey says, “I felt that, obviously, he was an imposing player in terms of his physical tools—he was so big and so quick and he was active. He was one of the top players—if not the top player—in the country that year. We wanted to deny him the ball and keep him off of the boards. We didn’t have any one guy who could do that; it was going to be a team effort. That year we led the country in rebound margin. Even though we weren’t that big, we placed a great deal of emphasis on rebounding and beating the other team to the ball. We played them very tough. There was a controversial call at the end. Their last offensive play of the game was an out of bounds play. We thought David ran over our defender and they lobbed the ball up to him and he laid it in.”
Navy won 71-70 on Robinson’s last second shot; Robinson had 22 points, 14 rebounds and nine blocked shots. McFadden got off to a slow start, but finished with 16 points.
Success at Cleveland State Based on a Foundation Built in BostonMackey’s coaching career began at Don Bosco high school in Boston. “We won the state championship in 1976,” Mackey says. “We had three straight New England Class A Catholic basketball championships. We were a basketball power and we had terrific success.” Don Bosco was ranked as high as fourth in the nation by Basketball Weekly and the Boston Globe awarded Mackey coach of the year honors.
Mackey’s next stop was Boston College, where he proved to be a valuable recruiter, first for Tom Davis and then later for Gary Williams. Competing for prospects with Big East powers like Georgetown and Syracuse was not easy, but Mackey brought in several players who later made it to the NBA, including Michael Adams, John Bagley, John Garris and Jay Murphy; Mackey says simply, “They were the building blocks of the Boston College program.” Boston College went to three Sweet Sixteens and two Elite Eights during Mackey’s time as an assistant coach there, winning two regular season Big East championships along the way.
When Mackey became the head coach at Cleveland State in 1983, the program was not only far from Boston geographically—the team was completely off of the map in terms of being a basketball power. Mackey had a blueprint in mind for changing that: “I felt very strongly that the type of kid that I was going to be looking for had fallen between the cracks, someone who was probably the wrong size for the position. There was a formula: someone who was the wrong size for the position, someone who went to the wrong high school, someone who went to the wrong summer camp—or no summer camp at all—and therefore was not rated as highly as he should have been by the scouting services. Someone who was hungry, quick and tough—that’s what we looked for.”
Mackey unleashed his “hungry, quick and tough” players in a “run and stun” style: “It was basically Tom Davis’ system that I used at Cleveland State,” Mackey explains. “I adapted it, of course, to suit the type of players that we had at Cleveland State, where we played a little bit more uptempo… I did it based on the diamond defense--1-2-1-1—most of the time. We would continually trap the ball, two on the ball, two in the passing lane, one back. We worked on it every day for an hour to two hours a day and we were very hard on our rotations. It was very demanding; the players were in great shape. Coaches told me that they wouldn’t schedule us because it was too difficult to prepare to play us—it took too long. I knew that we were on to something good. It was a good system to play…I always felt that we could win more games than we had any right to because it was a different style of play.”
Mackey adds, “The guys bought into it with their energy and their effort and they allowed us to push them and push them; I thought it gave us a terrific advantage because in our style we were better (than other teams). Part of the reason we were better is that no one else was doing what we were doing.”
A Quick Rise Followed by a Sudden FallThe 1986 NCAA Tournament run was the highlight of Mackey’s tenure at Cleveland State but his Vikings were far from one year wonders—Mackey had a 142-69 record during his time at CSU. That success resulted in major upgrades for the Cleveland State program. Mackey recalls, “We had a little high school type facility; they built a 13,000 seat arena on campus. We didn’t have anywhere to house our players; they bought the Holiday Inn across the street from the school and renamed it Viking Hall. It changed everything at Cleveland State as far as having the tools to do well in basketball.” You could say that the Wolstein Center is the house that Kevin Mackey built—but he never got to coach there. Just days after Mackey signed a two-year contract extension in the summer of 1990, a substance abuse problem led to his arrest and subsequent firing. Mackey swiftly went from being a rising star to being a basketball pariah.
The first thing that Mackey did after his fall from grace in Cleveland was go to Houston, where John Lucas had a rehab center. Lucas, a former NBA number one overall pick who never reached his full potential as a player due to substance abuse, had rebuilt his life and made it a mission to help other people to rebuild theirs. Mackey recalls, “John was terrific and we bonded immediately through basketball and through the fact that he had had a substance abuse problem. He was terrific with me, showed me the way, showed me what he did. He had a great program. After I was down there a certain amount of time he asked me what I wanted to do. I said that I didn’t think that I would be able to be involved in basketball anymore because I didn’t think that anybody would hire me. He said that he thought that he could get me a job if I was willing to work at it and to be away from the limelight. I said that that was fine, that was what I wanted to do.”
Lucas helped Mackey to get a job coaching minor league basketball. That was the beginning of a 13 year odyssey during which Mackey coached in a veritable alphabet soup of leagues in addition to coaching in Argentina, Canada and Korea. Mackey consistently proved that he could not only find talented players but also put together winning teams. He won four championships, including three straight USBL titles. He was twice named Coach of the Year in that league and is one of the coaches on the 20th Anniversary All-USBL Team. Mackey coached 35 players who eventually made it to the NBA, including several names that most NBA fans would recognize: Darrell Armstrong, Michael Curry and Adrian Griffin, who played on the Dallas Mavericks team that made it to the 2006 NBA Finals.
One stop in Mackey’s tour of the minor leagues stands out: “I had a wonderful situation and good ownership when I was in Atlantic City. We won three championships in a row in the USBL. That was a great run, with a lot of good players and a good organization.”
A Second Chance at the Big Time for a Basketball LiferMackey made the most of his time in the minor leagues but he longed to get a job in the NBA. His wish came true in 2003, when Larry Bird became President of the Indiana Pacers. Mackey was the first person who Bird hired. Mackey says, “I’m very grateful to Larry Bird for giving me the opportunity to be a scout in the NBA for the Pacers. It’s a great organization and I’m having a lot of fun.”
What does Mackey enjoy most about being a scout? “Every night going to the arena there is a chance that you are going to see something that you didn’t expect to see. There might be a young man who is off the radar who is going to show you something and outplay one of the big name guys, one of the All-Americans—that type of thing; I really enjoy that. That makes it worthwhile. Every once in a while you see that. Sometimes, it’s a couple of years apart, but you see it. That is one thing that I really look forward to—some night, somewhere, there will be a player who is off the radar who can flat out play.”
Mackey’s sentences are filled with colorful expressions: “He has hands like feet” or “I can find guys like that under a bridge.” These “Mackeyisms” date back to his years as a coach. “I think that part of it comes from when you are working with young people—or whoever you are working with—you want to be able to get their attention. If you can’t get their attention then you have a problem, even if you are right about the point you are trying to get across. Another thing is that you want to be able say something that people are going to remember, something that might make them smile a little bit. So, along the way you develop that.”
In addition to his vivid descriptions, Mackey, like many scouts, uses a certain shorthand when he scouts games in person: “When you are making notes, writing is important, but watching is more important. You watch first, write second; don’t be writing while they are playing or you will be missing a good game. I think that sometimes some people are writing when they should be watching. When you do write, you use your own little morse code or basketball code or whatever—all kinds of abbreviations. Sometimes I’ll write ‘cnsc3’—catch and shoot corner three. Or, ‘drdrndi’—drive, draw and dish. That type of thing, make it quick—‘2dr17footj’—two dribbles, 17 foot jump shot.”
Things have turned out well for Mackey but it is only natural to wonder what might have happened if his college coaching career had lasted longer. Mackey, though, does not believe in dwelling on that: “I think that regret can be a cancer. I’d rather do a good job with today. We had a great run—it was too short--at Cleveland State and that was a great, wonderful part of my career. College-age coaching was a wonderful opportunity and we had terrific success.”
When Mackey talks about basketball, his passion for the game is obvious. He is an excellent scout but he thinks and expresses himself like a coach. Would he want to return to the bench again? “Yeah. I miss coaching and should the opportunity arise I would give it serious consideration. Absolutely.”
Labels: Cleveland State, Indiana Pacers, Kevin Mackey, Larry Bird
posted by David Friedman @ 8:25 PM
A Scout's-Eye View of the Game
I recently had the opportunity to spend some time with Indiana Pacers scout Kevin Mackey and learn how a professional basketball talent evaluator watches a game. First, we went to a Division I college basketball game; later, I took notes as Mackey evaluated a videotape of a Division I college basketball game featuring a prospect. For obvious reasons, I promised not to mention the names of any of the players or teams; in any case, the point is not so much what Mackey thinks of a given player but rather how he thinks about basketball in general and player evaluation in particular. Mackey is perhaps best known for coaching the Cleveland State Vikings to a Sweet 16 appearance in 1986, including an upset over the third-seeded Indiana Hoosiers. Mackey also has head coaching experience in various pro basketball minor leagues, where he coached many future NBA players, including Darrell Armstrong, Mark Blount, Michael Curry and Adrian Griffin. Mackey led the Atlantic City Seagulls to three consecutive USBL championships.
“Seasons begin and end, but player personnel is year-round.”The above quote is one of the first things that Mackey tells me and it is well worth remembering. Mackey must be aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the players currently on the Pacers’ roster so that he can properly evaluate whether or not a prospect can help the team. The first thing that a scout must consider is talent: can this player play at the NBA level and contribute in a meaningful way? Physically, a scout is looking for players who have an NBA body and NBA athleticism. Next, a scout evaluates if the player can do these things at the NBA level: (1) shoot; (2) get open; (3) rebound; (4) pass.
However, just because a player has NBA level talent does not mean that he will be an effective NBA player. This is something that a lot of fans—and players—do not understand. Putting up big numbers and filling highlight reels with slam dunks do not prove a player’s NBA worthiness. It is vital to observe the action off of the ball: (1) does the player understand what he is supposed to be doing? (such as setting a screen, cutting, double-teaming, playing help defense); (2) is the player unselfish or is he just trying to pad his own statistics?
As Mackey puts it, some players "suck their thumbs" when they don’t have the ball; their body language clearly communicates that their main interest is scoring and that they are unwilling to do anything else to help the team. Other important characteristics to observe include the player’s attitude toward his coach, his interactions with his teammates and his response to adversity, which could come in the form of missed shots, physical play, a blown call or a mistake by a teammate. These kinds of things are difficult to pick up during a television broadcast; only in person can a scout gauge a player’s presence/dominance.
Mackey says that most players are not equipped to play both ends of the floor and sometimes it is difficult to project how a player’s skills will translate from college to the pros. For instance, will a great college shooter be able to get his shot off in the pros? A scout must determine if the player’s positives at one end of the court outweigh his negatives at the other end. Mackey notes, "Toughness translates from one level to the next. You look for toughness."
Mackey became a scout after a long coaching career, so part of his mindset is to evaluate a player based on what it would be like to coach him; other talent evaluators are ex-players and their experiences on the court shape their perspectives of how a player should move, look and perform. One former player turned NBA talent evaluator insists, "Players tell you if they can play by how they move." He always arrives at games early so that he can observe how fluidly players move during pre-game warmups. I couldn’t help but bring up a football example: Bernie Kosar, who quarterbacked the Cleveland Browns to three AFC Championship games but moved so awkwardly that it looked like he could not chew gum and walk at the same time. Of course, there are always exceptions, this talent evaluator concedes, but in general great athletes have a presence and move with a certain grace and fluidity.
SCOUTING A DIVISION I COLLEGE BASKETBALL GAME IN PERSONWhen Mackey and I arrive at our seats, he explains that he is focusing on four players in this game, two from each team. Mackey builds a "book" on each player—a combination of their statistics and observations about their strengths, weaknesses and tendencies. He says, "Players have DNA"—unique traits that form their identities as athletes. What if a player who is lightly regarded plays extremely well? Then Mackey has to determine if the player just got hot for one game, had a favorable matchup or has in fact improved his skills. He will make a note to follow this player’s performance for the rest of the season. If the player was completely off of the radar, the likelihood is that he just had one good game and will soon revert back to his normal level.
During the game, Mackey fires off comments in a staccato style. After a careless turnover, he says that you "throw a football but you pass a basketball." He waits until stoppages of play to jot down notes so that he doesn’t miss any game action, observing that this part of his job is similar to what a beat writer does while covering a game.
Mackey says of one player that he is small, but, pointing to a stat sheet showing his team-leading scoring average, that he must be doing something right to score this much. Mackey nods approvingly when this player makes a two dribble move and nails a three-pointer. Still, it doesn’t take long for Mackey to identify his weaknesses: he must get tougher and learn how to drive to his left.
When a different player drops some passes and fumbles the ball a couple times, Mackey exclaims, "He has hands like feet." A minute later, Mackey says, "You can find guys like that under a bridge. I bring in guys like that (to training camp), I won’t have a job."
After watching the game for about ten minutes, Mackey says that the four guys he is looking at are limited and that his highest projection for players in this game would be the CBA or the NBDL. The best of the bunch, relatively speaking, is a player who has NBA size and is a good open shooter. The problem is that he is not tough—he doesn’t fight through screens on defense. Still, after he makes a few shots, Mackey says that he "shoots the deep ball. That’s an NBA talent." Because of his build and his ability to shoot, there is a slight possibility that he could develop into a useful NBA player.
Mackey dismisses the most athletic player of this quartet with the acronym "JAG"—just another guy. Playing the devil’s advocate, I point out that his team runs no plays for him. Mackey agrees, but says that how well a player rebounds tells you a lot because that is based solely on the player’s effort, drive and toughness: "You don’t need your mother or your coach or your teammates" to help you get rebounds. This player has obvious physical gifts but he is not doing much and is having little impact on the game. Later, when we look at a halftime boxscore, Mackey circles the number of rebounds by this player’s name and shakes his head; if a reasonably athletic player is not dominating the boards against college players, what chance does he have to succeed in the NBA?
The ability to catch the ball, hold on to it and make a play is rare but very important--players who have great hands are few and far between. Mackey says that hands "are a talent. Good players hang on to the ball." The small guard with the decent scoring average drives to the hoop but has the ball stripped away. He may have been fouled but nothing was called. I ask Mackey about that: When he was coaching, what would he say if he was chewing out a player for losing the ball and the player responds by saying that he was fouled? Mackey replies simply that coaches don’t want to hear excuses. If the referee did not blow his whistle then there was not a foul and the player must be tough enough to retain possession. If a player has any trouble dealing with the level of contact in college basketball then no scout is going to even consider recommending him as an NBA prospect. Players must be able to accept a lot of contact and still finish at the basket in order to play at the NBA level.
Most of the early action involves perimeter players until a reserve big man checks into the game and receives some touches in the post. To be a legitimate NBA prospect, a post player must be able to catch, turn and shoot in traffic. Not long after he enters the game, this post player drops a poorly thrown pass. I ask Mackey if he holds that against the post player or against the guard who threw the pass. Mackey answers that it was the guard’s fault but notes that a great receiver—an upper echelon post player like Tim Duncan--would have batted the ball to the floor and then controlled it. Mackey says that Moses Malone had small hands, so he would sometimes bat the ball until he could grab it. If a skilled player can get a hand on the ball then he will usually find some way to catch it, so this poorly thrown entry pass tells Mackey two things: the guard is not a good feeder of the post and the player he passed to does not have superb hands.
A few possessions later, the post player receives an entry pass that he can handle. His moves around the hoop are so mechanical and plodding that I thought that I was watching an old Godzilla movie made with stop action photography. Mackey puts it a different way: he has no "stuff" around the basket and is "not clever" with his low post moves. A good post player moves crisply and decisively and if the defense cuts off his primary move then he immediately goes to a counter move—stop his baseline hook shot and he spins to the middle for a short jumper. Instead, this player tries to use his size to muscle up a shot. When he is stopped short he has no counter move.
After the game, Mackey says that he does not need to see any of these players again this season; if they are smart, they will stay in school, develop their skills--and earn a degree, because none of them is a serious NBA prospect at this point. Next year, Mackey will probably watch them play again to see if any of them have substantially improved.
FILM SESSION Before we watch any tape, Mackey points out some "NBA questions" that he has written on the grease board that hangs on one of his office walls. They are:
--Accomplishments to date
--Level
--NBA physical tools
--Athleticism
--Skill set
--Size for position
--Understanding
--Motor
--Drive
--Desire
The first two can be classified as "background"—what a player has done until now in high school, college and/or international play. Mackey calls the last three "want to" traits—intangibles such as whether the player will play hard, not back away from physical contact and continue to have a good work ethic if he gets a big contract. Understanding is another intangible—does he make the right pass, is he in the right position, does he recognize situations on the court.
Mackey says that he has not listed the questions in order of importance but, for instance, if a player does not have NBA physical tools or athleticism then he really needs a great skill set to compensate. Steve Kerr is an example of this—he lacked athleticism, but could really shoot and had a good understanding of how to play. Earl Boykins, T.J. Ford and Eddie House are examples of players who are undersized but possess outstanding quickness.
The major advantage of film study over watching a game live is the ability to rewind plays. The two disadvantages are bad camera angles at times (in terms of what the scout wants/needs to observe) and not getting the chance to feel a player’s presence and see his interactions with teammates, coaches and referees. The only way to get a complete picture of a prospect is to combine film study with in-person observations of a prospect. Tapes of college players may either be recorded from regular broadcast television or broken down into clips consisting exclusively of a certain player’s offensive or defensive sequences from a particular game.
Mackey has selected the tape that we are watching to look at one player in particular—let’s call him "the prospect." Early in the game, the prospect takes two dribbles and then hits a jumper in the lane—Mackey rewinds the tape and says that this is an NBA caliber move. The prospect gets where he wants to go on the court, plays under control and is not in a hurry. Mackey likes the way that he uses his off arm to ward off the defender but without doing it so blatantly that he commits a foul. Later on, the prospect scores a basket and draws a foul by giving the defender his hip while protecting the ball. I suggest that his moves are stronger, quicker and more decisive than any moves made by the players in the game that we watched in person and Mackey heartily agrees.
All teams have a book on numerous prospects prepared by Marty Blake’s scouting service. This book contains thumbnail biographies and various statistics. Mackey turns to the page in the book about the prospect and notes some concerns that he has about him, the foremost being his poor free throw percentage—actually, his shooting percentages from all ranges (FG, 3-point FG and FT) are not great. His shooting form is not the best but Mackey is not worried about that. He says that the most important thing in becoming a good shooter is repetition. Larry Bird and Reggie Miller did not have classic form but perfected their deadly shooting via countless hours of repetition.
What Mackey wants to determine is how effectively the prospect would fit in with the Pacers’ players. Can he make other people on the team better by driving to the hoop, drawing the defense and dishing the ball to open shooters? Mackey says that sometimes a player plays better than his numbers might indicate. College coaches move players around to different positions to get wins. This is understandable—winning games is their job—but often leads to players performing in roles that are different from what their roles would be in the NBA, hindering a true evaluation of them. The style that a team plays affects a prospect’s statistics, as does the quality of his teammates. Statistical analysis is very much in vogue in baseball and is rapidly gaining popularity in NBA circles. Mackey agrees that it is an important part of the puzzle but says that the "eyeball is number one."
On a couple occasions, the prospect dribble drives, penetrates and then makes passes to open shooters that are not converted into baskets. Those would be good NBA plays that NBA quality shooters would convert into baskets, but because his teammates missed the shots the prospect’s assist totals do not accurately convey his ability as a playmaker. Mackey likes that the prospect handles the ball well and is an athletic kid. Mackey rewinds the tape again when the prospect gets a strong offensive rebound and converts. Soon after that, he makes another NBA caliber driving move and finishes at the hoop with his left hand. Later, the opposing team tries to apply some ball pressure against the prospect, but he is not fazed. Mackey notes that he’s not a jet, but he uses his body to protect the ball and has a good handle. He uses size to get into the lane and understands how to pass the ball. On defense he is able to keep ball handlers in front of him and is in the right position most of the time. Mackey summarizes the prospect’s performance: "He can come in and play with grown men; he’ll pass the ball"—as opposed to a player who would come into camp shooting all the time and irritating veteran players.
Getting Ready for the DraftAll of the information from the team’s scouts is assembled together before the draft. Technological improvements have helped make scouting more sophisticated and there are fewer secrets now because of it—for the teams that take advantage of the opportunities that the new technology presents. Specifically, there are high quality DVDs or videotapes available of almost any serious prospect that a team may be considering; advances in computer technology make it easy to break down a game tape and extract all of that player’s key offensive or defensive plays for examination. I mention that a few years ago my favorite part of the NBA draft was when a team would draft some foreign player that only Hubie Brown had heard of and then Brown would break down that player’s game while TNT showed some grainy black and white footage that looked like a bad home video. Mackey says that sometimes you still may end up with grainy footage of foreign players, but much less frequently than in the past.
In some cases, a team’s scouts will disagree about how to evaluate a given player and that player’s ability to fit in with the team. More information is gathered when players are brought in by the teams for interviews. These interviews may be conducted by a group of scouts or by one scout individually. If a scout is not present for an interview he can submit a question that came up based on what he saw/researched. For instance, "Why did Player X not play until his senior year of high school?" The answer may reveal academic, legal or family problems that could be red flags about this player. Other parts of the final evaluation process include a medical examination, psychological profiling and the coach’s assessment of what the team needs.
Teams conduct many mock drafts to try to anticipate what the other teams will do and to figure out which players are most likely to be available to them. Of course, Mackey would not say for publication what the Pacers think about this year’s draft but he says that the Pacers did 35 mock drafts at various times leading up to the 2005 draft and that Danny Granger—a player who the Pacers really liked--was never available. The interesting thing about the process is that different teams have different needs and different aversions to perceived risk. Mackey believes that questions about Danny Granger’s knee may have caused his draft status to drop. The Pacers were delighted to get him with the 17th overall pick in the first round. Early in the season, even before Granger received much playing time, Mackey raved to me about his toughness. Granger averaged 7.5 ppg and 4.9 rpg and was selected to the All-Rookie Second Team, just missing the cut for First Team status.
The Pacers—and 29 other NBA teams—hope to select another Granger in the 2006 draft. Their scouts are working 365 days a year to find him.
Labels: Indiana Pacers, Kevin Mackey
posted by David Friedman @ 6:22 PM
