What do the workouts really mean?
Coach Iavaroni and Director of Player Personnel Tony Barone, Sr.
grizzlies.com
Joakim Noah played 108 games in three years at Florida. He helped lead the Gators to two consecutive national titles. The Grizzlies already have an extensive scouting report on him. So what can the team learn from bringing him in for a workout, as they did Wednesday?
Well, to be honest, not much.
“Our scouts have seen this kid since he was a freshman at Florida, so we have a good book on him in terms of what he’s capable of doing, and I don’t think there’s a workout that’s going to eliminate or add to what we already know, to be honest with you,” said Grizzlies Director of Player Personnel Tony Barone, Sr.
So there you go.
Of course, that’s oversimplifying it a little bit. As far as what he can do on the court, it’s true that there isn’t much he can show that Grizzlies management won’t already know about. As Barone likes to say, the workouts are “a snapshot”. But the workouts with individual teams are about more than wind sprints and free throws.
Like most teams, the Grizzlies try to bring players in early enough the night before their workout to go to dinner so they can get to know them on a personal level and gauge their personality, something they don’t get to do during the season when they’re scouting the players. In Noah’s case, Barone came away very impressed.
“We had dinner with Joakim last night, and he’s a delightful young man,” said Barone Wednesday. “(He’s) extremely intelligent, very opinionated, and tremendously into basketball, so it was a fun dinner.”
But going back to the on-court aspect of the workouts, it was an unusual sight Wednesday as Noah was the sole player being worked out by the Grizzlies, a stark contrast to previous years, when there were routinely four players at each session. But don’t look at the Grizzlies, or even Noah, as the reason why he went solo Wednesday.
“This kid will work out against David Robinson, Tim Duncan, bring them in and he’ll work out against them,” said Barone. “A number of the agents this year have decided that their players, especially at this level, (drafting at) four, three, they’re not working out against anyone, so it’s a one-on-nobody workout….It was not (Noah’s) decision to go solo. He will workout against anybody.”
Barone wasn’t frustrated by having Noah work out by himself.
“We don’t have any control over that, so we just do what we do with them in an individual workout,” he said.
The Grizzlies will continue to hold workouts daily until Friday, June 13. Check grizzlies.com Draft Central daily for further updates.