Sixers 2008 Draft Center

Q&A with Tony DiLeo

Preparations continue for the upcoming NBA Draft, and the 76ers front office is in full-swing attending last minute workouts and poring over more than a year’s worth of information on the prospects they have targeted.

SIXERS.COM staff sat down with Senior Vice President and Assistant General Manager Tony DiLeo to discuss just some of what goes into getting ready for one of the biggest nights of the off-season.

How do you prepare for the NBA Draft throughout the year?
Tony DiLeo: It starts with scouting. We go out and we watch players when they start. We watch them in pre-season practices and game situations. We get probably almost every game on film from each player. We do a lot of editing on film and breakdowns of tapes, and that’s during the season. After the season is over, we have individual workouts with the players that we feel might be selected around the pick that we have.

We bring them in for individual workouts. We do psychological testing and individual interviews. When we work them out on our court, we get a chance to see how they work with our coaches and how “coachable” they are… how they pick up on things. It’s also important to us to meet with them just to get a little handle on their personality. We know how fast they are, how good they shoot and dribble the ball. But after the season when we bring them in, we want to see what’s inside, which is the hardest thing to judge. So we try to get a handle on their personality; how much drive they have inside to become great.

We also do a lot of background checking. We talk to their high school coaches, their college coaches, and coaches in their same conference. We talk to professors and teachers. We just try to get an overall view of what they do. We also have a private investigator who actually does a report for us, goes out and investigates any red flags that may pop up with them. So it’s all entailing and we feel by draft night, we have a pretty good idea of what these players are about and we rank them.

When do you begin putting this final ranking together?
TD: We bring our scouts in about a week to 10 days before the draft. They come in from all over the country and worldwide. We bring them in together and really study, analyze, break down each player, get opinions from everyone and we have a working ranking. So we have a ranking as of today and everyday the ranking changes. By the time we get to draft day we have a final ranking. So that just means that when we pick, (ed note: this year, the Sixers hold the 16th overall pick), the highest ranked player we have on that list we will take. All the emotion is out of it. We have done our work. We’ve done everything. We have this ranking and it’s basically just crossing off names and whoever is there is who we pick.

What do you do when you first arrive to PCOM on Draft Day?
TD: We usually get here between 8:00 and 8:30 am. Mainly we start by checking on different things; if there are any questions about the players, if there are any last minute interviews or just wrapping up all the details. We make sure we have contacted every team to find out if they want to move a pick, if they want to move back, if they want to trade a pick, if we want to trade up. Most times in a draft we try to target a player that we really like, so if we feel this player may go in front of us we may try to move up to get that player. We have a pretty good handle of which teams would want to move picks and trade picks, so we are just reconfirming and talking to a lot of teams.

We then go over our list one more time because you always like to sleep on it one night. So we have our final list, we come in and review the list and make sure that everything is said.

Then we like to get all our boards in order. We have boards with rankings on it and we have a board with everybody in the draft and their names so as they’re being drafted we can knock them off and see who’s left over. Then we have a board with every team in the draft order that we will fill in as they’re being drafted.

After the morning hours have gone by, what takes place in the afternoon?
TD: A lot of it is calling other teams not only for their picks, but also trying to figure out before hand, like ‘OK, who is Sacramento taking? Who are you hearing here?’ We try to predict basically how the order is, how the players will be taken so that we have a little better idea and we’re not really surprised if all of a sudden a player drops.

Also, during the day we review everything with our doctors. They have all the physicals here so we’ll just make sure if there is a risk with a player having a previous injury - we know about it.

As the Draft begins, how would you describe the atmosphere at Draft Central (the room where all of the scouts and basketball operations staff reside in during the draft)?
TD: A little bit like the stock exchange! There are a lot of people calling different teams. Last year was just unbelievable; it was just non-stop because we had the early pick at 12, we had 21, we had 30, and a second round pick so there was never a break in the action. This year will be a lot easier. We have number 16 so we’ll know if we can move up or not move up. After 16, if there is a player that we still like, we’ll try to get a pick but most of our work will be done for number 16.

SIXERS.COM: What is something that you look for in every player you draft?
TD: Character is something we go for; we have a good group of players and we want to continue that. They have to not only fit in with our style, (we’re an athletic and up tempo style team), but they also have to fit in with our personality; they have to fit for us. We try to make sure it’s a good fit because we had good chemistry last season and we want to continue that. We want to bring players who will fit in with our team.

Once you decide who you are taking, who makes the call to New York?
TD: Courtney Witte usually is our designated guy who is on the line with New York and he will give the name of our selection. After we make the pick, we try to contact the agent and the player to talk to them, congratulate them, and try to make arrangements for them to come here for the press conference the next day.

What do you hope to get out of this year’s draft?
TD: I hope we get a very good player out of this year’s draft. We are always looking to improve our team, and this year we know we like 16 players. So we know we have a group of players, hopefully it will be a player that in one or two years has a major impact on the team.