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ShareCourtney Witte Part II
Last week Philadelphia 76ers Director of Player Personnel Courtney Witte sat down with some members of the Philadelphia media to discuss the 76ers scouting process. Witte has been with the 76ers basketball operations department for nine seasons. After spending two seasons as assistant coach/Director of Scouting, Witte was elevated to his current role in September 2003. Among Witte’s responsibilities, he coordinates the 76ers professional scouting and collegiate player evaluation process, and is involved in all aspects of basketball operations, including draft night preparation.
Sixers.com sat in on the media availability session and here is Part II of a two-part series on Witte discussing the preparation the team puts into the NBA Draft:
On the character of the players that the Sixers have and want to continue to have…
I think what Billy said a year ago is still true. We want good character people and that's important. I think everyone feels pretty good about themselves with this current roster and how they competed. There's no question we have to get better and we have to get better players to improve in certain areas. That falls on us now to get good character people that have to become pretty good basketball players.
On the kind of players in this year’s draft…
I think looking at the players who are seniors this year, I think there's 25-26 international, 60-some American underclassmen. From a guy that sees a lot of basketball I think you're seeing a lot of younger kids that are pretty good players, and that's a good sign for everyone. There's always going be some knuckleheads out there, but I think there are some pretty good kids out there.
On how every draft is different…
Every draft is different. You'll get asked 'Well historically, who are the 12s? What did they do?' and that's good to know, but I think the tough part about that is every draft is different. Last year's draft is different than this year's. I think why there are so many people nationally saying that [the thing about this draft] is that you have a large number of underclassmen that are quality players. There’s also quality young players who have declared for the draft; you have over 60 of them. Now are all those guys going to stay in? No, but they have until the 18th to pull out.
On how deep the draft is with young talent…
On paper right now, that's why you have everyone talking about how deep this draft is going to be. There's obviously talent out there, and a lot of talent that's young. If you look at a lot of the top projected picks in this draft - obviously Oden and Durant one year of college experience. That's the consensus, whether its 1A or 1B. Then you go on from there and you've got Brandan Wright, a one-year player. [Al] Horford at least has had a few years in college, along with [Corey] Brewer, [Joakim] Noah - who are all juniors. Julian Wright's had a couple years, but there are a lot of other players that are very young.
On how much maturity weighs in on a player realizing his potential…
There's always variables. When you go back to scouting at games and you’re spending countless hours with video, you're getting all this information. It stills boils down to a certain degree, what's in a young man's head and what's in a young man's heart.
On how a year of college experience helps the evaluation over just high school experience…
It does. We still go out, and it’s more regimented than it used to be, but we still go out during the legal periods and see kids in high school all-star games during the summer with AAU programs. Spencer Hawes, for example, we've seen for years. These players are known. In this day and age of technological capabilities, it's hard not to know a top tier player when he's [younger]. We're not watching every game, but we know about them and we've seen them.
On how much and what kind of additional research scouts do on a player…
There's always variables. When you go back to scouting, when you're at a game and you spend countless hours watching video and you have all these people giving you information, it all boils down to a certain degree to what's in a young man's head and what's in a young man's heart. We can do psychological testing, which we do. We can do all the background checks, which we do. You can talk to all the former players he played with, AAU teammates, his cousin's uncle, etc. When you're investing this kind of money, we're almost like investigators. It's gotten to that point. You cannot afford to make mistakes in this day to stay in the NBA. You make a bad selection it'll haunt you for years.
On whether scouting high school players is still a priority…
It's more regimented, but we still go out and see high school players.
On what can affect a player’s ability to live up to their potential…
There's always players that don't live up to their potential. Why? That's what we have to understand. You don't know with 100 percent certainty what's in a kid, what's his drive. You have a pretty good feel, but how will money affect them? How will salaries affect a kid's drive? What's his ambition? What's his work ethic? You do the best you can and we do a thorough job, every franchise does, but it comes down to, we're all individuals and we're all human. We all make our own decisions.
On keeping the staff updated on who they’re scouting…
It's a lot of debate and we debate about every two weeks. We start off in October doing a pre-ranking of who we need to see. We have conference calls every two weeks. We spend over three to three-and-a-half hours on each one. Obviously as you go along there's not a lot of fluctuation at the end of the season as there is at the beginning of the season.
On the draft process leading up to and on June 28…
We'll bring our scouts in this room and we'll spend about two weeks before the draft. We'll sit in here and watch all the video on our top 60. We do a top 60 ranking of value, which is actually the first two rounds. Then we have an additional 20 people who are of note. We'll sit in here and we'll look at everything we need to look at. Probability-wise we're at 12, 21, 30, and then we have our second-round pick. We'll sit here as a group and we'll start putting them up and start talking about what we found out about each player. A lot of them may be unheard of, but we'll go through them all.
We'll have a good feel. Our top 60 is how we value the players. It's not what I read on some website, but I do think it's somewhat important to know what other people are putting out there. It's important to know what Coach [Larry] Brown hears Mike D'Antoni's thinking of doing because he knew Mike D'Antoni. It's important to know how we think the draft's going go, but the main thing is how we value. If we have someone who we think is going to be at 12 and who we want at 12, but we hear someone else also values him and they're in front, then we've got to figure out how can we get up there to get him.
On the separation that occurs in talent after the first few picks…
Once you get past one and two there's going be some separation, but there's still going to be some good basketball players there. I think there's a lot of young, potentially good basketball players. I don't think there's going be a lot of separation once you get past those first two and once you get down to 16, 17, 18. I'm in the process of determining where that next separation is.
On whether there’s a clear separation in talent after a certain point in the draft…
There's definitely going to be a break somewhere, there always is. There's going to be a few breaks, but I think your breaks are dictated by the value you put on your players. If we're valuing 16 players that we'd do anything to get, then we're fine. If we feel as a group that we like 16 players then obviously, mathematically, we're going to get a player we like. Where it gets tricky is if we like 10 or 11. I don't think that's the case. (this year) I think because this draft, once you get past two, it could go down to 20 or 21 [before it separates again].
I think there's a lot more closeness this year once you get past those first two. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a player that could be picked in the late 20s who could be a hell of a player. All those variables - considering youth, potential, etc. there are over 60 players just domestically and over 25 internationally.
On if it’s possible to measure a player’s drive…
You can, as much as humanly possible. It's based on accumulation of information that can come from all different areas. We have basketball lifers as our scouts. You've got a pretty good chance of somebody knowing somebody that knows somebody and it doesn't have to be their coach. You take what the coach says, you take what the uncle says, you take what the AAU coach says and I think you make the best determination. It's not 100 percent, but I'm pretty confident we have a pretty high percentile of where this kid is and what his drive is.
On if he would be satisfied if only two or three picks turned out to be NBA quality players…
I don't think so. Each draft is relative, but if you've got an opportunity with
12, 21 and 30, I would be disappointed if all three of those picks weren't contributing at some point down the road. I think it's a quality draft. I would be disappointed if five years down the road the 30th pick wasn't giving us something.
On what happens and the atmosphere on draft night in the draft room…
You go in with a game plan. You have all of these pieces of information. You have phones ringing with teams trying to come up looking for your pick. We have constant communication and lots of things going on at the same time with only have five minutes in between selections in the first round. We know what our game plan is going in, but then there's someone behind you that wants to come up and get your pick, or one of our other guys hears, hypothetically, that Indiana is ahead of us and they're going to pick our #1 guy. We start thinking if there is anything we can do to maybe leapfrog in front of them. There are a lot of things going on and a lot of emotion. It’s tense, but it is exciting. It's exhilarating, but it's not some chaotic situation. It's fairly controlled. When we're in there we have all defined roles of what we're trying to do.
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On the character of the players that the Sixers have and want to continue to have…
I think what Billy said a year ago is still true. We want good character people and that's important. I think everyone feels pretty good about themselves with this current roster and how they competed. There's no question we have to get better and we have to get better players to improve in certain areas. That falls on us now to get good character people that have to become pretty good basketball players.
On the kind of players in this year’s draft…
I think looking at the players who are seniors this year, I think there's 25-26 international, 60-some American underclassmen. From a guy that sees a lot of basketball I think you're seeing a lot of younger kids that are pretty good players, and that's a good sign for everyone. There's always going be some knuckleheads out there, but I think there are some pretty good kids out there.
On how every draft is different…
Every draft is different. You'll get asked 'Well historically, who are the 12s? What did they do?' and that's good to know, but I think the tough part about that is every draft is different. Last year's draft is different than this year's. I think why there are so many people nationally saying that [the thing about this draft] is that you have a large number of underclassmen that are quality players. There’s also quality young players who have declared for the draft; you have over 60 of them. Now are all those guys going to stay in? No, but they have until the 18th to pull out.
On how deep the draft is with young talent…
On paper right now, that's why you have everyone talking about how deep this draft is going to be. There's obviously talent out there, and a lot of talent that's young. If you look at a lot of the top projected picks in this draft - obviously Oden and Durant one year of college experience. That's the consensus, whether its 1A or 1B. Then you go on from there and you've got Brandan Wright, a one-year player. [Al] Horford at least has had a few years in college, along with [Corey] Brewer, [Joakim] Noah - who are all juniors. Julian Wright's had a couple years, but there are a lot of other players that are very young.
On how much maturity weighs in on a player realizing his potential…
There's always variables. When you go back to scouting at games and you’re spending countless hours with video, you're getting all this information. It stills boils down to a certain degree, what's in a young man's head and what's in a young man's heart.
On how a year of college experience helps the evaluation over just high school experience…
It does. We still go out, and it’s more regimented than it used to be, but we still go out during the legal periods and see kids in high school all-star games during the summer with AAU programs. Spencer Hawes, for example, we've seen for years. These players are known. In this day and age of technological capabilities, it's hard not to know a top tier player when he's [younger]. We're not watching every game, but we know about them and we've seen them.
On how much and what kind of additional research scouts do on a player…
There's always variables. When you go back to scouting, when you're at a game and you spend countless hours watching video and you have all these people giving you information, it all boils down to a certain degree to what's in a young man's head and what's in a young man's heart. We can do psychological testing, which we do. We can do all the background checks, which we do. You can talk to all the former players he played with, AAU teammates, his cousin's uncle, etc. When you're investing this kind of money, we're almost like investigators. It's gotten to that point. You cannot afford to make mistakes in this day to stay in the NBA. You make a bad selection it'll haunt you for years.
On whether scouting high school players is still a priority…
It's more regimented, but we still go out and see high school players.
On what can affect a player’s ability to live up to their potential…
There's always players that don't live up to their potential. Why? That's what we have to understand. You don't know with 100 percent certainty what's in a kid, what's his drive. You have a pretty good feel, but how will money affect them? How will salaries affect a kid's drive? What's his ambition? What's his work ethic? You do the best you can and we do a thorough job, every franchise does, but it comes down to, we're all individuals and we're all human. We all make our own decisions.
On keeping the staff updated on who they’re scouting…
It's a lot of debate and we debate about every two weeks. We start off in October doing a pre-ranking of who we need to see. We have conference calls every two weeks. We spend over three to three-and-a-half hours on each one. Obviously as you go along there's not a lot of fluctuation at the end of the season as there is at the beginning of the season.
On the draft process leading up to and on June 28…
We'll bring our scouts in this room and we'll spend about two weeks before the draft. We'll sit in here and watch all the video on our top 60. We do a top 60 ranking of value, which is actually the first two rounds. Then we have an additional 20 people who are of note. We'll sit in here and we'll look at everything we need to look at. Probability-wise we're at 12, 21, 30, and then we have our second-round pick. We'll sit here as a group and we'll start putting them up and start talking about what we found out about each player. A lot of them may be unheard of, but we'll go through them all.
We'll have a good feel. Our top 60 is how we value the players. It's not what I read on some website, but I do think it's somewhat important to know what other people are putting out there. It's important to know what Coach [Larry] Brown hears Mike D'Antoni's thinking of doing because he knew Mike D'Antoni. It's important to know how we think the draft's going go, but the main thing is how we value. If we have someone who we think is going to be at 12 and who we want at 12, but we hear someone else also values him and they're in front, then we've got to figure out how can we get up there to get him.
On the separation that occurs in talent after the first few picks…
Once you get past one and two there's going be some separation, but there's still going to be some good basketball players there. I think there's a lot of young, potentially good basketball players. I don't think there's going be a lot of separation once you get past those first two and once you get down to 16, 17, 18. I'm in the process of determining where that next separation is.
On whether there’s a clear separation in talent after a certain point in the draft…
There's definitely going to be a break somewhere, there always is. There's going to be a few breaks, but I think your breaks are dictated by the value you put on your players. If we're valuing 16 players that we'd do anything to get, then we're fine. If we feel as a group that we like 16 players then obviously, mathematically, we're going to get a player we like. Where it gets tricky is if we like 10 or 11. I don't think that's the case. (this year) I think because this draft, once you get past two, it could go down to 20 or 21 [before it separates again].
I think there's a lot more closeness this year once you get past those first two. I wouldn't be surprised if you had a player that could be picked in the late 20s who could be a hell of a player. All those variables - considering youth, potential, etc. there are over 60 players just domestically and over 25 internationally.
On if it’s possible to measure a player’s drive…
You can, as much as humanly possible. It's based on accumulation of information that can come from all different areas. We have basketball lifers as our scouts. You've got a pretty good chance of somebody knowing somebody that knows somebody and it doesn't have to be their coach. You take what the coach says, you take what the uncle says, you take what the AAU coach says and I think you make the best determination. It's not 100 percent, but I'm pretty confident we have a pretty high percentile of where this kid is and what his drive is.
On if he would be satisfied if only two or three picks turned out to be NBA quality players…
I don't think so. Each draft is relative, but if you've got an opportunity with
12, 21 and 30, I would be disappointed if all three of those picks weren't contributing at some point down the road. I think it's a quality draft. I would be disappointed if five years down the road the 30th pick wasn't giving us something.
On what happens and the atmosphere on draft night in the draft room…
You go in with a game plan. You have all of these pieces of information. You have phones ringing with teams trying to come up looking for your pick. We have constant communication and lots of things going on at the same time with only have five minutes in between selections in the first round. We know what our game plan is going in, but then there's someone behind you that wants to come up and get your pick, or one of our other guys hears, hypothetically, that Indiana is ahead of us and they're going to pick our #1 guy. We start thinking if there is anything we can do to maybe leapfrog in front of them. There are a lot of things going on and a lot of emotion. It’s tense, but it is exciting. It's exhilarating, but it's not some chaotic situation. It's fairly controlled. When we're in there we have all defined roles of what we're trying to do.
