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Jeff Foster hit everything he threw up. Dale Davis threw up. Paul George showed a work ethic and coachable nature. One player who shall remain anonymous did not.
The Pacers' basketball braintrust has seen just about everything in the workouts leading up to the NBA draft over the years. They haven't seen enough to fire the scouting department or skip those trips to Chicago and other locales to observe draft prospects, but they've seen plenty. And once again they are hoping to see enough to feel confident they are calling the right names on June 25.
The Pacers will have had at least 36 players in for these last-look sessions by draft night. The candidates put up a lot of shots, partake in drills to test skills and agility, and play in controlled three-on-three scrimmages, running plays set up by coaches, before having lunch and conversation with members of the basketball staff.
Everything counts for something, but doesn't likely outweigh what a player did in college – especially if that career has lasted more than a season or two.
"I would hope the college career weighs a lot heavier than a workout," Pacers scouting director Ryan Carr said. "If our staff is out traveling around watching these guys for multiple years, that base of information should carry more weight than 45 minutes on a court, after they got in the night before from another workout.
"But it gives us a chance to get to know them."
In a simpler time, teams hardly bothered to get to know players. Scouts watched them play in college, often just on television, and made their selections based on distant impressions. Go back to the '70s, for example, and the starters on Indiana's undefeated national championship team in 1976. All were drafted, four in the first round, but none worked out for an NBA team. They got a phone call on draft day informing them they had been selected, and that was that.
By the late '80s, the process began expanding into something more complicated. Reggie Miller, for example, was brought in for an interview by the Pacers, but did not work out. A couple of years later, Rik Smits worked out for them, solo, with coach Jack Ramsay conducting. A decade later, players came through in small batches, and one or two under serious consideration might be brought back for a second look.
Now, they practically come in droves. And that's after hundreds of thousands of dollars are spent sending scouts throughout the country and around the globe, and attending the various pre-draft camps and tournaments, as well as workouts put on by agents.
It's a grueling process for teams and players alike, but it's become the norm. It's inevitable, given the high stakes.
"The NBA is a competitive place, and you always want another look," former Pacers president Donnie Walsh said.
Teams are practically forced to bring in players for up-close observation now, particularly those with high first-round picks. Time was, team personnel would go to Hawaii for a week to watch prospects play in games and talk with their agents. There's also the pre-draft tournament in Portsmouth, Va., an institution since 1953, and a camp in Chicago that began in 1982. The camps have tended not to attract the top talent, though, and that particularly became true when the draft lottery went into effect in 1985, when all the non-playoff teams had a shot at the No. 1 pick.
Today, the elite draft prospects only go to Chicago to be measured and interviewed. The second-tier guys might participate in drills and tests to exhibit their athleticism. The rest, hoping to find a place in the second round, or perhaps end of the first round, participate in scrimmages.
The bottom line is that if a team wants to really get to know one of the top-end picks, it's going to have to bring him in for a thorough and personal examination. By then, teams have seen a prospect play dozens of times and conducted background checks, but they'll want to see him perform against other top-end players and get to know him a little better.
Teams once tried to keep secret the names of the players they worked out, to protect their interests in the draft. That grew to be difficult, however, because most agents like to tell reporters where their clients are going to make them look good. Today, in the era of social media, secrecy has become impossible. A player can tweet where he works out if he wants. The Pacers, like several other teams, make their players available to the media after workouts to stay in the news.
A player's performance in a workout isn't the greatest factor in his draft position, but it certainly can tip the scales in his favor. And the Pacers have had some memorable ones.
Davis famously interrupted his session at the National Institute for Fitness and Sport in 1991 to vomit into a trash container, then walked back onto the court and said something along the lines of, "Let's go." That provided a preview of the toughness that made him the franchise's all-time leading rebounder in NBA games.
The Pacers were interested in Foster in 1999 because of his athleticism and physical style of play. When they brought him in, he drained jump shots, too. They brought him back for a second look on the day before the draft, and he did it again. Could it be?
"I thought, Maybe this guy can be a shooter, too," Walsh said. "We wanted him because of his big man skills. But he shot the ---- out of it."
"He made every jump shot," assistant coach Dan Burke confirmed. "Every jump shot."
"It was pretty incredible," added Carr, an intern at the time. "Little did we know he'd never make a jumper, but do everything else."
Foster also excelled in a drill set up by then-scouting director Al Menendez – a "star run," in which a player touched five cones placed around the court to test his quickness and agility. When Foster was finished, Menendez checked his stopwatch and shouted, "Third-fastest star run on record!"
"We're looking around like, There's a record for that?" Burke recalled.
The Pacers were sufficiently impressed to trade up from 29th to 21st in the first round to get Foster, and he turned out to be a good value. But not because he could hit a jump shot. He quickly lost confidence in it, but still lasted 13 seasons as a standout rebounder and defender.
Some other Pacers familiar to fans also stood out in their workouts. Smits showed enough shooting touch and agility in his audition in 1988 that Ramsay walked over to Walsh during the session and said, "Donnie, you have to take this guy."
"Yeah, I know," Walsh said.
Walsh was all the more impressed with Ramsay's recommendation, because at the time it seemed unlikely Smits would be an early contributor. It turned out he had to be after starting center Steve Stipanovich was injured, but Ramsay clearly wasn't being selfish and seeking someone who could contribute immediately and boost his won-loss record the next season.
Peja Stojakovic also made an impression on Walsh when he worked out for the Pacers in 1996.
"He was shooting the ball like (Larry) Bird," Walsh said. "It was unbelievable."
Walsh seriously considered drafting Stojakovic, but there were a couple of obstacles. He had a European contract, and nobody was sure if or when he would join the NBA. It turned out to be two years later. And, Smits had severe foot issues at the time – he wound up having surgery a couple of months after the draft. The Pacers were in a win-now mode, and needed insurance at center, so Erick Dampier was the choice.
As it turned out, Dampier was traded after one season with the Pacers to Golden State for Chris Mullin, and Stojakovic was acquired from Sacramento in 2006 for Ron Artest.
Ask Burke, who joined the Pacers in 1998, which workouts stand out in his memory and he rattles off names such as Nene, Jrue Holiday, Mario Chalmers, Brandon Rush, Roy Hibbert, E'Twaun Moore, Jajuan Johnson, Draymond Green and Sam Young. It goes without saying everyone who's been drafted in the first round impressed. That's particularly true for Miles Plumlee, who was drafted 26th despite not having been a full-time starter at Duke.
Occasionally, however, someone comes through who barely seems interested. Burke recalls one player in particular, a one-and-done guy from a few years ago, who made him wonder why he had bothered to show up. That player was drafted in the first round after the Pacers selection, and already has been traded.
Carr said that happens once every two or three years.
"It's always surprising," Carr said. "You want to see the kids do their best, but there have been a few occasions when it's happened."
Little things sometimes make an impression. Burke, for example, was impressed with Terran Petteway this year for knowing the names of all his coaches at Nebraska, and their background. That's not always the case.
"If they only know three of the six coaches, you wonder how invested they were," Burke said.
Without question, attitude and effort are of prime importance. By the time a player comes in to an audition, teams already know a lot about his skill levels. A great shooting performance doesn't necessarily indicate a great shooter – as Foster proved – and a bad one won't ruin a kid's chance of being drafted. He might be tired from traveling around the country and working out for several teams, or he might just be having a bad day.
"If he's been a good shooter and comes in and has the same form and the fundamentals, then it doesn't bother me whether it goes in or not for that day," Walsh said. "They have to have good form, though."
Paul George, who was a relative unknown after playing just two seasons at Fresno State, wasn't much of a shooter when the Pacers worked him out in 2010, but that wasn't Bird's primary concern. George impressed in other ways, enough to be taken with the 10th pick.
"His athleticism was phenomenal," Carr said. "I wouldn't say Paul had the best workout you've ever seen – he was just a raw talent at that time – but he loved the game. He took coaching well and he cared about being a really good player. All that played out and he's become what he is."
That would be one of the best two-way players in the NBA, a two-time All-Star by the age of 23 and a defensive standout who happens to shoot well. George hit just .297 from 3-point range as a rookie, but was up to .385 the following season. He's now a career 36 percent 3-point shooter and an 82 percent shooter from the foul line.
Nobody could have predicted that after watching his pre-draft workout. But he provided enough clues for the Pacers to give him a chance to make it happen.
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