On Wednesday, the 2022 NBA Draft combine opened in Chicago with a circuit of interviews and physical testing for dozens of prospects for next month’s NBA Draft. The testing included strength, agility, shooting and half-court basketball drills. Players tested their vertical leaps, both from stationary and running-start positions, ran three-quarter-length court sprints, short-sprint shuttle drills and more before moving on to the shooting and basketball-specific portion of the day.
Front offices for all 30 NBA teams were on-hand, including a large contingent of the Washington front office, scouts and head coach Wes Unseld Jr.
“The most important thing is trying to find a diamond in the rough,” Wizards legend and Senior Director of Pro Personnel Antawn Jamison said on Wednesday. “Of course we know there are a lot of talented guys in this draft…(but we want to) just kind of find that diamond in the rough, that guy that might not get drafted.”
Wednesday’s combine activity came on the heels of Tuesday night’s NBA Draft Lottery, in which the Wizards landed the draft’s #10 overall pick. Early predictions from around the NBA media landscape feature a wide range of names, but the Washington front office knows it can’t limit its scope of evaluations based on where it lands in the draft order.
Wizards VP of College Personnel Frank Ross stressed the importance of being ready with information on every single prospect and ready for every draft-night scenario imaginable, including trades up or down the draft order – or a player high on the team’s rankings unexpectedly sliding to the Wizards’ position.
“Where we are picking does not change the way we go about it,” Ross said. “We know our approach. We have our system. We tweak it every year, maybe we add a few more things, but (the combine) is the culmination of the all the work the scouts have put in throughout this year.”
On Thursday, the competition ramps up. Prospects will be broken into four teams for a series of four scrimmages across the final two days of the combine.
“Especially in the five-on-five, you get to see them compete,” Ross said. “It’s a five-on-five game. It’s great to see guys doing drills, but we want to see them play. You want to see consistency from what you saw from guys you’ve seen a lot of.”
“We have been evaluating some of these players since they were 14 or 15 years old,” Wizards general manager Tommy Sheppard said in an interview last week. “At the combine, you want to see their character, you want to see how they react, how they respond to coaching. You want to see how they respond to different environments. There are a lot of media, a lot of agents, 30 teams and all their personnel there. It’s a pretty stressful situation. It gives you a great opportunity to see how guys react to stress, how the personalities come out over the course of a week.”
Broadcast coverage of the combine begins Thursday, May 19 on ESPNews from 3-5 p.m. and transitions to ESPN2 from 5-7 p.m. Coverage continues on Friday, May 20 from 1-2 p.m. on ESPN2 and 2-5 p.m. on ESPNews.