Inside the draft rooms of NBA teams

The Vertical Front-Office Insider Bobby Marks, a 20-year executive with the Nets, goes behind the scenes of the day of the draft.

Setting up the draft room

The draft room continues to be the second home for team executives leading up to Thursday night.

The scouting reports and background information that have littered the long table in the conference room will now be replaced with phones, computers and name tags for where team executives should sit.

Similar to setting up a seating chart for a wedding, the placement of where team personnel sit the night of the draft will be critical.

Often the general manager will sit at the head of the table with his trusted aides by his side.

Besides the phone and nameplates, teams will also have a list of key contact information for each team draft room. The numbers will be programmed into each phone, allowing teams to have an advantage in case a trade occurs.

The once-blank whiteboards in early May will now feature the draft board of top-60 prospects, the team depth chart, as well as every available trade option.

With only five minutes between each first-round pick, a team must be prepared for any scenario on Thursday.

Finalizing the board

The initial draft board set earlier in the week and tweaked throughout the days leading up to the draft becomes finalized Thursday morning.

The internal debate about where players should rank is now replaced with discussions to move up or down in the draft.

The cost of assets to move up and whether there is true value to move back in the draft will certainly play a role on what decisions a team makes.

Medical, insurance and finances in order

Similar to the trade deadline, teams will need to have medical and insurance information for their current players at their disposal.

With trade discussions fluid throughout the draft, teams need to be prepared for any scenario – even ones that were not discussed throughout the week.

In order to complete a trade, every team must have at its side all individual medical records of its own players, as well as disability insurance information.

The one thing teams cannot afford to do is scramble putting together paperwork after a trade has been verbally agreed upon.

The role of the finance department also factors in when teams want to buy or sell picks. When a pick is acquired for cash, the league will require during the trade call a date for when cash changes hands. The GM will rely on the finance department to provide such date.

Control the chaos

Similar to a Wall Street trading floor, the action in the draft room is like controlled chaos.

With multiple decisions, including trade offers at the feet of the GM, teams will face critical choices while on the clock. Unlike the trade deadline when teams have days to mull and process a trade, the draft operates with only five minutes between first-round picks and two minutes between selections in the second round.

The priority placed on the days leading up to the draft will prove to be the key factor on how teams are prepared come Thursday night.

Pick the best available

Unlike the NFL draft where rosters are constructed with a heavy emphasis on filling holes on offense, defense and special teams, NBA teams place a higher premium on the trade market and free agency when shoring up roster needs. Also, unlike the NFL draft of seven rounds, the NBA has only two rounds of the draft.

If the best available prospect on the board is a shooting guard, then you draft that player and balance your roster through the trade market. In 2011, the Warriors selected Klay Thompson with the 11th pick in the draft even though Monta Ellis had started 80 games the year before. Ellis was eventually traded the following year for Andrew Bogut, allowing Golden State to fill a need at center.

Teams that deviate away from their board and draft on a positional need will regret that choice in the future.

Teams with multiple picks, however, have the toughest choice to make when the best available player on the board duplicates a position of a pick made earlier in the draft.

The internal debate among team executives will come down to if there is a clear separation in talent from the best available to the player next in line. If there is no separation, then you pick the player based more on need.

Philadelphia, Boston, Phoenix, Denver and Toronto are all teams with multiple first-round picks on Thursday. With no clear separation in picks in the Nos. 15-30 range, all five teams could be drafting more on a need basis instead of what is best available. Also, with only 15 roster spots, teams with multiple picks could go away from best available and pick a player to leave in Europe.

Get the pick into the league office

A member of the NBA basketball operations staff will call teams one pick before they are scheduled to select. For example, the Raptors who have the ninth pick in the draft, will receive a call from the league office, once Sacramento is on the clock at pick No. 8.

There are situations when teams agree to a trade and will make the pick for each other. Instances like this occur when teams verbally agree to a trade with the conference call to finalize the trade not occurring until after the picks had been made.

In 2001, New Jersey and Houston made a trade when the Nets traded the seventh pick in the draft for the 13th, 18th and 23rd picks. Because the trade was not finalized with the NBA, both teams agreed they would select for each other. The Nets selected Eddie Griffin for the Rockets while Houston picked Richard Jefferson, Jason Collins and Brandon Armstrong for New Jersey.

Target players not drafted

The value in the draft sometimes falls with the players who go undrafted.

For teams like Miami and Oklahoma City, two teams who do not have a draft pick or cash to buy into the draft, the focus will turn to finding under-the-radar prospects that go undrafted.

With summer league around the corner and a higher premium placed on the NBA Development League, the call teams place to agents after the draft might not seem important at the time but could have big consequences in the long run.

In 2013, the Cavaliers targeted Matthew Dellavedova out of St. Mary’s toward the end of the second round. Dellavedova, who would go undrafted, committed to Cleveland’s summer league team, signed a non-guaranteed contract later that summer and has turned into a key bench player for Cleveland.

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