Just doing a core dump — short on time today due to our YouTube Live — of my notes from a recent (11/3/2020) Warriors Sound podcast Laurence Scott did with Kent Lacob. It was more to promote the Warriors’ involvement in the new Locker Room app.
Real quick: I don’t see what Kent is saying here as a food fit with LaMelo Ball. I can just imagine Steve Kerr taking him aside after a turnover and asking him about the play and Ball responding, “I’m good,” and not really giving a whole lot of introspection. Here’s the latest of two Ball Q&As we have on our YouTube channel:
Here are the notes from the Kent Lacob interview:
- talked about being in the Dubble
- L.Scott says they're not allowed to talk about names in Draft per NBA rules
- Kent states obvious on what they look at: defend, switch, 3s
- Also look at the past, what mistakes they made, who they're getting and interacting with person/character: "every facet of who they are because it's a grind... understanding the psychological point of view…project what their growth might be for us", pandemic has helped to understand their own process, talked to who they grew up with, what's gonna drive him to maximize his own potential
- Fan question via live audio (interesting feature of app): What character traits do you look for?
- Kent: "what motivates this guy?", passion, what a person's values are tells you what you could expect from them after achieving some success ("are you just good?", "Do you enjoy the process of getting better?", "Finding different motivators"). Not black and white though, better understanding of "how to create a plan", "it's a wholistic process", player development staff in maximizing a guy's potential, "put the proper people/resources/tools around him", "helping make him a better player than he was when he got to us", "success within our culture/environment"
- Now talking about processes on how to get to know players. Looks like David Fatoki will talk, I can't remember what his role is.
- Kent says usually guys fly in for up to 6-man workouts for 2-3 months, skill workouts, tons of conversations, driving them to/from airport, et al
- with pandemic: realized there's no shortage of film although they did see a lot of guys in person before pandemic
- "athletic intelligence testing": no measurement ability, Livingston and Zaza participated for player perspective, not just who's the best player but "who's the best fit" a la Steph/Klay/Dray AND Poole etc, what personalities and basketball skill sets mesh with them too
NOTE: the above notes were copied from my Discord posts on 11/3/2020. DM @poormanscommish or @LetsGoWarriors on Twitter or IG for more info.
Good stuff! Does anyone else feel like the team has been so much better with Curry on vs off because:
1) Curry is the BEST!
2) the FO has been soo focused on that Defense/Switch/3’s part to complement Curry’s game that they forget to go after at least 1 more guy that fits the playmaker, efficient scorer, passing lane thief guy that’s not a prototype switcher (and when they do, they choose Jordan Poole who has no D instincts visible) And FT% needs to be part of the profile for any true shooter/scorer.
I guess the front office struck out on their draft goals again.
Good stuff! Does anyone else feel like the team has been so much better with Curry on vs off because:
1) Curry is the BEST!
2) the FO has been soo focused on that Defense/Switch/3’s part to complement Curry’s game that they forget to go after at least 1 more guy that fits the playmaker, efficient scorer, passing lane thief guy that’s not a prototype switcher (and when they do, they choose Jordan Poole who has no D instincts visible) And FT% needs to be part of the profile for any true shooter/scorer.
Hmm now that I think about it the FO has failed to get anyone who fits their stated goal in the draft or FA since West left.
Clearly I’m getting more 1/2 empty as this off-season progresses. Going back to re-read the positives for those draft guys by Apricot again.