The Theater of Hop, Skip, Jump

by Timothy Varner

Tyler Smith is a soft spoken kid. You won’t notice him if he’s standing in the room. He just blends in.

As soon as I mentioned that 48MoH covered the Spurs, he kept up his nonchalant thing, but with a little dry wit, “Oh good. Then you can tell them to draft me.”

Smith began playing basketball at age 6-he and his younger brother discovered the game at his grandmother’s house- “old wooden backboard and all,” as he put it. Once he started playing, he never stopped. He’s dreamt about playing in the NBA for a long time, for as long as he can remember playing.

I asked him about his workout for the Spurs, a workout he says went well.

Some teams, he tells me, do things their way. Smith has worked out for several teams, including the Thunder. What Smith told me about his Thunder work out runs in concert with stories from other players. Namely, the first thing that happens in Oklahoma City is a “2 or 3 hour battery of medical exams-everything you can imagine, they test it.” The Spurs are another team that leave a unique impression.

“It’s just like people tell you it’s going to be. It’s a tough work out, but they’re really professional. You can tell right away that it’s a classy place. Very clean. Everything is in order. They make you feel respected. It’s a different environment.” Smith left San Antonio with a sense that the team is committed to winning, and developing winners.

The soft-spoken kid from Tennessee was observing and evaluating.

One of the elements of the pre-draft process that I hadn’t thought much about is how much the players learn during their visits. The teams are in control of the process, no doubt. But the players are not dumb. They’re forming opinions too. All the players are too shrewd to say anything negative about a potential employer. They know how the game is played. But bring up a team with a messy front office and listen as the conversation fades. Bring up Boston and you’ll hear the glee of a wide-eyed basketball historian. And you’ll probably hear about their dreaded 3 minute work out drill. Down and back as many times as possible in 3 minutes. It’s all mental, I’m told. The same could be said of the Combine.

The theater of hop, skip, jump goes beyond the interplay between player and executive. You could tell that some of the players were less than impressed by the smarmy smiles of glad-handing journalists. And, at other times, the respect between reporter and player was clear, running both directions.

It’s a lot for someone like Tyler Smith to take in. Even though he and his fellow draft hopefuls were adapting to a new environment, they had clearly picked up the rhythm and could dance the steps.