I’ve been out in Las Vegas for almost a week as we just finished a very successful Coaching U LIVE event for coaches. Incredible amount of information was presented. Just a great two days of intense basketball information!

While we’ve been out here the summer AAU basketball tournaments have been going on, as well as the NBA Summer League. Both events were all about exposure for the players and evaluation for the coaches.

Evaluation is a very interesting aspect of coaching. It appears to me that some coaches and scouts are better evaluators than others; I’m always curious as to why that is. What do these evaluators look for? What do they look at? What do they see that someone else doesn’t see? How much time do they spend finding out about the player off the court?

The answers to these questions may vary from staff to staff or even scout to scout, but what must be be consistent within a staff is that all staff members must bring in players that the Head Coach can coach. Too often I’ve heard an assistant coach tell me how much he likes the kid but the Head Coach does not. The Head Coach runs the program. The Head Coach is responsible for the program.

My point is simply this. The most important thing a scout can do is to make sure he knows exactly what the Head Coach wants in a player. The staffs that get it right are the staffs that are all on the same page!