Inside the NBA Draft

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Reading Time: 3 Minutes

I’ve had few professional experiences more intense than the NBA draft.

You have 5 minutes to make a multi-million dollar decision. During those 5 minutes, you’re accounting for new data that’s been streaming in beforehand, some of which changes what’s possible for you and some of which changes what’s right for you.

In those moments as a sport psychologist, the decision doesn’t necessarily hinge on what you believe, but it may hinge on the data you’ve collected and the way you synthesize. It’s about your ability to read people and, to a degree, predict what will happen in their career.

My process involved 3 parts:

• A cognitive assessment

• A personality assessment

• An interview

In each of those segments, you’re trying to answer the question:

is this player good for us?

For our system? Our culture? Who we want to become? And, how do we know?

Then you have to defend the data you gather. My limited snapshot pales in comparison to the files put together by our scouts, many of whom have watched a player multiple times and talked to their coaches, friends, and family dating back to high school. And, many of them have done this for long enough to discern real, meaningful insights about a player’s personality and potential.

My task was to try and predict future behavior based on past behavior - like all psychologists. To try and help the team understand what we’d need to do to support anyone we draft so that they could reach their full potential. And along the way, I learned a ton about hiring, onboarding, culture building, and talent assessment.

During August, I’ll be sharing podcast episodes I’ve either participated in or interviews I’ve conducted while spending time with my family.

The first episode is with my friend and colleague, Adam Loiacano. Inside, I share much more about the draft process and how I made my decisions, including the 3 parts of my process.

Inside, we talk about:

• Building great teams

• Hiring the right talent

• Making selections in the NBA draft

You can check it out here:

And, a few people had an issue playing the episode I did on motivation.

Here it is again, on Spotify:

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