Sam Presti Opens Up About Scouting Process

As the NBA has grown in popularity, everyone has turned into an amateur scout. Whom amongst us hasn't been a back-seat General Manager for a team? Breaking down the film of prospects to make sweeping claims about their careers before it begins, condemn or congratulate teams the second after picks are made with preconceived notions. Despite not having as much background intel, such as personal interviews and private workouts, to lean on as teams do.

Still, even at the top, it is largely a crap shoot. Smart front offices make picks that don't pan out all the time. It is an inexact science that teams don't have the benefit of running from. Most media or content creators around the draft only show you their hits, forgetting to bring up their misses. This scribe has plenty of both in years of evaluating the draft.

At his end-of-season interview, Sam Presti was asked about the scouting process through the lens of the No. 12 pick in the 2022 NBA Draft, Jalen Williams. While Presti was asked what he remembers about that evaluation period, he took the answer a step further to talk about general scouting.

"Just how little we really know about when you're selecting a team. I think there's a difference between picking players and selecting a team. Every guy goes on a different journey and a different path. You don't know. You're making guesses. He deserves an enormous amount of credit for his approach.," Presti said. "It's kind of slowly scaled, and he's got -- I think he's a pretty grounded guy, and that comes from the people around him. You can trust him that I think he knows what it's about."

"Even though he's limited by what he's experienced so far, like I said before, we grow from our experiences but we're also limited by the things we've been exposed to. His ability to confront these new experiences and apply the learnings pretty quickly is really impressive to me because he's had a lot thrown at him, and he's been able to flip the experience into wisdom pretty quick," Presti continued. "That doesn't happen without a lot of people that have been in his life, family, friends. Those people have kind of kept him grounded and allowed him to make these gains."

The best drafter of a generation is freely admitting that the NBA Draft is a guessing game. No matter how much background checking you do or syenergy film you watch –– which for us basketball sickos is a lot –– you never truly know. There are too many variables. You can only make hypotheses, educated guesses.

Presti should be praised for his candidness during these annual media sessions which span hours long, taking in each question from the media and being as transparent as possible. This is not only a massive win for the assembled media but the fan base he represents to understand the team and the sport at a deeper level.