This has some interesting nuggets and insights into James jones talent acquisition theories.
Despite advancements in scouting, workouts, biophysics and analytics, NBA teams are no better at drafting today than they were 40 years ago. That's why the Suns have determined that the best way to value the draft might be to not value it at all.
www.espn.com
Some of it makes sense (like making sure his basketball operations understands the team and it’s needs verses being overseas all the time and having no idea what to look for in a prospect for the team). But he’s also pretty explicitly admitting that he wouldn’t have taken Booker with his process and that they’d never discover a Giannis. In a league where you have to take some big swings to have a chance at a championship solely by targeting the Mikal bridges and cam Johnson’s of the world. Moreover there’s not a strategy for sustained success if you’re always hunting aged veterans. Yeah you can reboot regularly instead of rebuild, but that’s a crapshoot too. He says he wants to be Miami’s model, Riley’s model, but there’s big differences: (1) free agents want to go to Miami, it’s one of only a few destination locations for NBA players; and (2) thus far James jones is no pat Riley. Not to mention, if Riley hasn’t convinced a shaq or Lebron to abandon their old team that model hasn’t produced championships.
Overall that article actually confirms my worst fears about jones. He’s smart. A lot of the concepts are sound. But he thinks he smarter than he is. It feels like hubris to essentially say, we believe our system - a system which admittedly would’ve passed on Booker and not even known about Giannis - is the superior system.