Born to Scout: Inside the Minds of NBA Front-Office Sons
Familial ties have long been a defining feature of the NBA, and they are more common today than ever before.
According to The New York Times' Scott Cacciola, no fewer than 19 second-generation players—4.2 percent of the league—appeared in NBA games during the 2013-14 season. Three of those (Kobe Bryant, Stephen Curry and Kevin Love) were chosen for the All-Star Game. Four chips off the old block were chosen for this year's midseason showcase: Bryant, Curry, Klay Thompson and Al Horford.
Clearly, being born into and raised around basketball has its perks, as Cacciola suggests:
"Players and coaches cite several factors in the rise of second-generation players, who tend to benefit from genetics (it helps to be tall) and from early access to top-notch instruction. Steve Kerr, a former guard and front-office executive, likened the setting to being immersed in a "basketball think tank" from childhood.
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That think tank is also an effective incubator for those who sport prestigious NBA bloodlines without the world-class basketball skills and athleticism to match. More than half of the league's teams employ at least one person on their coaching and/or front-office staffs with family ties to the Association, and most of those hires either made their bones as scouts or are currently doing so. Bleacher Report caught up with five legacies who rode the scouting route into the highest level of pro hoops.
Editor's note: The below responses have been curated and edited for length.
What's your earliest basketball memory?
Donnie Nelson, general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, son of five-time champion and Hall of Fame coach Don Nelson: It was in a high school football stadium and they were doing Fourth of July type stuff. They called my raffle number. I was 6 or something like that. I went up to the fieldhouse, up where they had all these prizes. They had a frisbee, they had a fishing pole, they had a basketball rim, a bunch of stuff like that.
My two buddies were like, "Grab the fishing pole, man! Grab the fishing pole!" But I kept looking at that rim. I grabbed the rim, and this was in the Quad Cities, where my dad's family was from, in Illinois on the Mississippi River.
I grabbed the rim and I took it back to Boston, and then my dad nailed it to a telephone pole up the street. It didn't have a backboard or anything, but it was literally a rim on a telephone pole. I don't think we even had a basketball. We played with soccer balls or something. It was a good old-fashioned rim on a telephone pole, and we got a lot of mileage out of it.
Jason Buckner, Indiana Pacers scout, son of NBA champion and Pacers TV analyst Quinn Buckner: I can remember going along with my dad and watching him play in the Celtics open gyms. I remember running around with the other players' kids, Danny Ainge and Robert Parrish's kids. Getting chocolate milk from the trainers and equipment managers of the Celtics over at the Boston Garden or at the practice facility.
I remember the championship parade. That was definitely something that sticks out in my head, when the Celtics won in '84 and seeing everybody celebrating and happy and the whole city going crazy. Then I remember the next year, watching the '85 Finals from the living room and seeing Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar] celebrating on the TV and being ridiculously upset watching the Lakers celebrate. I'm pretty sure I cried [laughs], if I remember correctly.
Jonnie West, associate general manager of the Santa Cruz Warriors, son of NBA legend Jerry West: I just remember through the years, just growing up around it and all the people I've met, the experience that I've had. Being in war rooms from an early age, seeing how that whole process works and being around my dad, learning from him, not in the formal sense, but in very informal settings where I'm just kind of like a fly on the wall at a really young age. Those are the things that stick out to me more than a vivid memory.
What role did your dad play in getting you into the game?
Nelson: It was really hands-off. He and my mom really wanted me to do what I loved and was passionate about, so there was never any forcing or anything. I think that's probably a good thing because they let me be a kid. They let me have fun with the sport and not do it as a mandated chore or something like that. When I came to embrace it, it was my own love affair and not someone else's, which I think is really important. I'm the type of guy that if I ever felt forced into something, it's probably the last thing I'll ever do.
Buckner: He really left the decision to play basketball up to me. If there's someone I wanted to go to for advice regarding my own personal game, he was there for me. But he could see about midway through high school that becoming a basketball player wasn't something I was particularly passionate about. While passionate about the game, playing the game wasn't as intriguing to me as running a team. I loved watching and analyzing the game, not only what you saw on the court but the balancing act of personalities off the court.
Patrick Sund, associate general manager of the Santa Cruz Warriors, son of longtime NBA general manager Rick Sund: He told me not to do it, funny enough. It was really Coach [Tom] Crean and Dave Pendergraph who told me to pursue it.
Jake Eastman, Boston Celtics scout, son of Los Angeles Clippers vice president of basketball operations Kevin Eastman: He never really forced anything on me except to play hard, don't complain, listen to your coaches, stuff like that. He never really critiqued my game unless I asked him. He was never one of those parents who tried to coach me. He said, "You play for this coach, listen to what he says. That's his job. My job is to be a parent and watch you play. If you want my advice, let me know." I definitely used that a couple times, but it was also good to just have him as a parent, not a coach.
At what point did you feel like you belonged in this profession?
Buckner: My dad's not the type of person to B.S. or lie to me to make me feel good. He's very blunt, he's very honest in his assessment of things, especially when it comes to basketball, a sport that's given so much to him and he holds in such high regard.
As soon as he told me, "Hey, Jason, you can be pretty good at this," I've pretty much taken him at his word. Still, every day is a new challenge, nobody bats 1.000, and few people care about what you accomplished yesterday, so I think everyone in the league works hard every day to prove that they belong. There's only so many seats on "the bus," as they say, and you want to do everything in your power to stay on it.
West: Going to my first year in Santa Cruz at a high-level management position, I think that's still to be seen. I'm just trying to grow every day in my work and also as a person. I think that's one of the biggest things in management is to continually grow and learn. You might have 40 years of experience somewhere, but there are still some things you can learn because things change year by year. It's just evolving as a person and as a manager.
Sund: I don't know. I've been able to be part of a great basketball operation staff. I've been in the war room the past five years. It's been part of the process that we've acquired core players through the draft, been part of the trade-deadline room. And last year, run a free-agent camp and work with players to bring them in. It was kind of fun. We have one player, Mitchell Watt, who was in our training camp, who was a free-agent invite. That's been fun to see that process. I can't say there's one point to say, "yes, this is where I belong." There's a lot of points, so it's been a lot of fun to be part of an organization that works collaboratively.
Eastman: How I started out in the Northeast, I was technically an intern part-time. We met one time in maybe December or something. They were like, "Jake, we want you to go to UNC. We need some coverage on these few games right here. And then, we want to send you to L.A. to see your dad, but we also need you to do some work out there, see UCLA, USC, send you to the Big 10, where there were a lot of big-time prospects." Those all kind of confirmed to me that I'm on the right path, I'm doing what I need to be doing. They trust me enough to pay for me to go out somewhere and report back, this is what I think.
What does your dad think of the path you've chosen?
Buckner: He was definitely not for it [laughs]. He wanted me to stay on the business side of things. He was always the guy that was about revenue generation or building capital. Because of the fact that he worked in basketball for so long, he's always held the areas where you generate revenue or build capital in very high regard. I do too.
West: He knew it was something I was always interested in, so he gave me opportunities to sit in on things and experience things that really nobody else could. When I started becoming more serious about playing basketball, I think our relationship changed just in the sense that we became a lot closer. It did change our relationship, especially when we moved to Memphis, because when he was in L.A., he really drove himself with work to the point of exhaustion, where he was putting in so many hours that it wasn't healthy for him.
He really became more of a family person, not that he wasn't before. Being home was more important to him, not that he took time away from work, that he wasn't dedicated to work, but he definitely put a lot more emphasis on family, and the transition to the person that he was with the Lakers to the person he was with the Grizzlies was such a night-and-day person.
I think he learned a lot about how to fully invest yourself in something and not have it be detrimental to you. Even though he had great success in L.A., nothing was ever good enough for him. That's what drove him as a player, that he always wanted more.
What's some advice that your dad has given you?
West: The thing that sticks out to me among things that I've learned from my dad, just his way of interacting with people and communicating with people, whether it's players, whether it's media, whether it's other people around the league, coaches, whichever group of people you're going to be exposed to in this industry, learn the way he interacts with people. I think that's one of the reasons he's so well-respected.
No matter who it is, he tries to get back to them, whether it's the top writer at Sports Illustrated or if it's a new writer for the local paper, he always gets back to those people. Also, just dealing with players. The respect that people have for him because he's an honest person and everybody knows what to expect from him. That makes the relationship easier when people know what to expect.
Eastman: The best was find a way to make the coach have to play you. ... I played at Bradley, so I was maybe the eighth option. I had to find a way to get myself on the court, let these coaches be able to see me at all these big-time events, so I kind of did the little things: offensive rebound, hustle, defend. That was some big advice he gave me was, you're going to have to change your game when you play with these high-level players. I played with Kendall Marshall, who's in the league now, Andre Dawkins, a ton of guys like that who were high-level players where I wasn't going to be able to be the main focus of the offense.
Has your firsthand understanding of bloodlines and pedigrees in basketball affected the way you scout?
Nelson: Not really. You can draw some of those comparisons, but the reality is the lion's share of folks that play professional sports, they can pop up for random reasons at random times. You look at the Barry boys [Jon and Brent]. That's really an anomaly more than anything else. Ken Griffey Jr. In football, you have the Mannings. That's kind of the exception to the rule. The bulk of guys that come into the league, their families have had no prior experience in it, so it's really kind of a shock to the system a lot of times for these families that are exposed to getting drafted.
Buckner: There's an NBA player that has a quote out there. He specifically said that he thinks that all the current players whose fathers played in the NBA are more mature and ready to handle the things that come off the court. I think we all take that in regard, especially if their father was in their household or was a strong mentor in their life. It's a huge advantage.
West: You look at people on our team like Klay and Steph, whose fathers both played in the NBA. They both grew up around it and they fall in love with it from an early age. They always have a basketball in their hands, and they get to the point where they're at today, (1) because of the bloodlines, but (2) it's because of the interest they got from watching their parents do something that they loved. It was almost passed down to them.
Sund: At the end of the day, you're looking for the best player available. Certainly, everybody has a different perspective of watching players and how they played, watching players to players playing the game, whether it's receiving advice from their dad because dad happened to be an executive with an NBA team or a player seeking advice from a dad because the dad was a former All-Star or 10-year veteran, you're fortunate enough to listen to your dad and you kind of take his advice as well.
Do you want to eventually be a GM?
Buckner: My goal is to work up to being a general manager of a team and winning championships, as many championships as I can while I have an opportunity to do it. I think you realize, especially the more and more you talk to people around the league, that being in the league is a blessing. As they say, you want to stay on the bus as long as humanly possible. I really just try to take advantage of every day I'm on the bus and keep trying to build my skill set and build my knowledge of the game and the league to enable to move up to that position of running my own team. Once I get there, at every position in between, trying to do my part to win team championships.
West: That's my goal. That's what I've wanted to do since high school. It's something that's always fascinated me, the mindset you have to have to build a team, coaching staff, the relationships with owners. There's so many dynamics that go into it. It's been something that's interested me for such a long time.
Sund: Absolutely. I don't think anyone who would be working in basketball who wouldn't want to be a GM. There's an ebb and flow of being a GM. It's something that I've been fortunate enough to see, work with different GMs, with Bob Myers and Larry Riley, and get to witness my dad working as a GM for all my life.
Eastman: Yeah, I think I want to stay this route. I really enjoyed the scouting part of things. I saw the coaching part firsthand with my dad. That wouldn't be my first option. I like being in the front office, being off the sidelines, figuring out a way to craft the best team and do the best I could. I'll hopefully climb the ladder, little by little, and GM would be the ultimate goal.
Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
