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Anthony Bennett Revelations Show Some NBA Front Offices Are Not Doing Their Job Properly

How this guy slipped through the cracks into the best basketball league in the world is mind-boggling.

By Myles StedmanPublished 6 years ago 7 min read
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On Wednesday, The Athletic’s Jason Lloyd published online an excerpt from his new book, The Blueprint: LeBron James, Cleveland’s Deliverance, and the Making of the Modern NBA.

The excerpt detailed how Anthony Bennett, once a solid but unspectacular freshman at UNLV, became the number one pick of the 2013 NBA Draft, and subsequently the biggest draft bust in basketball history, perhaps in all of sports.

“The issue with Anthony was, and we had no way of knowing it at the time, the kid had no desire to overcome adversity whatsoever. As soon as it was hard, he was out,” former Cleveland Cavaliers General Manager David Griffin said in Lloyd’s book.

“His whole life, he rolled out of bed bigger, better, and more talented than everybody else. As soon as it was hard, it was over.”

Those are harsh words, but as Lloyd details farther, they are words backed up by Bennett’s actions, or inactions.

“Bennett purchased a home in Independence, not far from the Cavs’ facility so he would be close. But it didn’t take long for team officials to begin questioning his work ethic, and it soon became clear Bennett couldn’t play either forward position.

“He started out as a rookie behind Tristan Thompson, Anderson Varejao, and free-agent pickup Andrew Bynum. He never passed any of them. He showed up to his first training camp overweight by at least fifteen pounds and out of shape.

“When he appeared in the team’s intrasquad scrimmage on the campus of Baldwin Wallace University in early October, Bennett was gassed after only a couple of trips up and down the floor. He fell behind and never caught up.”

How on Earth did this guy wind up as the most coveted player in the Draft in 2013?

“As we did our evaluations throughout the entire year, we just kept coming back to his ability and his talent and how it fit with our guys,” former Cleveland General Manager Chris Grant said, who officially made Bennett the number one pick.

“A lot of times, like 2012 and Anthony Davis, it’s just clear-cut.

“But for us, through the year, we always had him very high in our rankings and as we went back and reviewed the film and went on campus and visited everybody, we came away saying he’s a great kid.

“He’s willing to work and do the right things and he’s got a bunch of talent.”

Of course, the pick was a bad one by the Cavaliers. Even in a year of no clear-cut number one, most other teams had Bennett nowhere where he was taken.

“I had Bennett ninth on my board,” one NBA executive told Sporting News’ Sam Vecenie.

“I was shocked the Cavs took him at number one. But having said that, I’m even more shocked he’s out of the League. I didn’t think that would ever happen.

“I said to myself at the time, that’s a bad pick, but he’ll probably be a solid sixth man or fifth starter, not, that’s a bad pick, this dude will be out of the League.”

“I had him 10th or 11th on my board,” another NBA executive told Vecenie.

“It was definitely surprising to most people that he went number one, but I talked to a lot of people throughout the League and felt consensus with fifth to 10th.

“Typically, that’s still an NBA player. Obviously though, that was wrong.”

Despite Cleveland’s gaffe of picking him number one, it still seems widely accepted Bennett was an NBA player, in talent, ceiling, and, apparently, work ethic. Through what we saw in 151 games, he was nowhere near it, in any of those categories.

Even in his most recent basketball season in the EuroLeague with Fenerbahce, Bennett managed only ten games, averaging 1.2 points per game and .9 rebounds pg on .263% field goal percentage.

In his 161-game professional career, Bennett literally ticked not one positive box, yet as many as three teams, and likely more, were ready to spend a lottery pick on him.

We shouldn’t expect them to get it right all the time, but how were so many of the League’s executives bamboozled by Bennett’s NBA candidacy? The answer may lie within the above accounts.

“But for us, through the year, we always had him very high in our rankings and as we went back and reviewed the film and went on campus and visited everybody, we came away saying he’s a great kid,” were the words of Grant.

“He’s willing to work and do the right things and he’s got a bunch of talent.”

“The issue with Anthony was, and we had no way of knowing it at the time, the kid had no desire to overcome adversity whatsoever. As soon as it was hard, he was out,” said Griffin.

These two quotes paint a scary juxtaposition of the character of Bennett, with the truth only revealing itself once the Cavaliers got their hands on him.

Griffin defends his team’s actions by saying they had know way of knowing this at the time. Obviously they didn’t know, but was there really no way of knowing whatsoever?

Of course, there are limits on what can be known before the Draft, which is the crapshoot element of the process, but at least from what we know, it may be the Cavs did not work hard enough to know.

In any given year, knowing the character of your draftees is important, but it’s even more important in a year of such uncertainty.

Grant’s detailing of positive reviews from UNLV and encouraging campus trips only reinforced this.

Cleveland did bring Bennett in for a “workout,” which he couldn’t physically participate in due to injury, but apparently, he met with the front office and coaching staff. I’d love to know what they talked about.

What does this tell us about NBA scouting? Obviously, it reinforces the importance of personality profiling, but perhaps it calls for more effectivity in this kind of scouting in the first place.

It seems crazy the Cavaliers thought they’d get accurate reports from Bennett’s peers when it comes to his draft stock. Obviously, the Runnin’ Rebels will not want to negatively impact their best player’s chances of going with a high pick.

“I don’t think they got the full scoop on Bennett. UNLV’s staff would say nice things about people. They tolerate a lot. The Cavs got a rosy version of his work ethic and attitude,” another scout told SportingNews. Well, who would’ve thunk that?

Obviously, Cleveland’s front office are basketball people, and what they saw was a viable NBA talent on the court. That alone is concerning, but perhaps those talents may have been realised if he’d had the temperament to match.

Half the tools are the talent and the other half is the attitude. By the Cavaliers glossing over, or completely ignoring the scouting report between Bennett’s ears, they are ignoring half of what will help him realise his potential as an NBA player.

It doesn’t appear to be a League-wide problem. The San Antonio Spurs are known as perhaps the best drafting team in all of sports.

Not only do they regularly find those with professional mindsets, they seem to consistently find team-first human beings with little regard for their own inflated egos, in stark contrast to the other 99 percent of the NBA in 2017.

On the other hand, there are clearly some teams around the League who are not doing at least half their job correctly. In back-to-back years, the Cavs drafted Dion Waiters and Bennett, two personalities widely regarded as unfit for their jobs.

The mental side of scouting may not be as sexy as the talent side, and it cannot be sold over social media, but this does not for a minute mean it should be ignored. If anything, it is more important.

Maybe Bennett would not have realised his talents even with the best intentions to do so. Maybe his game simply could not translate from college to the professionals, but if he at least had the mindset to make it, he may not have been a total waste.

1995’s number one overall pick Joe Smith may have only enjoyed a limited time at the top of the NBA, but through hard work and the right mindset, he was able to stick around until 2011, 15 years after his career-high 18.7 ppg.

If Bennett had shown a similar sort of commitment, maybe he’d still be around. If Cleveland’s front office had’ve done their job properly, they may have avoided him altogether.

basketball
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About the Creator

Myles Stedman

Journalist at Rugby.com.au | NEAFL media team

Contributor at Zero Tackle, RealSport, The Unbalanced, FanSided, Last Word on Hockey and SB Nation.

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