"It's not about who you know, or what you know, but who knows what you know," is a quote that's stuck with me since the day I met former Dakota Wizards GM Tom Wagganer and asked him about career advice.  For this story, I'm going to alter that a bit and say "It's not about who you know, or what you know, but who knows what you want to know."  Translated: if you know the right people, having five extra people on payroll isn't necessary.

I just looked around the internets - all of them.  Since this story came out, there have been roughly 47 articles/blog posts written either saying the Grizzlies are stupid, the Grizzlies aren't stupid and the Grizzlies might be stupid.  There was also a thrilling exchange between Matt from Hardwood Paroxysm and Mark from ShamSports on Twitter, in which Matt was utterly against it and Sham wasn't really against it. My two blogging idols battling on Twitter(!) - I sided with Sham (I'd link to it, but Twitter doesn't have any sort of wall-to-wall-to-wall feature I'm aware of, so just look at our old tweets, starting here).

Now that you're all caught up on the back story of why I've decided to make my triumphant return to blogging by writing about something that's already been covered in-depth, I'll explain my angle.  My angle is that of somebody that's been there before, as the self-proclaimed Director of Basketball Operations for the Minot Skyrockets of the CBA before the untimely demise of the league in February.  I was essentially the scout for the Skyrockets, a kid with the internet in the desolate, snow-covered plains of North Dakota.

See, I was qualified because I had been following non-NBA ballers pretty closely before I was hired as Director of Operations in Minot because frankly, that's what people do in Bismarck, North Dakota (and by people, I mean me, because basketball has taken over my social life - I'm the only person in Bismarck I know).  My familiarity came through daily checks of DraftExpress, ShamSports, ProExposure and watching as many games online as possible.

This might be taboo, but I'm unveiling the deep dark secrets of the minor league basketball world in this post (except for the D-League in that the D-League system of player acquisition and salaries are different).  If a minor league basketball team can succeed without scouts, than it should be easy for an NBA team to only have 15 people in the basketball operations department (Which is actually less than what the Grizzlies have).

After the jump, I'll explain how we put together a roster from scratch without any scouts, which has to be more difficult than drafting two players heavily covered all over the internet and essentially already slotted into a spot pre-draft.

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By now you may have heard that the Memphis Grizzlies no longer have any college scouts - some were fired, some left on their own (or so I think...maybe they all were fired?), but the bottom line is that the Grizzlies have no on staff anymore whose full-time job is to scout college players.  Some were outraged (including fans and Hardwood Paroxysm's Matt Moore), some were a little more nonchalant about it.  Without a doubt, this was done to save money - a lot of teams, the Grizzlies included, are going with only the minimum number of players this season, and Memphis owner Michael Heisley is considered perhaps the biggest cheapskate in the league.  So let's take a look at two questions - does any NBA team need a dedicated college scouting staff, and does Memphis specifically need college scouts?

There has never been more information about athletes available publicly, and that goes for college and high school athletes as well as pros.  In addition to coverage on ESPN and "major" networks, there are regional TV networks and some owned by individual NCAA Division I conferences that all show college basketball games.  DraftExpress is just one example of websites who track college basketball players and evaluate their readiness for the pro game.  So why don't NBA teams just use those resources?  Well, for one thing, there's value in seeing someone play in person.  Take the D-League (since this is a D-League blog and all).  As good as Futurecast is, the camera doesn't catch everything that happens on the court.  From my own experience, attending Toros games allowed me to see aspects of certain players that I hadn't seen before, like Malik Hairston talking on defense or even Dwayne Jones spending the entire warm-up working on his free throws.  That kind of information is incredibly valuable when getting a complete picture of a player and what he can offer your team.  And while the folks at DraftExpress do a good job, relying on them or any other website without seeing those players and games for yourself means that you're relying on an outlet whose job is more general - Givony et al. are looking at how players will do in the NBA generally, not how well they'll fit on a particular roster.

At the same time, a team could still reasonably manage to see enough college players as it needs with only a few people in the front office.  Why not have the GM (or "president of basketball ops" or whatever), director of player development, or the other decisionmakers see for themselves?  Miami Heat GM Pat Riley stepped down as coach when his team wasn't very good to attend college games and watch players.  So why can't other GMs?  A member of the front office or coaching staff can attend the Portsmouth Invitational or any other large gathering of prospects, and likewise can supervise the team's individual player workouts.  There's also the argument that by the time the college season rolls around, there aren't a whole lot of surprises as to who the top players are, the only question is who declares and who stays in school.  For a team drafting in the lottery, then, there are usually only a handful of players they need to pay attention to anyway.  And, barring some kind of Houston Rockets we're-going-to-pay-three-or-four-teams-to-draft-guys-in-the-second-round-for-us situation, teams usually end up with a maximum of two players on draft day.  Add to that the fact that more and more teams are using one or both of their draft picks on European players who will stay overseas (and off the payroll) for one or more seasons anyway, and you have a situation where there are fewer this-college-guy-or-that-college-guy decisions being made.

The weight I give to each of these opposing points changes fairly often at this point, but at the very least there is an argument to be made that getting rid of its college scouts doesn't have to be the end of the world for an NBA team.

After the jump, we turn to whether this is is good or bad for Memphis, specifically.

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The Korean Basketball League had their draft last week.  So why are we talking about it?  The draft featured several players who saw time in the D-League last year.  Unlike the NBA draft, where players are picked then sign contracts (or ahem, decide to stay in Spain), players sign with the KBL before the draft, so the players listed below will definitely be in Korea next year.  Among those picked were Jasper Johnson, Herbert Hill, Gary Wilkinson, Joe Dabbert and, of all people, Samaki Walker.   Not that I'm surprised he's playing in Korea, I'm just surprised he's playing at all.

Anyway, as you'll notice, all of the guys drafted are power forwards and centers.  The Korean Basketball League used to have a 6'8" height restriction, but that's gone now.  Because of that, in some cases it seems like a team drafted the tallest guy it could find in the first round, regardless of talent.  Regular readers of this site will now a bit about the players I mentioned above, so here are some notes on the ones you might not be as familiar with:

Overall I thought Busan and Seoul did pretty well.  I was under the impression Samaki Walker had nothing left physically, but he must be alright enough to be able to play in Korea, and the combination of him and Dabbert will be solid for the SK Knights.  I'm not a huge Greg Stiemsma fan (he just didn't produce a whole lot at the college or American pro levels), but his per-minute rebounding numbers were okay and should be even better in the Korean league, and Jasper Johnson should be pretty good over there.

Nigel Dixon is a large man (listed at 6'11", 320 pounds) who spent some time in the D-League a few years ago, and who's been playing around the world since then.  Turnovers and fouls were a problem in the D-League, as was his weight I imagine, but I don't know how he's faring with those these days.  Chris Alexander played in the D-League more recently (as in, the last two seasons), and while he 2007-2008 was fairly solid for Sioux Falls he fell off a little bit this past season before going to the Chinese Professional League.  Craig Bradshaw is a New Zealand national teamer who also played for Winthrop, and he's more of a shooter than an "around the rim" guy.  Amal McCaskill bounced around the NBA for a few seasons, and appeared in 59 games for the 76ers in 2003, but he's primarily played outside the US since being drafted by the Orlando Magic in 1996.  Mack Tuck is probably best known for going into the stands after being hit with a water bottle in the Chinese Professional League a few years ago.  If he does that in Korea, though, he'll likely be expelled from the league.

Here's how the two rounds went (three teams re-signed a player each and so forfeited a first round pick):

Round 1

Round 2

I know we're all used to having gentle fun with Sun Yue here at RU - and not really with Sun himself, more with the D-League's incessant hyping of him, and how he was always included in the Futurecast headlines.  But I have a relatively serious question - what happens now that Sun was cut by the Lakers?

Over at TrueHoop last week, Henry Abbott examined whether the NBA will take a financial hit due to Yao Ming being out for the season.  Yao basically is the reason the NBA is popular in that country, and the league's success in China is tied up in whether or not he plays.  I wonder if one could say similar things about Sun Yue and the D-League.  Certainly Sun isn't as large a presence for the D-League, but he also brings in a lot of web hits for Futurecast and the D-League website (or at least the league things he does/will).  Even beyond China, Sun really has been the most prominent "international" player I can think of who's spent an extended period of time there (meaning a player not from the US who also didn't attend an American college), at least in the last few seasons, and who the league has gone out of its way to market as such.  Ian Mahinmi comes to mind for San Antonio/Austin, but as far as I know the D-League hasn't been using his presence to try to enlarge its French audience.

Why should we, the D-League fans care?  If we assume that Sun Yue really does bring in more Chinese Futurecast viewers, then those increased hits (which, even if they're not Yao-level numbers, just being proportional would be substantial, I would think) mean the D-League can charge more for ad space.  Without Sun popping up in the D-League a few times a season, though, that money goes away.  The fact that the NBA charged money for the Vegas Summer League online stream made me start to wonder just what is Futurecast's, uh, future.  Dan Reed and the league (and the individual teams) have done a pretty good job of making the league and the players accessible to fans, but the argument for why the Summer League webcast cost money - that there are people devoting time and effort to the games who deserve to be compensated - applies to the D-League games as well.  I certainly hope that Futurecast won't cost money down the road, but Given The Current Economic Climate I also wouldn't be completely shocked to see it.  If people were willing to pay money to watch Wink Adams, they should be willing to pay to watch Will Conroy.  And while every team theoretically could pitch the fee as getting to watch your team's developing players, that would be especially true for the teams that own or run their own affiliate.  This may be connecting two unrelated dots, and Futurecast fees may come regardless of whether Sun is on it or not, but I wonder if having Sun Yue show up in the D-League means that any financial squeeze that would lead to charging for the webcast would be delayed somewhat.

The folks at Golden State of Mind are discussing whether the Warriors should sign Sun for next year.  Personally I think that would be a good situation for pretty much everyone involved, assuming he gets sent down to the D-League at some point, because a.) there's a large Chinese-American population in and around Oakland; b.) there's also a large Chinese-American population in and around LA, which is even closer to Bakersfield, the Warriors affiliate; c.) both of those facts not only might make Sun happy, but would maybe mean more fans showing up or paying for Bakersfield games, which would hopefully keep that team okay financially.

So what do you think?  Am I making too much of a mediocre (to be generous) player being cut, or does the D-League really have a stake in Sun Yue landing with another NBA team?

There are a few news stories of interest, none of which really warrants its own post (not yet anyway in a few cases), so I thought I'd present them all in a Sunday mini-bullets format.  Enjoy.

• Remember Jeremy Tyler?  Well according to FanHouse's Tom Ziller, Tyler's headed for Slovenia.  With no offense to the people of that country - did you know that its economy developed faster than most post-communist eastern European nations? - I can't imagine this is what Tyler had in mind when he dropped out of high school to challenge the NBA.  Contained in that Ziller post is the opinion of DraftExpress's Jonathan Givony that Tyler will be back in the U.S. within six months, and perhaps even in the D-League.  Now where have we heard that suggestion before...

• In addition to Dee Brown being the head coach, the Springfield Armor have hired Kevin Whitted as an assistant.  Whitted was an assistant last year in Fort Wayne, and before that was a head coach and GM in the ABA and PBL.  So I guess there's already a built-in rivalry with Bakersfield.

• Hey, speaking of Tom Ziller, in his other gig (or one of them, anyway) at Sactown Royalty he asks the excellent question "Can the Kings use the D-League Effectively?"  His answer: Reno may be seeing more of Donte Green.

• Finally, I'll have more on this in the next transactions report, you know, five days from now, but the LA Clippers have apparently released D-League success story Mike Taylor.  Not that Taylor hasn't already shown he can play in the NBA, but couldn't the Clippers, you know, just have assigned him to Jam this year if they thought he needed work?  Bakersfield and the Clippers seem made for each other.