NY Knicks: How Walt Perrin is preparing for the draft amid coronavirus

Recent Knicks hire Walt Perrin has been preparing for the 2020 NBA draft despite the scouting season being cut short due to the novel coronavirus.

Unless you are a fan of the Utah Jazz, cover the league, or you’re a complete basketball junkie, you probably haven’t heard of Walt Perrin until it was reported that he will be hired as the assistant general manager of the New York Knicks.

Perrin spent 19 years building his reputation as a scouting guru while working for the Utah Jazz. He is largely responsible for the group of young players that have kept Utah competitive, despite their small market size and inability to track star free agents to bolster their roster.

The Jazz rely on scouting and prudent roster maneuvers in maintaining their place as small, but feisty fish in the shark-infested Western Conference.

In order to learn more about the Knicks new assistant GM, I listened to a podcast interview with Perrin from early April, just a few weeks after the coronavirus pandemic shuddered the NBA and college basketball seasons.

It was a revealing listen, giving a lot of hints on how Perrin prepares for the draft. The former Detroit Pistons and Minnesota Timberwolves scout puts in an incredible amount of legwork to get the job done. He estimated on another podcast that he travels over 250 days per year.

So how has he been preparing for the 2020 draft, without the benefit of travel?

"“I’m really trying to catch up on some guys I might not have seen this year, who might put their names in the draft,” Perrin said on the Jazz Notes podcast posted on April 7, 2020. “Unfortunately, I was planning to make a European trip, probably in the end of March or beginning of April, which of course was cancelled, so I haven’t had the chance to get over to Europe to watch a certain number of players. So I’m starting to look at Synergy and look at tapes of those type of players.”"

Perrin has given his scouts in Utah assignments to watch tape on players they couldn’t see in person due to college tournaments being canceled.

While teams are left to rely on video conferences to get to know prospects, Perrin believes nothing can replace an in-person interview, not even Zoom or video conferencing.

"“I think with a phone interview, basically, you’re not able to see body language, you can see facial expressions,” Perrin said. “But sometimes in a live interview you can see how guys react to a certain question that might not be facial. I feel you may get a better sense of how well they answer the question, how much trouble, or struggles they may have coming up with an answer. Just like if you’re watching a player, I personally think it’s better to see them live, because you see a lot of things you cannot see on video or tape.”"

In terms of evaluating players on the court, Perrin spends a lot of time watching video clips on Synergy, whether stuck at home because of the coronavirus, or not. He likes to see as many plays as possible on a player, which he can do efficiently using video technology. However, as he alluded to in his response about player interviews, he is a strong proponent of in-person scouting.

Perrin used a pre-draft workout with Donovan Mitchell to convince the Jazz front office to eventually draft the star guard. Obviously, 2020 draft workouts will be limited, if not entirely lost due to the pandemic.

When asked how he would make up for not having pre-draft workouts, Perrin said he will have to find new ways to learn about players.

"“I would say it really puts pressure on us to do everything else that we possibly can to get to know that person,” Perrin said. “As I’ve always said, the workout is a piece of the puzzle. If we don’t have that piece, then we have an unfinished puzzle, I think. And we have to figure out what can do, besides having that workout, what we can do to finish that puzzle.”"

Perrin noted that personality is important in assessing a player’s fit for the team, but he is careful in weighing both character and talent on a relative scale.

The more you listen to Perrin talk about how he prepares for the draft, the better you feel about the Knicks finding a basketball mind who is always looking for new information and advantages to identify the next great player.

Perrin noted at the end of the interview how important it is for the Jazz to get the draft correct because they don’t have as many opportunities to add talent in free agency. It will be interesting to see how he does working with the Knicks, who, theoretically, should have better luck attracting talent in the open market.

There are so many insights into Perrin’s thinking, I could write a post 2000 words long, but I will make you listen to the two-part podcast to learn the rest.