Having to do a Top 100 board in a vacuum drives me insane. I hate it. I have to do it, because that’s what people care about.
I met Sam Vecenie at Summer League. I sat down beside him and over some Sunday afternoon basketball we talked for a long time about books. What I’d just read and loved, which he added to an ongoing list of titles to read, and what he had torn through in his last few 14 hour flights from Australia, where he lives. Where he was headed back to after that game.
We did also talk about basketball. That was the first time I picked Sam’s brain about the interpersonal quirks he logs about the rookies he writes about every year in his massive NBA Draft guides. I remember being very relieved that Sam’s favourite qualities about his favourite hopeful young athletes were also my favourite qualities, in athletes but also anybody: curiosity, a sense of humour, kindness, drive.
We talked about Sam going from majoring in film studies to starting in the entertainment industry then 180-ing into basketball, and what his very specific niche in the sport and current job satisfies in him. We talked about the real secret to teams drafting well, what compels him to want to meet and sit down with certain young athletes, when it’s hard not to form attachments, and the duty of care in his work.
Plus: The darker sides of the NBA Draft, the weirdness of the Draft Combine, how the high school and prep system have changed in the last 10 years, how he detoxes from the work and its demands, the moral/capitalist conundrum of professional basketball, his favourite thing about some of this year’s rookies, and a bonus BASKETBALL FEELINGS book recommendation segment.
