Is scouting draft prospects worth it?

I can't see how scouting really helps. What I do is scout only the players who have "Excellent" potential, visiting each of them until all the question marks are gone. Then, I convert the letter grades (E-A+) to a number (1-13) and add them up for each player.

Even though my draft grades were low, seldom getting anything above a C+, I believed that I was getting a high-rated player, until I did a comparison of the letter grade number conversion I did to the overall number rating at the beginning of the season.

Here are the converted letter grade numbers of the top five players that ended up being available to me in the draft, after being scouted:

SG O'Dwyer - 128
PF - Webb - 119
SF Martin - 102
C Meng - 94
SF Burns - 78

And here are the overall attribute ratings for those same players, at the beginning of the season:

SF Martin - 73
PF Webb - 72
SG O'Dwyer - 69
SF Burns - 67
C Meng - 61

As you can see, the order is different between the scouting results and their actual overall attributes. If I were picking the highest rated player available to me from my scouting results, I would have picked SG O'Dwyer, but he was actually the third best player.

So, is there some hidden number that I am not privy to? If so, then what is the purpose of scouting? The only difference I could see between the highest rated player, SF Martin, and the others was that he was picked to go in the Top 15 of the draft. So, apparently that has something to do with the rating.

I wished that the letter grades would go away altogether and everything was tied to numbers. More importantly, I wish the numbers that were given through scouting efforts were real indicators of the players attributes.

I also thought that picking players who had Excellent potential was a way to ensure I had players that would progress more rapidly through training with the Assistants. However, given the other disappointing revelation, I'm not even sure of that anymore.

Well overall rating means not that much. A crappy all-around player can have a higher rating than a useful sharp-shooter. I find scouting unnecessary, unless you want to focus on acquireing a special player in the draft. e.g. a defensive minded big-man, a 3pt shooter.

And the excellent and good prospects really develop faster, pick a poor prospect and compare it.

I understand what you mean. I think I'll just scout the Excellent potential top 15 draft prospects now and not waste so much time. Because I am doing so well in the standings, I don't foresee being in the draft lottery any time soon, but I do like to monitor what is going on for future trade options. I have tried various ways to trade for higher draft picks, but no luck thus far.

The only reason I scout is to stop my owner sending me hatred filled emails.

I usually don't scout...

That's why I sign the lowest paid scout I can get and save up money to have two assistants to help train my players.

I usually get Defensive Assistants and assign both of them during the season to one player for four weeks and keep doing it to that player every four weeks.


Like I took Tyrus Thomas from the low 70's to the Upper 90's in Two-Three seasons.

If you're playing the games, chances are your prevailing over the CPU more often than not and as such have a good record and thus a low draft pick. If that's the case you might not want to bother with scouting but if you're enthusiastic you can scout a wide range of players so that you might be able to snare a decent player late in the first round. If you acquire a high draft pick through a trade you'll want to scout a few of the top prospects.

One advantage of scouting is that by doing it regularly you'll increase your GM rating as you'll be effectively handling all of your duties, thus increasing the possibility that you will be offered the GM position of another team in the upcoming offseason.

oh kool, i didnt know that Andrew. I am using the blazers in my 1st year and i want to develope the team, but if i get another offer for GM i will probably take it depnding on what team it is.

usually the team with the most horrible standing will try to aquire you if you have 100Gm rating by the end of the season.

well, in that case. i will probably stick with the Blazers(even though they are nearly the worst team). they have good young side, and if i get a good draft pick, i will get even better young players to develope

lol yeah, but after you turn the blazers into a great team. then you can accept other offers to build other teams.

yeah, true, i will need to develope someone into a superstar(D-Wade type player).

Don't just go by overall rating. For example I needed a scorer off the bench, and a better secondary scorer in the starting lineup. I managed to trade Gordon, Duhon and Nocioni for Bosh. Then to replace Gordon's points off the bench I drafted a 7'4" center who turned out to be low rated, but because of his size he can score down low and carry the bench when starters are resting.

Scouting is useful to have some info, but the best rookies I acquire often come through trades after the draft.

I have 25 draft prospects that i have been drafting this season(all with either good or exellent potential). i have scouted each one in offence(twice), defence and athletics. i have just started scouting everyone on defence for the second time

I think when you scout draft prospects, the potential is one of the most important things to keep in mind when you want to draft someone and develope them into a superstar.