Is there anywhere that you can find scouting reports on current NBA players like you can for draftees. I am looking for reports on current and potential Rockets. I don't mean just stats, I mean a bona fide subjective report based on professional scouting.
i don't know if anyone does that but i'm sure you could just ask people on here if you have certain names. i know i watch a lot of basketball and could give you some notes
While a lot more time-intensive and probably not worth the effort, I like to go to fan forums for other teams (usually RealGM) and ask the posters their opinions. Oftentimes, you get a lot of exaggeration, but you also get some good assessments.
http://hoopshype.com/players.htm has some simplistic, quick-hit scouting reports for every NBA player. If you want anything more indepth, I can only think of Bill Simmons and Charley Rosen that really write about any indepth x's and o's articles. Hollinger has some good analysis if you don't mind him going statbot on you. But all of these guys have their prejudices (Simmons=Knee-jerk reactions, Rosen="Seems to have some grudges against certain players", Hollinger="too reliant on stats"), and they don't have indexed scouting reports. They just write about whoever they happen to be writing about.
The dearth of very-good basketball journalism is a shame; I don't know any really excellent guys other than David Aldridge (the Peter Gammons of basketball) and Rick Bucher. I'd love to hear recommendations; Mark Stein and Mitch Lawrence aren't bad. The straight journalism's bad enough, but the atrocious lack of quality analysts is even more annoying. Simmons has a smart and insightful (and extremely funny) fan perspective—indeed, he's one of my three or four favorite sports journalists, period—but he's much more about comedy than serious analysis; he doesn't do extensive shop-talk, just makes some good observations. Rosen is exceptional, but has to be taken with an ounce of salt. He's the best analyst writer I know of, and yet go to foxsports website and check out his list of all-time best players at each position. He busts and complains about serious flaws in over half the players he reviews, and is amazingly harsh on some players (Ewing doesn't even get an honorable mention amongst his 15 best centers. Isiah doesn't break the top 10 PGs.) I mean, these are his ALL-TIME best, and he finds as many flaws as positives. Also, read his take on LeBron shortly before his rookie year and his take on Yao; lots of excellent insight, a good amount of undue criticism—And also scr*w Rosen for coaching my college team (circa '81) and writing a book about it subtitled: The Team that Couldn't Shoot Straight. Other than Rosen, I really can't think of anyone else who writes even fairly-good analysis. Hollinger tries to apply sabermetrics to a sport which resists substantive quantification. If any of you guys are sabermetrically inclined, in baseball, consider the debate over the indicative quality of defensive statistics. With one ball in play amongst a whole lot of players whose range overlaps, and with a million other mitigating factors, it's extremely difficult to statistically evaluate baseball defense, and a hundred times more difficult in basketball. Anyone know other good analysts? I'd love to hear suggestions. There was an awesome Basketball Almanac out in the early 90s that had pretty decent scouting reports on every player in the game and their top 100 college players, but I don't think it's printed anymore. I think Rasheed was a sophomore in the last book I saw—and considering I was in middle-school when reading that book, and didn't have cable TV, I don't know how good I'd find the analysis today. Oy, if only Doug Collins wrote a column—or if someone would hire me. I rock.
Well I couldn't find anything on Google either, so I guess I'll keep getting my information HERE like I have for a number of years. At least now I know my opinion here is as good as anyone's except for a few people I bow down to when it comes to certain analysis. Thanks folks for giving me your thoughts on the subject.
There aren't any sites that are truly devoted to scouting reports. Hoopshype does a decent job of describing players. Here are the reports on some of our current/potential players. You can find a description of any player. Just type http://www.hoopshype.com/players/first name_last name.htm Yao http://www.hoopshype.com/players/yao_ming.htm T-Mac http://www.hoopshype.com/players/tracy_mcgrady.htm http://www.hoopshype.com/players/stromile_swift.htm http://www.hoopshype.com/players/luther_head.htm http://www.hoopshype.com/players/mike_james.htm
