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A roster is a zero-sum allocation problem before it’s anything else. A team only has so many minutes to give out in a game; five players times a 40-minute game is 200 minutes, or 240… 

Sort any league by production and the names at the very top are rarely a surprise. Scouts already know who the best player in EuroLeague is. That’s not where an information edge lives; everyone’s looking… 

A lot of European clubs play in two competitions in the same season — a domestic league and a continental one, like EuroCup or FIBA Europe Cup. That means a lot of players have two… 

Here’s a real one: a guard averaging 16.0 points a game for Hapoel Galil Gilboa in Israel signs with Napoli Basket in Italy. Same player, same skill set, same summer. His new-season average: 12.0 points.… 

Box scores are built to flatter scorers. Points are counted every time they happen; defence mostly isn’t. A player who gets 18 a night looks productive on paper even if he’s a turnstile on the… 

Two players, same league, same position, both averaging 18 points a game. One is 22. One is 30. If you evaluate them purely on the number, you’d treat the signings identically. You shouldn’t. Age isn’t… 

Every scouting department has had this conversation: a name comes up, someone pulls up his numbers, and they’re eye-catching: 19 points, great efficiency, strong on-off numbers. Then someone asks the question that matters more than… 

Guards get the attention. Forwards win you games. The five forwards who moved clubs this summer did so because their numbers made the decision easy, not for the clubs that signed them, but for anyone… 

Every summer, clubs across Europe sign players they’ve been watching on tape for months. What tape rarely shows, at least not clearly enough, is whether a player’s production is real, repeatable and good enough to… 

For most European clubs, basketball recruitment has a familiar geography. EuroLeague. EuroCup. The Adriatic League. The Spanish ACB. Maybe a look at the NCAA if someone on the staff has American connections. The mental map… 

Basketball produces an enormous amount of data. Points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers, field goal percentage, true shooting percentage, player efficiency rating, usage rate — the list goes on. For a General Manager or Sporting… 

The NBA G League exists to develop players for the NBA. That is its stated purpose and it does that job reasonably well. What it also does, quietly, is produce a steady stream of professional…