SANTA BARBARA, Calif. -- On Thursday I made the trip up the California coast from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara to take in the BDA sports group workout.
Led by agents Bill Duffy, Kevin Bradbury, Todd Ramasar, Rade Filipovich, Calvin Andrews, David Mondress and Ugo Udezue, BDA has a number of clients in this year's draft training at the University of California at Santa Barbara. On Thursday they invited more than 80 NBA GMs and scouts to witness a three-hour workout of their clients.
I was on hand to both watch the workouts and to talk to the GMs and scouts in attendance.
Here's what I learned:
Jones was the headline attraction Thursday. Whether his performance answered the questions NBA teams have about him is open to interpretation.
The workout featured Jones as a wing -- a smart move to validate NBA scouts who believe that Jones was miscast as a center in Baylor's offense the past two years. While Jones has the size of an NBA center, he's a perimeter-oriented big man who shies away from contact in the paint. He always looked more comfortable with the ball in his hands facing the basket than he did backing down a defender in the paint.
