The Pro Scouting Philosophy

When all things are quiet, what goes on in your brain? Invasive thoughts fly around my head all the time. Politics, life decisions, a random song stuck in my head. And, of course, basketball. Specifically, pro scouting, and the ways that a player’s skill set can be transferred to this team or that team. My way of internalizing the trade-slop-obsessed NBA culture isn’t wondering about Giannis Antetokounmpo trade destinations; it’s thinking about Jaime Jaquez Jr.’s role scalability.

Writing to me has a sort of purging effect. The thoughts rattling around in my head have to go somewhere, or I’ll just keep yammering about Brandin Podziemski’s role transferability to anyone who will listen. So, in this article, I want to break down how I analyze pro players and attempt to fit them into different roles with different scales of responsibility.

First things first, let’s start with the simplest tenet.

Role Scaling

I don’t mean to go full “two-way turnover economy ecosystem engine” word salad on you, but scaling is a core principle of basketball on all levels. “Can I ask this player to do more?” is a question constantly asked, and it’s often the simplest way to identify emerging talent.

Let’s look at a recent example of role scaling benefiting both player and team. In 2024, I wrote about Nickeil Alexander-Walker as an emerging role player talent for the Minnesota Timberwolves. I’d highly recommend reading that to contextualize his growth, but here’s the skinny: NAW was a 25-ish MPG bench player for a contending Wolves team, asked to knock down off-ball shots and defend on the perimeter with a small dash of on-ball self-creation. He was regularly beating the brakes off opposing bench players and translates well as a starter next to Anthony Edwards when called upon.

Slap the floor, hit your threes, and stay ready; it’s a role that many players have filled, but so few thrive at the level that NAW thrives. Not only did he post an elite Defensive Estimated Plus-Minus (D-EPM) in his two full seasons with the Wolves, but he continued to grow as an efficient scorer. His true shooting percentage was at the 6th percentile before arriving in Minnesota, climbing to the 48th percentile during his last year with the Wolves.

The Atlanta Hawks wisely identified NAW as a candidate for role scaling. It is a big leap going from above-average bench player to above-average starter, but GM Onsi Saleh was confident that NAW could do it. And boy was he right. NAW more than doubled his PPG as a Hawk from the previous season with Minnesota, netting himself a Most Improved Player award in the process. He did this without sacrificing efficiency; NAW shot better outside the arc, inside the arc, and from the free throw line, finishing with a 53/40/90 2PT/3PT/FT shooting split. The defense wasn’t sacrificed either, as NAW continued to thrive on the perimeter against top options.

NAW’s transformation was partly due to scale, but also to the second pillar of pro scouting.

Role Transformation

There is no case of 1:1 role transference. If you stay on the same team, rosters change, and roles change alongside them. If you change teams, new dynamics are at play, forcing roles to shift. In the case of Nickeil Alexander-Walker, the Atlanta Hawks identified his on-ball scoring ability as something that could be transformed.

In his final season with the Wolves, 29.6% of NAW’s half-court possessions were direct ballhandler actions (pick-and-roll, dribble handoffs, off-ball screening actions, isolation). In terms of points per possession on those four actions, NAW was 15th percentile in PNR, 16th percentile in handoffs, and 43rd percentile off screens. His percentiles on the eight total isolation possessions aren’t worth mentioning due to sample size. It’s the profile of an off-ball wing. But for those with eyes to see, the potential for role transformation was there alongside role scalability.

With the Atlanta Hawks this year, NAW’s on-ball possession rate jumped to 53.9%. That’s an 82% increase in on-ball usage while shouldering an extra load of minutes played. And he improved across the board: 37th percentile in PNR, 74th percentile on handoffs, and 69th percentile off screens. On top of all this, he got out in transition more often, and increased his efficiency against unsettled defenses.

Not only did NAW scale his usage in a big way, his usage also underwent a significant shift in a way that transformed the Hawks. Atlanta’s points per 100 possessions improved by 7.6 points with NAW, a team-leading mark. Those are the rewards you reap when you correctly identify a pro player ready for a new role.

It’s nothing new for Atlanta. NAW was the blueprint for role scaling and role transformation on offense. The year before that, Atlanta hit the lottery of defensive role scaling.

Dyson Daniels was a highly regarded prospect for the New Orleans Pelicans, but they could hardly be bothered to unlock him. Through two years in the Bayou, Daniels started 27 total games, playing an average of 20 minutes a night. Unlike NAW, there was no clear evidence that he could contribute to a winning team. Unless you looked closely—as I did in December 2023.

Daniels dominated on the defensive end as a bench player and consistently handled top matchups when called upon. Much like the offensive end, the jump from bench player to starter is a big test, as a primary perimeter defender like Daniels will consistently face top options instead of secondary bench options. In essence, Daniels had days off in New Orleans where he didn’t have to contain the best of the best. Atlanta was willing to bet that Daniels didn’t need days off, and could play against top options every single night.

And boy, were they right. In his first season as a starter, Daniels posted steal numbers we haven’t seen since the 1980s, won Most Improved Player, finished runner-up in the DPOY race, and made first-team All-Defense. He consistently wrecked top options and became one of the most valuable “possessionmaxxing” players in the league. Atlanta correctly identified the new meta; winning the turnover and rebounding battle is everything, and a guy who nets you three steals a game is worth his weight in gold.

Here you have an excellent example of role scaling with minimal transformation. Atlanta didn’t ask Dyson to do anything differently on the defensive end, just to do more of it and against better players. But the offensive game was a much different story, an unheralded success story of role transformation.

In the first season in Atlanta, Dyson was the complementary guard alongside Trae Young. With Young’s defensive shortcomings (some pun intended), Daniels was a hand-in-glove fit on the defensive end. Offensively, not so much. Trae’s extreme ball dominance and pick-and-roll frequency didn’t work for a player like Daniels, who brings little value as a floor spacer. There was some room for Daniels to operate as a guard-guard screener, utilizing his downhill game, but Young largely wanted to run 1-5 actions that put Daniels in a bad position. Atlanta certainly took notice, and as they prepared for the post-Trae Young era, they prepared for a dramatic role transformation.

Much of the impetus behind the Trae Young deal was the emergence of Jalen Johnson as a legitimate offensive engine—another example of dramatic role scaling we won’t get into yet. But essentially, Atlanta wanted to get out and run, and to create a diversified attack where cutting and secondary ball-handling were priorities around Johnson. That fit Daniels to a T, and it only got better after Young was traded for CJ McCollum, who was a huge part of Atlanta’s second-half turnaround.

McCollum made his Atlanta debut on January 11th, and from then on, Daniels’ offensive role transformation was in full effect. It’s jarring to compare the Young-centric Daniels usage to his usage after McCollum’s arrival. Let’s look at the stats.

In 2024/25, Daniels’ breakout campaign and debut year with the Hawks, 31% of his half-court usage came via spot-ups. The jumper was passable, generating 1.058 PPP on standstill shots, but the drives were abhorrent. Daniels drove off the catch 49.6% of the time, generating a ghastly 0.666 PPP. In the post-Trae world, that spot-up usage went down to 27%. Though the jumper abandoned him entirely, with 0.818 PPP on standstill shots, the drives transformed entirely. Daniels generated .913 PPP, a much more acceptable mark, while still driving 45.5% of the time. He was encouraged to be patient and to utilize his floater instead of going into turbo mode off the catch to capitalize on Young’s gravity.

The spot-up changes were notable, but it was the shift in on- and off-ball usage that struck me. Daniels’ cutting frequency, an efficient part of his game, went from 10.9% to 16.5%. His pick-and-roll ball handling declined from 15.4% to 8.1%, but the efficiency went from 0.867 PPP to 1.25 PPP. Daniels’ usage as an on-ball screener went up from 5.4% to 7.7%, again with an efficiency jump from 0.889 PPP to 0.947 PPP. He was also asked to crash the glass more often, and they reaped the rewards; Daniels’ offensive rebounding percentage went from 5.1% to 7.8%, and he continued to post strong putback numbers.

Atlanta’s strategy for Daniels’ offense was surprisingly simple: crank up the stuff you’re good at, and do less of the things you struggle with. It was transformative for their offense and for Daniels. In 24/25, Atlanta’s offense was 1.2 points per 100 possessions worse with Daniels on the floor; in 25/26, they were 6.2 points per 100 possessions better with Daniels on the floor.

Head coach Quin Snyder’s new starting lineup of McCollum, NAW, Daniels, Johnson, and Onyeka Okongwu posted a +21.4 net rating down the stretch and turned the season on its head. Heading into the All-Star break, Atlanta had a 26-30 record; they finished 46-36 to place sixth in the East, and were the only team to take multiple games off the NBA champion New York Knicks in the playoffs.

All due to brilliant role scaling and role transformation.

Cutting Both Ways

Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Dyson Daniels are excellent examples of positive role scaling and role transformation on both ends of the floor. But scaling in a positive direction isn’t always how things go. In a supremely talented league, teams often find themselves wondering if they can get more out of a player by asking them to do less. While it’s far more difficult, both on an interpersonal and a schematic level, it has produced some brilliant results.

Perhaps the most notable recent example is Aaron Gordon. A high draft pick by Orlando, the Magic hoped to turn Gordon into a primary offensive option with ancillary defensive skills. The Denver Nuggets traded for him with the opposite in mind.

With the Magic, Gordon had a 21.7% usage rate in his four full seasons as a starter. Not exactly heliocentrism, but he was relied upon more than he should have been. His points per shot attempt ranged between 104.1 and 108.8 in those years. The Nuggets said, “Hey, we’ve got Nikola Jokic; you don’t need to be doing all that.” Gordon’s usage dove to 16.4% after joining Denver in a 2021 deadline deal, and his points per shot attempt jumped to 114.9. The year after that, he stayed under 20% usage with a 121.2 PSA mark, and in the 2022/23 championship season, Gordon was up to 20.1% usage with 123.5 PSA.

While adjusting his offensive scaling and transforming his role, Denver used that conserved energy to empower Gordon on the defensive end, turning him into a 93rd percentile D-EPM player in the championship season. Gordon’s rotational defense was key to Denver’s aggressive defensive scheme, which made the lumbering Jokic a blitzing or at-the-level screen defender by using his fast hands and relying on Gordon to cover up anything that got past him. This mindful shift from an on-ball, offense-first player to an off-ball, defense-first player was key to Denver’s first title in franchise history.

It’s not the only time that a drastic shift in scale and role led to a championship. Once upon a time, Brook Lopez was a high-usage offensive post hub for the Nets and remains their all-time leading scorer. Lopez was an 18.6 PPG scorer over his nine years in Brooklyn, registering a 26.0% usage rate. Despite his reputation as an offense-first player, Brooklyn’s defense was better with Lopez on the court in six of nine seasons; the offense was better in six of nine seasons as well.

After an unsuccessful stint with the Lakers, the Milwaukee Bucks had an idea. What if we completely transformed Brook Lopez’s offensive scaling, made him a defense-first guy, and turned him from a post player to a floor spacer? In seven seasons with the Bucks, Lopez scored 13.0 PPG with a 17.2% usage rate, far below the marks he was accustomed to. He also turned into a pure floor spacer; Lopez made 187 threes in his first season with Milwaukee after making 249 in the first 10 seasons in the league.

With the offensive responsibilities falling to Giannis Antetokounmpo, Khris Middleton, and later Jrue Holiday, Lopez was able to dial in on the defensive end of the floor. He posted career highs in shot-blocking rate over his first two seasons in Milwaukee, becoming the anchor of a championship-winning defense. After nobody wanted Brook Lopez, the post-up offensive hub, everyone was searching for a Brook Lopez who could anchor the defense and space the floor.

Lopez’s teammate, Jrue Holiday, is an example of a player who went through several iterations of role scaling and transforming. A high-usage two-way player for the Process 76ers, New Orleans identified him as someone who should be taking more playmaker responsibilities and shooting more threes. It turned him into one of the best two-way point guards in the sport. Then DeMarcus Cousins got to town, and he scaled down offensively into a third option who was pass-first and tasked with floor spacing for the Anthony Davis-Cousins duo. Then Cousins and Davis left over the next couple years, and Holiday returned into a 1B-type scoring option alongside Brandon Ingram, albeit with a more refined passing game.

The Milwaukee Bucks saw Holiday’s ideal role as a tertiary playmaker/scorer and primary point-of-attack defender. When acting as a third option who slaps the floor defensively in 2017/18 and 2018/19, Holiday led the Pels in on/off impact by a comfortable margin. So they asked Jrue to play the same role alongside Giannis Antetokounmpo and Khris Middleton.

Results? A championship in his first season with the team. Holiday acted as a primary passer to set up Giannis, Khris, and their other shooters, while consistently locking up top perimeter options. Holiday’s ability to scale down the scoring while ratcheting up the defensive intensity showed an ability to adjust his scaling and role on the fly.

Almost as if to flex, Holiday underwent another drastic transformation with a new team to win a championship immediately. Jrue was traded to the Boston Celtics before the 2023/24 season, joining a team with an established offensive hierarchy between Jayson Tatum, Jaylen Brown, Derrick White, and Payton Pritchard. Kristaps Porzingis, another defense-first arrival, slotted in above Holiday in that hierarchy. The former All-Star point guard, used to having the ball in his hands, slid to sixth in usage rate as a Celtic. They asked for two things: defend your ass off, and knock down catch-and-shoot jumpers.

And it worked like a charm. Holiday continued to have an elite on-off impact, providing valuable floor spacing for the high-usage starters while defending at an absurd rate for a 33-year-old. Once again, Holiday scaled down offensively to scale up defensively, and transformed his offensive role to accommodate a new team. He hoisted another Larry O’Brien as a result.

Of course, there are negative examples. The Golden State Warriors asked Jonathan Kuminga, an elite athlete who believed himself to be a primary scoring talent, to focus on defending his tail off and rebounding the ball. Though unspoken, his response was a resounding “no”. Kuminga, 23, remains unsigned deep into the offseason. As a generally positive dude, I don’t want to dredge up other examples and besmirch others, but it’s not hard to understand why scaling down and transforming roles doesn’t always pan out.

NBA players have, for most of their pre-NBA careers, been the best talent on their teams. Whether in high school, college, or abroad, they’re used to being the guy. Someone telling you “we’d like you to not be the guy” doesn’t always fall on friendly ears. There are also talent questions; sometimes, a player isn’t capable of that role change, and is conditioned to be the player they have always been.

Summing Up

After a busy offseason, every single NBA team looks different. Even the Golden State Warriors, who made no trades or new signings, will be adjusting to new roles. Role scaling and transformation are happening all the time, on all teams, and recent history has shown us that those who nail those two pillars of pro scouting win big. Teams will spend this offseason attempting to execute new role scales and transformations in the hope that tweaking what each player does can unlock something new.

We will have breakouts and disappointments alike; when you see that happening to a player, ask yourself what the scaling looks like and whether the role transformed. And if those things aren’t to your liking, can this player and the team stand to benefit from further adjustments to scaling and role? Now, hopefully, you get a glimpse of what I’m thinking about all the time when the rest of the noise becomes quiet.