So you're successfully tanking your way through the season and want your hard earned first dibs on the new young talent looking to earn a spot in the league? Well, on the Draft & Scouting page (the Draft & Scouting card on Home takes you there) you can look at the new crop of talent and find that diamond in the rough that will carry your team out of mediocrity, bring fans to your stadium...or warm your bench.
So, how does the draft work? On the Draft & Scouting page you choose a weekly scouting budget, from none up to 6 points a week; every week your scouts earn those points and the bill goes into your weekly expenses. The points can then be spent to reveal information about potential draft picks. Unused scouting points will carry over and can be used in a future season. The information you have available about each player depends on how many times he has been scouted. It works as follows:
Unscouted: All you have is the order your scouts first put the class in, a very rough estimate based on the word on the streets. Expect this evaluation to be fairly inaccurate.
Scouted once: Your scouts have seen this player play one game, and have provided the player's boxscore for that game. They are now able to give a more accurate assessment of his current skills. Scouting a player uses 1 scouting point.
Interviewed: Your scouts have invited this player to a workout at your team's facilities. Along with all of the information you have learned from the initial scouting, you now have a very good understanding of this player's current skills (grade rating) and potential abilities. You also discover how tall the player is and whether he is 18 or 19 years old. Interviewing a player uses an additional 2 scouting points.
In addition, seven options are available for 10 scouting points each, and each of them can be used once. Five are practice drills, in which the whole class shows two of its skills to your scouts: Gather & Shoot reveals Jump Shot and Rebounding, Extra Pass Jump Range and Passing, Post Up Dribble Handling and Inside Shot, On Ball Defense Outside Defense and Shot Blocking, and Cut Inside Driving and Inside Defense. The other two are:
Scouting Combine: Every player in the upcoming draft class will show up to be measured. You can send a scout to the combine to learn the ages and heights of all 48 players in the upcoming draft class.
Group Demonstration: In order to help get their names out there, all of the players your scout estimated to be 1-ball or 2-ball prospects have offered to arrange a demonstration of their skills. This option is equivalent to scouting each of these players once, though it will not provide any additional information for players you have already scouted.
Set the order that you would like to draft these players by moving them up and down the list. When you are satisfied with your draft ordering, press Submit Ranking, the first step above the list, to submit it. You must press it for the list to be used when the draft is conducted during the next offseason. Scouting or interviewing a player, the Scouting Combine and the Group Demonstration also submit the current ordering of the draftees.
Teams with the worst records will have the highest draft picks, so scouting is most important for teams that are at the bottom of the league. But, watch out for forfeits because each one means dropping a place in the pick order.
To see how the most recent drafts went, open the Draft tab of your league.