Media availability is a big part of the NBA Draft Combine, with the league providing access for reporters to briefly talk to some of the prominent players who figure to be high on teams’ draft boards. Not everyone, though. The very top players — such as the consensus top three of Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith Jr. and Paolo Banchero – didn’t even talk to reporters on top of not taking part in the combine workouts.
However, there is another layer to the combine. While several of the lottery-caliber player players skip playing five-on-five at the combine, most are taking part in private “agent workouts” this week. These are mostly one-on-zero affairs consisting of players running through drills against furniture and cones.
That created an opportunity for our intrepid reporting staff. Everybody wants to talk to those top guys, but nobody ever thinks to touch base with their workout foils.
These workouts are often closed to the media, so to get an honest perspective, we talked to a veteran who has participated in many of these: The Chair.
Below is a transcript of The Athletic’s exclusive interview, which has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.
Let’s start at the top. Tell us your full name again?
I’m a chair. I don’t have a name. Try doing some research next time.
Do you find it odd that nobody reached out to you about the draft workouts until now?
Right? This league, man … (sighs)
NBA teams invest all this money in doing background research on these players before the draft, you know? They’re doing half-hour in-person interviews with the player’s kindergarten teacher, as if the way they processed Dr. Seuss 15 years ago will give them insight into his Spain pick-and-roll reads? I’m right there in the gym when they work out, yet nobody wants my opinion on these dudes? All these years and not one call from any of them. Crickets.
I’m really interested in your background. How did you end up choosing basketball?
I’d say basketball chose me (chuckles).
Reporters love telling these players’ sob stories, but they have nothing on my life story. One minute you’re spending every day in a crowded closet, choking on stale cigarette smoke during illicit poker games, and the next you’re being asked to guard lottery picks 1-on-1 in front of 50 poorly dressed, mildly interested strangers who can’t tear themselves away from their phones.
It’s weird, though. Nobody really knows who I am. Once I step off the court, everyone just treats me like regular furniture. But ask the agents about me, man. They freaking love me. I’m their first choice for draft workouts every time because they know exactly what they’ll get from me. They’re the only ones who really respect my game.
What would you say was your breakthrough moment, when you knew you could do this for a living?
Probably my workout against Yi Jianlian in 2007. That was the one that really put me on the map. Before then, I had a few chances here and there, but I don’t think I was well known nationally. After Yi, that was when it all blew up for me. Agents started calling me a lot more for other workouts.
Which is weird, because I got totally destroyed that day. It was one poster dunk after another. It goes like that sometimes. OK, most times. But I think people appreciated my toughness. A lot of chairs will fold in that situation.
Speaking, of which, how did your workouts go this week?
Well … not great. Look, it takes a certain amount of emotional resilience to get dunked on 47 times in a row and not let it affect you mentally. I have to admit I started getting a little down on myself as it went on. It may not always look like it because I don’t show much emotion on the court, but I’m trying out there.
It’s worse because scouts act like I can’t hear what’s going on. They’re all bitching that “it’s not game speed,” and I’m like, ‘Dudes, have you ever seen me play before?’ My entire game is holding down my spot and staying solid. If you want to see me move with speed, strap roller skates on me and control them with a drone or something.
Here’s the other thing people forget about these workouts: The trainers are literally telling the guy where to go. I get that I’m not the most mobile guy, but I’m thinking maybe I can anticipate which way he will go and cut off his angle before he does a 360 video-game dunk for his YouTube channel. It’s not rocket science. Half of these dudes can’t even dribble with their weak hand.
But before every drill, they’re showing the guy exactly where I’ll be and how to go around me! I swear, man, just let me play these guys one time with no coaching and then we’ll see what happens.
I gotta hand it to Shaedon Sharpe and these other guys I played this week, though. Man, they didn’t back down from me. I want to test myself against the best and work out against Holmgren or Banchero, but I feel like those guys are ducking me. They don’t want that smoke.
You bring up an interesting point because scouts have seen you so many times by now. Do you feel like they take your game for granted at this point, and don’t really re-evaluate your performance?
Look, I’ve been able to make a decent living this way, so I don’t want to sound bitter. But sometimes you wonder what these guys are watching. Don’t get me started on this.
Give me an example
I worked out against (former Mavericks first-round pick) Pavel Podkolzin in 2004. Bro, I had that dude beat. But the trainers kept changing the rules to make it easier for him.
Look, I understand why there might be doubters. I’m three-foot-five, I have no opposable thumbs and I can’t really move. But it’s basketball, man. We’re playing a game to 11, and I’m beating him 8-6. And then some suit decides to cancel the rest of the workout.
It’s all politics, I swear. It’s like I’m invisible to these scouts. After that show I put on, somehow Podkolzin was the one who kept getting called for workouts and got the Green Room invite on draft night. Seriously? After that, you’re gonna front like I’m the one with no game?
(Pauses)
It is what it is. I’m not gonna lose sight of my dream of making an NBA team’s bench someday. Like, literally being the bench. I’ll keep doing these workouts til my rubber foot caps wear out.
People only see you at workouts, but how do you prepare? Do you have anybody you practice against?
Well, not exactly. Most of my work is just solo drills, folding and unfolding, that type of stuff. I don’t really do much cardio.
I’ll see the traffic cones at nearly all my workouts. They’re cool and all, but we don’t really hang out. Between you and me, I do not get that family at all. There’s like a hundred of them, they all look exactly alike, and they’re at every workout every year. They travel in packs, too; there’s never just one of them. But the only one that ever got drafted was Jahlil Okafor.
There’s a bit of a rivalry, too. Sometimes the trainers will pull me off the court and start lining up the cones instead. They’ll never give a reason, either. I’m doing my job, taking a charge from some clumsy Latvian big guy, and suddenly everybody in the gym is cursing like crazy, yanking me off the floor by my backrest. That’s the thing about this business that nobody understands. There’s just so much BS like that.
What’s next for you?
This is when I’m busiest, hitting the workout circuit. Every year I have agents blowing up my phone trying to get me on the court against mystery guys that nobody has ever seen play in a real game.
Again, though, you get the politics. It just sucks knowing that no matter how well I perform out there on the court, they’re not there to see me. Watch my workout last year against Vrenz Bleijenbergh. I really gave him problems and it seems like nobody even noticed. Just once, I’d like to see Sam Vecenie at least acknowledge my existence.
I tell you what, though. Sometimes, you wonder if it’s all worth it. But then you remember that you’re providing for your footstools and seeing the world. I’m blessed, man, I really am. There are a lot of other chairs out there getting thrown by Bobby Knight.
(Photo: John Hollinger / The Athletic)
