Mitch Kupchak's NBA draft memory: No workouts, no celebration, just a telegram

When Charlotte Hornets general manager Mitch Kupchak was drafted into the NBA in 1976, there was no Internet, no live television coverage of the process, not even a telephone call to keep him apprised.

Instead, the day after the then-Washington Bullets (now Wizards) selected him 13^th overall, a telegram arrived at the North Carolina basketball office.

“I was walking through the cafeteria and a kid came up to me and said, ‘The Washington Bullets drafted you at 13,’ ” Kupchak recalled Tuesday. “And Coach (Dean) Smith called me and said I had a telegram waiting for me.”

Kupchak, an All-American forward for his senior season, didn’t meet with Bullets general manager Bob Ferry or any other NBA executives leading up to the draft. That’s how radically different the evaluation process was then.

“I didn’t visit any teams, I didn’t talk to any teams. I wasn’t even aware that I was scouted,” Kupchak recalled.

Contrast that to the past month, when Kupchak oversaw 40-some players in draft workouts at Spectrum Center. Beyond that, he flew to Europe shortly after being hired as the Hornets’ top basketball official and was in Los Angeles, Miami and Chicago for workouts by likely top-10 picks organized by their agents.

Kupchak said Tuesday the difference in draft preparation is a reflection of the massive competitive and financial implications of these decisions. The Hornets will select 11^th overall in the first round and 55^th overall in the second round (a pick they got from the Cleveland Cavaliers for a previous trade; their own second-round pick — 41^st — is now owned by the Orlando Magic).

“It is a heck of a process and is it all necessary? I don’t know,” said Kupchak, who oversaw the Los Angeles Lakers’ front office for 20 years. “Many, many years ago, we probably didn’t have the money to do these kinds of things.”

That’s created a dynamic of haves and have-nots among the players. The stars might make three or four trips to teams in the vicinity of where they expect to be selected. Players on the fringes of the 60 picks Thursday night might travel to a dozen or more teams, looking to at least get an invitation to a summer-league roster.

Kupchak called all the physical and psychological testing some players endure a “barrage,” adding, “I don’t know how their bodies withstand what we put them through.”

Agents have increasingly asserted themselves in the draft runup, dictating where top prospects will workout and under what conditions. Typically, players projected in the top 10 either audition solo or with just one other player. Or they don’t workout for certain teams. There are no reports of Kentucky point guard Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, who quite possibly will be available when the Hornets select, having a workout anywhere.

Kupchak said the Hornets have the intel to make that 11^th pick, and a player not working out for the Hornets wouldn’t preclude him from taking that player. It’s just the times, and you adapt.

“(Agents) do the very best they can to put their players in a good light and sometimes that conflicts with what we want,” Kupchak said.

“We are very comfortable and confident going into the draft on Thursday that we will get a very, very good player.”

This story was originally published June 19, 2018 at 6:04 PM with the headline "Mitch Kupchak's NBA draft memory: No workouts, no celebration, just a telegram."