Lazy Recruitment! Is it really a bad thing?

[spacejammer]

Hi guys as some of you probably saw from my comment on the other thread.
One of the common terms I keep hearing especially for the Eagles and for some of the recruitment these days is the term "lazy recruitment".

Whilst I would regard what the Eagles have done this season as a lazy and it makes sense to me why they have recruited the team they have so far.
When I have thought back to teams we had from previous years we have had the luxury of bringing back players for multiple seasons and sometimes alot longer then expected even after sweeping seasons.
Yet during those years we have still managed to do well and been greatful for their return.

And not just for the Eagles and the BBL but in other sports and even the NBA you do get players that commit to one team and are regular returners as well and even play their entire careers for one team.

It sort of got me wondering is the phrase "Lazy Recruitment" really such a bad thing?
Because from my point of view if you have a fantastic team who know how to play together and fit your system then I don't see how that would be such a bad thing if it works?

To me if your looking to build something and challenge for Europe as well surely you would rather have a team of experienced players alongside maybe a few 2 recruits as opposed to a new team which may or may not workout such as last year's Eagles team being on a revolving door.

With the amount of talk about it on the Eagles Thread I thought it would be an interesting topic to discuss on its own thread as im curious to hear people's thoughts on the idea.

[bullets92]

Wasn't this term initially mentioned as a joke by Riders fans on a previous forum?

Its pretty ridiculous. Wouldn't you rather sign a proven BBL success than take a chance on a newbie from abroad

[reallyoldfeenixfan2]

Personally I'd have loved a close season of extremely bone idled recruitment let alone lazy and welcomed all of last seasons squad back to the Nix. I would have liked a few more players as well for this season but understand that Eagles wanted a BBL proven group op players for this year.

[spacejammer]

Jul 21, 2023 18:04:26 GMT bullets92 said:

Wasn't this term initially mentioned as a joke by Riders fans on a previous forum?

Its pretty ridiculous. Wouldn't you rather sign a proven BBL success than take a chance on a newbie from abroad

Probably but I still think it is an interesting topic to bring up as I feel in some cases some people do confuse the term Lazy Recruitment with Smart Recruitment.

Like I understand if you have a car crash sort of season why you would want to change things.
But if your idea of Smart Recruitment is every season you recruit a new team og players then I don't see how you can be successful either.

It's like buying a new Smart Phone every year.
Like sure I could purchase the new model but if my current one works fine then why replace it?

[tony]

Call it whatever you like Eagles are putting together a strong team 😀🏀

[baldeagle]

Lazy recruitment was the invention of IRF, who thought it dreadful when Eagles recruited well from within the BBL but thought it was wonderful when Leicester did the same thing (eg Andy Thomson, Taylor King).

The truth is that recruiting players who have done well in the BBL can work very well but also risks ignoring talent available elsewhere (sometimes but not always for less cash).

Only time will tell but my sense is that Tony’s right - based on their (lazy or not….) recruitment so far this Eagles team could prove very strong. And we should remember that several Eagles all-time greats were proven BBL players before they moved to Newcastle - just think of Fab Flournpy, Lynard Stewart, Andrew Bridge and Andy Thomson for starters……

[dexter]

This is an interesting question.

If a club can’t afford it it’s a bad thing. I have no reason to believe Eagles can’t afford the all star team they’ve assembling.

It’s not as good as developing young players from your local population. And it’s not as good as bringing in exciting talent from overseas. But it’s not bad.

We don’t know Eagles’s full roster yet. As good as these players are basketball is a squad game. So far they’ve only signed half a roster.

[massiveridersfan]

Green not an exciting (new) player? Only just completed his rookie season. He's VERY exciting, really effective and still got plenty of scope to improve, with the right coaching. I would have loved it if we'd secured him for Riders.

[spacejammer]

Interesting response I think for some teams as well during the off season they focus on other areas as well during the off season like how to attract more fans and build a fan base etc... or what they could improve on match night.

Another team I tend see get criticised for Lazy Recruitment is Sheffield. Although that tends to get aimed more at the coach.
However when it comes to coaches they tend to stick around the longest depending on the club.

I think Atiba and Rob are the only 2 coaches that have remained at the helm for there clubs during my time watching the BBL as well.
And PJ has pretty much always been in the BBL during that time only transferring from Worcester to Plymouth.

[Stephen Abootman]

Jul 21, 2023 18:04:26 GMT bullets92 said:

Wasn't this term initially mentioned as a joke by Riders fans on a previous forum?

Its pretty ridiculous. Wouldn't you rather sign a proven BBL success than take a chance on a newbie from abroad

I think it's strange that you make that sound like a rhetorical question. Not necessarily no. Depends entirely on who the 'newbie from abroad' is. If it's Brandon McKissic or Branden Aughburns then sure I'll take the proven BBL player. If it's Geno Crandall or Parker Jackson-Cartwright I'll take the newbie please.

Zach Jackson, Patrick Whelan, William Lee, Marc Loving, Kimbal Mackenzie... a selection of, at the time 'new' BBL players (picked entirely at random) that have all had quite a bit of success in recent seasons. Someone explain to me why it would have been a better idea to sign 'proven' players than those guys...

BBL fans are obsessed with familiar faces. We like what we know. And we make the signing of new players sound like a complete game of bingo. In reality, the clubs that know what they're doing end up with far more hits than misses. Yes there's a little more risk attached but there's also quite a bit more upside. You've got a much better chance of uncovering some hidden gem signing 'newbies' than tried and tested BBL players.

Whether or not what Eagles are doing now constitutes 'lazy recruitment' is neither here nor there really. Choose a different adjective if you prefer. Whatever you want to call it, I just think it smacks of a club that, at this moment in time, has no confidence at all in it's ability to do actual recruitment. Ended up with egg on their faces last season and the approach this summer is all about avoiding a repeat. It might work ok in the short term but it's not a viable long term approach.

[milehigh]

It is safer to sign someone who has already played in the BBl, you know they are happy living in the UK and wil be aware of the style of play in the league.
It may, initially be cheaper to bring in a player who is in his first pro contract, but there is a, significant, risk the may not perform to the level expected, they may become homesick and not settle, or have a character that fits in with the rest of the group.

[spacejammer]

Jul 22, 2023 1:27:36 GMT Stephen Abootman said:

Jul 21, 2023 18:04:26 GMT bullets92 said:

Wasn't this term initially mentioned as a joke by Riders fans on a previous forum?

Its pretty ridiculous. Wouldn't you rather sign a proven BBL success than take a chance on a newbie from abroad

I think it's strange that you make that sound like a rhetorical question. Not necessarily no. Depends entirely on who the 'newbie from abroad' is. If it's Brandon McKissic or Branden Aughburns then sure I'll take the proven BBL player. If it's Geno Crandall or Parker Jackson-Cartwright I'll take the newbie please.

Zach Jackson, Patrick Whelan, William Lee, Marc Loving, Kimbal Mackenzie... a selection of, at the time 'new' BBL players (picked entirely at random) that have all had quite a bit of success in recent seasons. Someone explain to me why it would have been a better idea to sign 'proven' players than those guys...

BBL fans are obsessed with familiar faces. We like what we know. And we make the signing of new players sound like a complete game of bingo. In reality, the clubs that know what they're doing end up with far more hits than misses. Yes there's a little more risk attached but there's also quite a bit more upside. You've got a much better chance of uncovering some hidden gem signing 'newbies' than tried and tested BBL players.

Whether or not what Eagles are doing now constitutes 'lazy recruitment' is neither here nor there really. Choose a different adjective if you prefer. Whatever you want to call it, I just think it smacks of a club that, at this moment in time, has no confidence at all in it's ability to do actual recruitment. Ended up with egg on their faces last season and the approach this summer is all about avoiding a repeat. It might work ok in the short term but it's not a viable long term approach.

I'm surprised you would chose a newbie over Geno Crandell.
But your right about last season being a disaster and whoever was incharge of selecting our players last year made some bad choices.

Last year I think we all gave Marc a pass because it was his first season at the helm and he was coaching 3 levels above what he was before.
And for a team when you don't know what your getting then it can be pot luck as to whether your signing a great team or not.

With what we signed so far and as I mentioned before about it potentially being a clash of the ego's.
Then Marc is going to have one hell of a job being able to prove he can steer the ship with this crew and control those ego's if their is any.

Although looking at this team if he cannot make it work with a BBL team of this calibre and finish mid table or higher.
Then I think their will be questions at the end of the season.

Looking at the way this team has been set up I wonder if he has had more input this year in putting this team together as well.

[notoriousbigz]

I think the Aboottowel is trying to say if the Newby is in the ilk of Crandell he’d take him, whereas if it was in the ilk of a McKissic he’d take the tried and tested every time. Which stands to reason and I’d be amazed if anyone here disagrees!

I don’t agree with the picked entirely at random thing though. Yes you may not have physically seen a player in the way football scouts do for example, but you will have a profile of player you want, a thorough set of statistics as to what they can and can’t do, a character reference (sometimes) and a good few talks with the player themselves so I’d say more an educated guess in a lot of cases when it comes to the newbies. And to be honest, in terms of whether it works out or not more often than not comes down to character of individuals not necessarily talent level (I always go back to Riders on this point with a guard they had for about a month back in 2011ish - Tack Minor - one of the most talented players I’ve ever seen but was a complete nutcase). Some work, some don’t. Should be said Pat Whelan was not an unknown though. If there’s one thing the British basketball community is, it’s close knit. Everyone knows everyone - and he certainly wasn’t a kid who was just plucked from nowhere, he has a very good basketball pedigree.

The term lazy recruitment intrigues me, because there’s so many different facets to recruitment (especially for the more professional clubs in the league) that it’s actually pretty difficult to be lazy with it. There’s more adventurous ways of recruiting than others, but plucking a player from another BBL team should ensure at least a degree of certainty as to what you’re getting. Also, you’ve got to look at the whole picture when it comes to recruiting players, it’s not just how one guys gonna perform but how the whole teams going to compliment each other.

Let’s take Newcastle for example. I doubt they took Larry Austin for his explosive scoring ability, but he’s a guy who makes everyone around him better. Ricky McGill is a proven scorer who seems to have taken his game to another level since leaving Plymouth. Then they have the solid if unspectacular Delpeche in the front court with a human highlight reel in Green, with a stretch 4 in neighbour - all compliment each other pretty well so despite them all being ex-BBL, a relatively young pro coach in Steutal has hand picked different ingredients that should mesh together pretty well, and that’s the intrigue with them this season for me. Given his BBL inexperience, it’s really not a lazy position to recruit some talented pieces of a jigsaw from elsewhere who are tried and tested if you’re happy they mesh well together and the skill sets compliment each other. How they’ll do in Europe I don’t know, but they should technically do a lot better than last season domestically.

By the way, I wouldn’t say the recruitment last season was necessarily awful on a talent spot basis. French and Hamlett were talented guys and Cohn certainly provided flashes, but I’m not convinced they meshed together so well as a unit which is why I’m interested in how they construct the rest of their roster this year. I’m going to chalk last season up to a lack of BBL experience on Steutals part, but if his journey tells us anything it’s that he’s pretty good at learning on the job.

Then there’s the other side of the coin - Cheshire for example do a very good job of unearthing really well suited players to this league and clearly do their homework on overseas guys. It’s a cheaper way of doing it and more risky too (they’ve been known to cut big in the past!!!), but they seem to have found a decent formula for it.

[bullets92]

Jul 22, 2023 1:27:36 GMT Stephen Abootman said:

Jul 21, 2023 18:04:26 GMT bullets92 said:

Wasn't this term initially mentioned as a joke by Riders fans on a previous forum?

Its pretty ridiculous. Wouldn't you rather sign a proven BBL success than take a chance on a newbie from abroad

I think it's strange that you make that sound like a rhetorical question. Not necessarily no. Depends entirely on who the 'newbie from abroad' is. If it's Brandon McKissic or Branden Aughburns then sure I'll take the proven BBL player. If it's Geno Crandall or Parker Jackson-Cartwright I'll take the newbie please.

Zach Jackson, Patrick Whelan, William Lee, Marc Loving, Kimbal Mackenzie... a selection of, at the time 'new' BBL players (picked entirely at random) that have all had quite a bit of success in recent seasons. Someone explain to me why it would have been a better idea to sign 'proven' players than those guys...

BBL fans are obsessed with familiar faces. We like what we know. And we make the signing of new players sound like a complete game of bingo. In reality, the clubs that know what they're doing end up with far more hits than misses. Yes there's a little more risk attached but there's also quite a bit more upside. You've got a much better chance of uncovering some hidden gem signing 'newbies' than tried and tested BBL players.

Whether or not what Eagles are doing now constitutes 'lazy recruitment' is neither here nor there really. Choose a different adjective if you prefer. Whatever you want to call it, I just think it smacks of a club that, at this moment in time, has no confidence at all in it's ability to do actual recruitment. Ended up with egg on their faces last season and the approach this summer is all about avoiding a repeat. It might work ok in the short term but it's not a viable long term approach.

I get your point, but surely there is a greater risk of a signing from overseas being unsuccessful than someone who has been successful in the league for a number of years. That's the point I was trying to make.

Adapting to the culture, away from your family etc are all factors. Of course there have been many exceptions over the years. But generally speaking

[voise]

Don't bite. There is successful or unsuccessful recruiting. Clubs might define success in different ways. It's going to take at least until a few games into the season to start to make judgements.

[SamH]

I don't see whats wrong with it. In other industries its normal to try and headhunt talent from competitors. When you know what someone can bring to the party and they agree to join you, why would you bother looking further afield at people who may or may not be what you're hoping for?

Also, look at the list of players from any NBA draft, its littered with guys who turned out to be average or didn't even stay in the league, being chosen way ahead of guys who became stars. So even the best scouts in the world are regularly getting their recruitment wrong, so its not as simple as just saying with more effort any team could go out and find great players.

[eagles18000]

and for every William Lee there is a billy Reader, for every Zach Jackson a Derick Roland and Leicester went through 4 point guards last year when they only had one spot to fill. (on a percentage basis even taking out Bandoo's injury having to go through 3 pgs to find one they were happy with was actually the worst percentage 'hit rate' of the season). Newcastle by my calculation were 4 hits out of 11, they just didnt have a solid basis of returning players to limit their recruiting needs. .

For every Justin Gordon there is a Justin Everett. For every Amarie Archibald a DJ Strawberry. et al et al

Recruitment is anything but an exact science but there is a, perhaps under appreciated, value in signing players who know and understand the league and particularly those who aren't having to go through the straight out of college adjustment period.

[Stephen Abootman]

Disagree that there's a Reader for every Lee, a Roland for every Jackson. Yes recruitment is an inexact science but it's a science nevertheless. Mistakes will be made but I reckon for an experienced coach who knows how to recruit, the ratio of hits to misses is at least 2/1. It's definitely not 1/1. And it's not like building your team around a bunch of proven BBL players is some sort of guaranteed recipe for success. That's pretty much how the playoff missing 2021/22 Eagles were constructed (Fletcher, Gordon, Peel, Johnson, Defoe, Sayers, Williams).

Ideally, I think you want to strike a balance between the two. Yes it's nice to have a few familar faces who have proven, at least individually that they can succeed in this league. But you also want to be making a concerted effort to bring in exciting new talent. You want to give yourselves a chance to land that next Geno or PCJ. Unless you're London Lions you get those players at the start of their careers or you don't get them at all.

Riders have obviously ended up with a lot of holes to plug this summer. And I suspect we've had to go a bit more 'new player' heavy than we'd have liked. But (and I'm not just saying this to try and wind up Eagles fans) I'd be genuinely disappointed if we'd just gone out and filled those holes with a bunch of established BBL players, cherry-picked from other clubs. I do think it's a bit lazy tbh. It's certainly completely lacking imagination. Literally anyone who follows the BBL and has just the most basic understanding of the game could put together an *on paper* decent squad with that approach.

Jul 22, 2023 16:21:37 GMT SamH said:

I don't see whats wrong with it. In other industries its normal to try and headhunt talent from competitors. When you know what someone can bring to the party and they agree to join you, why would you bother looking further afield at people who may or may not be what you're hoping for?

Yea bollocks to doing real recruitment. Total waste of time. Let's all just do what Eagles are doing this summer. Let's just recycle the same players year after year. Turn recruitment into a game of pass the parcel. Who wants to see exciting new talent coming into the league anyway? 

[SamH]

I didn't say from the fans perspective it's the best thing - but for a team, it offers more certainty to bring in established players. It isn't possible for every team to do it because once the better players have all gone, teams will know they have no choice but to recruit to try and compete, not just sign the lower standard players who are left. So there will always be fresh blood coming in anyway. The bigger, better run clubs are the ones more likely to be able to sign the better players from other teams especially if offering Euro competition too.

[Stephen Abootman]

Evidently it's a wonderful thing from the fans' perspective. Most BBL followers are lauding every move Eagles make this summer. I'm the only miserable bastard who isn't impressed.

Every team couldn't do the same thing you're right. We'd run out of players in no time if they tried. And personally, I think the 'bigger, better run clubs' with designs on European basketball ought to be the ones in the strongest position to bring exciting, potentially higher level new players into the league. As opposed to just trying to piggyback off the work done by other BBL clubs. But I'm flogging a dead horse here clearly. I'm the only one that thinks I have a point.