In 2022, when Blake was hired full-time out of Stanford’s MBA program, she and Temme began installing a process to turn the anecdotal moments in a decision-making process, such as Hill’s voice changing, into quantifiable evidence for or against the selection of a player during the crucial minutes of a pick.
Gathering this information also helps Blake engage in unique debates with Snead away from the rest of the group. On a particular day in January, Snead moved a player up one bucket on his call sheet and moved another down when the area scout expressed his excitement about the first player and as Gladstone drew out a comparison between the two.
During a break, Snead poked his head into Blake’s office. Didn’t Snead think he should simply expand the bucket instead of moving the second player out of it, she asked. The coaching staff, who would soon begin its first wave of draft evaluations, would get an initial exposure to only that first bucket of players, with the next bucket to follow a few weeks after. Getting on coaches’ desks in the first bucket is often a good thing for the player, but if the scouting staff was able to compare the first player to the second — unaware of the movement by Snead on the call sheet — shouldn’t the coaches do the same?
