Inside an NBA Draft workout

By Mike Tuck, as told to Lee Harvey

What happens behind closed doors when NBA teams invite draft prospects to work out?

Sky Sports NBA Mike Tuck remembers his 2008 draft workout with the Toronto Raptors.

'You immediately think it’s a prank call!'

My draft workout with the Toronto Raptors took place on June 19, 2008. I had just graduated from Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore in May, so I was eligible for the NBA Draft. I'd had meetings with a couple of agents and then I ended up signing with one.

Having just graduated from Loyola, I had headed back to Toronto with all of my stuff. I was playing the waiting game. I was working out in Toronto and waiting for my agent to find me a job.

Then, one evening at the house the phone rang. I picked it up and it was a guy by the name of Courtney Charles who is now director of basketball operations & player development for the Toronto Raptors. At the time, he was probably in a similar same role, perhaps just one step down.

He contacted me and said they knew that I was eligible for the draft and asked if I could be available to work out for them. I said, 'of course'. It was nice to know that I was on their radar - obviously, I wasn't a huge NBA prospect.

They asked me to be available and then two weeks later, my phone rang again, and they ask me to go down the next day for the workout. I believe it was Nicolas Batum – who was selected in first round of the 2008 Draft and is still playing in the NBA - who had dropped out at the last minute.

My reaction? It was one of those ones where you pick up the phone and you immediately think that it is a prank call! I couldn't believe it. The idea they even knew who I was – that was a huge deal for me. Growing up as a Raptors fan, getting that call from somebody within the organisation was very exciting.

Credit - Loyola University Maryland Athletics

'Am I really doing this?'

I didn't know what day they were going to need me, so I was training as I usually do and then I got the call in the evening before they wanted me to come down. I didn't have any time to prepare really!

I drove my dad's car down from my parents' house and parked in a lot near to the arena before walking over. I just remember parking the car and during that walk over I was just thinking, 'What is going on right now?! Am I really doing this?'

I got into the stadium, went through two or three different security points before getting in and then finally a handler came and got me, and they took me down to the Raptors locker room, which was absolutely unreal!

When I walked into the locker room, that was a surreal moment and I couldn't believe how nice it was compared to all the locker rooms I had been in before in my life! They had my name on a printed piece of paper and I was sitting at (then-Raptors franchise star) Chris Bosh's locker. It had the Raptors logo and 'Tuck'.

Raptors locker for Mike Tuck at 2008 Draft workout - credit: Mike Tuck

Raptors locker for Mike Tuck at 2008 Draft workout - credit: Mike Tuck

They didn't have a printed-out jersey (with my name) for me but I did get an incredible amount of workout gear – I walked away with shorts, shirts, socks, tights, everything. They gave us quite a bit of gear in a grab-bag.

Toronto Raptors locker room - Getty Images

Route to the Raptors locker room - Getty Images

Corridor leading to the Raptors locker room - Getty Images

Chris Bosh sits at his Raptors locker - Getty Images

Chris Bosh sits at his Raptors locker - Getty Images

'As soon as you walk in, they are assessing you'

You are in the locker room, you get changed, go and get taped up and then they walk you up (to the practice court). At the time in the Raptors' arena, there was actually a practice facility off the 100 level. It's very nonchalant, you open up this side door and then you are on this court with six rims. There is a big weight room on the side as well.

They walked me up there, brought me in for a quick chat and broke down how the workout was going to go. I met all the player development coaches. From there it was straight into the weight room.

From the second that you walk into that gym, they are assessing you. You can tell that the coaching staff and anybody there from the Raptors is trying to get a feel for who you are - as a basketball player, as an athlete and also IQ-wise and personality-wise.

They are trying to gauge what kind of guy you are and whether, mentally, you are going to be able to handle certain situations. It was very organic. Just about every single coach came over and had a conversation with me at some point throughout the workout, just to gauge me.

In the weight room, there were a series of strength and conditioning tests which they took me through. They ranged from bench presses to pull-ups and all different types. It was a long list and we went through all of them.

Toronto Raptors logo inside Scotiabank Arena - Getty Images

'They recorded everything we did'

When it was time to hit the court, we did a warm-up with one of the coaches. We had six guys at our workout – six is usually the biggest group so that they can break it down to three and three at the end. Teams will also do four-man and two-man workouts. For their big-time prospects they will do an individual workout.

My group was six, so it was probably guys that they were looking at in the draft but not the highest-end guys. They probably just wanted to get a feel for us. It also gives the coaches an idea of how guys can work in a system.

Teams are able to build those six-man workouts by position as well so that they can match up a guard and a guard, a swingman and a swingman, a big and a big.

After they warmed us up, we went straight into individual stuff. We were doing individual drills with coaches and they were testing everything. We were sprinting up and down the court, they were recording all of our times… sprinting with a ball, dribbling right hand and left hand. They were recording everything we did. We then went into a series of shooting drills and they recorded our makes and misses, seeing how we could move from different spots on the floor and how we handled certain actions. Then you built up into two-men drills – pick-and-roll, pick-and-pop stuff, all drills in a two-man game with a guard and a big.

After that, we built up into three-on-three stuff. This is where part of the mental component came in; they were trying to test how high our basketball IQ was and how much information we could take in then regurgitate out on the other side. There were probably four or five different sets that we walked through as teams, then we had a walkthrough of it, then through them live.

You had to retain a lot of information in a short amount of time and in a high-pressure situation as well because the coaches were very intense and on you.

Raptors 'We The North' banner inside Scotiabank Arena - Getty Images

'I was on fire. I didn't miss a shot'

When I walked into the gym I looked at the sidelines. There was Maurizio Gherardini who was the assistant GM. Bryan Colangelo, the general manager, popped his head in for a bit. There was Leo Rautins who had just been announced as the head coach of Team Canada.

For me, walking into the workout I was a bit starstruck but once you got on the court, after the weight room assessment I thought, 'this is my time now'. When we went through the shooting drills, I was on fire. I did not miss a shot and I stepped up to my moment there. There were a lot of eyes on me, there wasn't any place to hide in that gym. Everyone was on the sidelines and you were on court with two, three, four coaches on you. That shooting drill drove my confidence for the rest of the practice. I handled myself alright.

The funny part was, when I went to Loyola we played in the MAAC (Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference). It's a mid-major conference and it is primarily known as a guards league, a lot of guards came out of that league. I played the four (forward) or five (center) position in that league. I'm only 6ft 7in but I could get away with it in that league.

Fast-forward to my NBA workout, I'm the shortest guy there! When it came to the two-on-two and the three-on-three drills, I was the primary ball-handler. For me, that was a huge shock and a huge adjustment that I had to make immediately.

There were three things that stood out to me. First, the size. The guys were a lot bigger and more physical than I had ever played with. Second, the speed of everything. Not only the speed of the players, the pace of the ball, the speed of getting the ball down the floor and getting into a set, the speed of running and executing the plays. That was so much quicker than I was used to. Third, I am primarily a screener-rebounder, scoring in the post and maybe picking and popping for shots. There I was playing as a ball-handler getting guarded full court by Donté Greene (who would ultimately play four seasons in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings) when I brought the ball up the floor. That was immediately a high-pressure situation for me, but I think I handled myself well.

The whole time that you are there, the coaches are assessing you. They are trying to get a feel of how good a basketball player you are, what you can do and what your limitations are. Also, how you handle information and the mental assessments throughout the practice – are you stable under pressure? The coaches are also assessing your personality. They were looking to see if you are a good guy, a nice guy, competitive? Are you lazy? There were so many different things that I could tell that they were trying to assess us on throughout the whole process.

Credit - Loyola University Maryland Athletics

Donte Green - Getty Images

Donte Green - Getty Images

Roy Hibbert - Getty Images

Roy Hibbert - Getty Images

Kyle Landry - Getty Images

Kyle Landry - Getty Images

'The introduction to my professional career'

I mentioned Donté Greene being in the workout. He is from Baltimore and I had actually coached a Loyola basketball camp which he had played in as a high school player. Here we were in the same NBA Draft workout! We were going up against each other and I was remembering him as a little kid at camp!

Roy Hibbert, who would go on to play as a starter for the Indiana Pacers and make two All-Star teams, was another prospect at my workout. He was a great guy, I really got along with him. We played on the same team in the workout. It was interesting to work with him; he was a great passer out of the post. There were many times where I would feed the post, relocate and he would find me for a shot right away.

Another guy was a Canadian basketball legend, Kyle Landry who was on Team Canada. He was getting looks from the NBA but then he went to play in Russia.

It was a high level. It was very interesting to see how the whole structure worked and how they built the workouts, finding the right match-ups to go up against the main prospects they were looking at. In that workout, it was Greene and Hibbert.

After, we went down to the locker room and showered. They had a meal spread out for us and we had a chance to mingle with a few of the guys. That was really the intro to my professional career.

I got to speak to Maurizio Gherardini. Leo Rautins really took me on from there. Straight after the workout finished, Leo came up to me and asked me who I was and why they didn't know about me! He said that they had a development camp going on right now at a high school across town and that he wanted me to go into that. I left the Raptors workout and went straight to Team Canada training!

It was crazy how many doors the Raptors workout opened. I left the agent that I was with after that and went with Bernie Lee, who was Leo’s guy. Bernie got me my first job in Cyprus and then the rest is history from there.

'Workout opened door for me to get to Europe'

Working out with the Raptors was the most professional environment I had ever been in. To me, they looked like an organisation that was trying to make strides in the right direction. They seemed very organised.

I believe (current Raptors president) Masai Ujiri was there at the time as well. It was cool to see how they had made big connections with Canada Basketball and they were bringing in different guys from the Canadian set-up to be involved with these workouts. Team Canada used to train in the Raptors practice facility, so everyone was always around each other and they were sharing notes and that type of thing.

The biggest links I made that came out of it were with Courtney Charles, making that connection with him was huge. More than 10 years later, I was able to contact him to help recall everything about my workout.

Leo Rautins was the other huge connection. We still stay in touch, I send him messages all of the time. These are guys who I look up to and who I am able to hit up once in a while for advice.

The biggest thing that came out of the workout was that I got a shot with Team Canada and I was able to go over to the developmental team. I played with them for the next two summers.

I never got the call up to the senior team, it was extremely competitive to get to that level. But Leo was able to introduce me to my agent who opened all of the doors for me to get to Europe.