How it can go wrong; the biggest mistakes a GM can make on draft day

A double draft media special

For the sake of my sanity, I need to keep things fresh and take this article in a slightly different direction to the others I’ve written this week. My other articles had mainly stuck to being prospect profiles and the like, with the main focus being talking about the players who make up the draft. I thought it might be fun to talk a little bit instead about those on the other side of the equation; the ones who are making the picks on draft day, the GMs. Taking part in the draft and being able to add new talent is undeniably one of the most important parts of the GM role and is certainly one of the most enjoyable aspects, but it also comes with a lot of required preparation. In a class like this, there’s an absolute mountain of prospects for GMs to get to grips with, and with no totally certain way of identifying who will turn into a stud and who’ll end up a bust, there probably is a lot of stress that comes along with it too. But even with that being said, there are common pitfalls that GMs can make and end up burning themselves in the long run (something I’m very guilty of doing myself in past drafts). So in this  article, I’m going to be discussing some of the most common, and easy to do, things that I believe GMs do to shoot themselves in the foot. This is entirely anecdotal and based on my view of how I see things rather than something with a lot of evidence to back it up, but hopefully there’s some things in there that you might find interesting or amusing and can come away informed about how some of the things that raise eyebrows on draft day end up happening, and how drafting a bust is a lot easier than you might think.

Mistake 1: Believing Everything You’re Told

This is one I've been very guilty of in the past myself, famously by drafting notorious bust Kiko Rytmeyr in the S43 SHL Draft ahead of some truly elite talent, and again with Nicholas Fleming in the S45 SHL Draft. I like to think I’ve learned my lesson a bit since those two but it’s still something I have to check myself on occasionally to this day. It’s very easy when faced with a fresh faced new member who is a mere couple of months into their time in the league, and is telling you that they’re totally dedicated, that this is something they absolutely love and will be committed to for a long time and how much they would love to play for your team for years to come, to believe exactly that. While it is nice in life to be able to take people at face value, the reality of the situation is some people haven’t realised just how long it’ll take to get to the kind of level they’re shooting for, and in order to achieve that kind of success you have to put a lot of work in. In the examples I mentioned earlier, Rytmeyr was a prospect who we took after he told us how he wanted to play for us so much more than any other team, had a great love for our team and brand, and would be committed to making a great player. I decided to believe him on this, but instead of ending his career in the Hall of Fame, he never uncapped past his SMJHL build and was inactive a month after the draft. Nicholas Fleming was slightly different but a similar principle. The recreate made by a member with a Hall of Fame player who had an incredible track record as GM, I drafted him sixth overall based on promises that he was as motivated as he was with his first player and was going to create nothing short of a force. This pick again ended up being a total bust, and Fleming never came anywhere close to playing for us. While these are extreme examples, and there are absolutely cases where prospects have made big promises and followed through, making this mistake myself definitely prompted me to not be afraid to sit back and reevaluate the information I was getting from a prospect about their commitment and make an assessment about how realistic it all actually was.

Mistake 2: Getting Tunnel Vision

I like to think this is probably one of the few mistakes I’ve not really made in my time as GM (though I’ve definitely made up for it in other areas), but nonetheless it’s an interesting one to observe. It’s easy when having initial conversations with prospects to fall totally in love with a player and make obtaining him at whatever cost possible the overall goal in the draft. Now I’m not saying it’s not worth going out and getting a potentially franchise changing player if you believe someone has that potential, but the willingness to pay whatever price and acquire an earlier pick to add someone who you think will be a stud can really burn you if the reality turns out to be different and you’ve given up a lot of capital to move up a few spots. One of the problems with scouting conversations is that they can lead to situations like this, where if a certain player jumps off the sheet and blows you away in the interview they can be someone you want to obtain at all costs. The reality is, no prospect is a sure thing (as evidenced by some of the picks I highlighted in my recent article about first overall), and while it may be the more boring option, sometimes it’s worth as a GM sitting back and making a deliberate effort to not get caught up in the thrill of it all and make a trade that seems like a good idea in all the excitement of the draft but with more consideration is something you probably wouldn’t do.

Mistake 3: Short Termism

Another one I’ve certainly been guilty of a few times, thinking too much about the here and now and undervaluing the future draft assets you have is a very easy to mistake but can ultimately end up to you losing out on a lot of value. If for example you take part in a Reddit draft like this and are looking to move up a few spaces, it’s not uncommon to see future Reddit picks offered as an incentive for some movement. While individual circumstances obviously dictate the moves you make, and there may be a player available at this point who you’re blown away by and don’t think that you’ll be able to beat with a pick in a future draft, the fact that future picks feel so far down the line turns them into something that’s a lot less valuable than they should be. It’s easy to think that all my team needs is this one particular prospect and we’ll be set for possibly seasons to come, but very often the draft you traded that pick from comes rolling around and you can’t help but think you wish you had that particular pick you traded away in order to select another player who’s caught your eye this time around. It’s hard for me to pinpoint which season it was I did this but I definitely have a few times. I remember there being a stretch where I made a move almost every season to move up and take someone, and while it was fun at the time, constantly going into future drafts a pick or two short made me frustrated and probably didn’t help with Texas being forced into another rebuild down the line. I like to thing that in recent years I’ve been a bit more sensible with picks, holding on to future draft assets as much as possible and focussing more on who I can get at that spot when it comes rather than trading up to get a guy earlier on. I believe it’s been important in our ability to build a bigger and more impressive prospect pool, and so will definitely be something I try to continue going forward.

Mistake 4: Getting Caught Up In It All

Finally, another thing I have done and still to this day have to check myself from doing, the excitement of the draft which we spoke about earlier can make you do silly things that probably tie into all of the above problems. You really do have to try and maintain a degree of separation between yourself and the draft process in order to avoid making rash moves and doing things that in the dog days of the regular season wouldn’t really cross your mind. It’s always a big day for trades and a lot of them involve players going back the other way as well as picks, and teams can really see draft day as the time to make moves that will impact their team in this season, as well as down the road. It absolutely can work out this way but it maybe isn’t always the move to be making big deals on a day when there’s already a lot going on in terms of your SHL life and a lot of pressure can be put on yourself. As I said, with any potential trade or deal that comes up around draft time I always try and sit on it for a few minutes and think whether or not I really need to be making this trade, what the long term impact of it will be for my team and whether or not I would make it on any other day. If you’re confident that whatever move you’re doing, whether it’s making a trade or drafting a particular prospect, is the thing that you would do on any other day besides the draft as well then great, it’s probably not that outlandish a move. But it’s always worth considering the effect of the famous draft hype and how that’s influencing the moves you might be making on the big day.

I know this isn’t anything too mind blowing in terms of a list, and I’m sure that most people, especially those who’ve been involved with the draft process in some capacity themselves, were aware of these kind of things to avoid already. But I thought it might be interesting for those totally new to the whole thing or those people who have never really gotten involved with the stuff that goes on around their teams draft to take a look at why some things happen that probably look pretty weird at the time and when looking back in perfect hindsight, but are a lot easier to do in the moment than one might think. I hope it doesn’t come off as me being cynical about the whole process because while it has burned me on a couple of occasions, the draft as a whole is something I love doing and it’s for my money the most fun part of the job. Being able to bring new personalities into your locker room and acquire players who you believe will be able to make a difference to your team in the future is incredibly rewarding and really does make some of the more mundane parts of the role worth it in the context of the job. For those following along on Sunday, perhaps you’ll be able to spot some of these common mistakes happening live in front of you and will maybe think a little bit about what’s lead to the person making the decision to do this before judging too harshly. That’s a lot to ask in the SHL so maybe I won’t go there; if you’re mored inclined you could maybe get a GM Draft Mistakes Bingo game going?

I also wanted to say just as a conclusion that it’s been a lot of fun approaching things from this side of the conversation and talking about things from a GMs perspective rather than doing specific player scouting or talking about prospects. If there’s anything else around the draft process that people could be interested to get the perspective of a GM on then feel free to hit me up. I’m going to try and continue this ridiculous media production rate I’ve set this week and so it would be good to maybe get a few more ideas that people would actually be interested in hearing about. Anyway; hope you all enjoyed and will see you all soon for the next one.