BRAD WINTON – CO-OWNER & DIRECTOR OF SCOUTING AT ELITE BASKETBALL SERVICES – EPISODE 610

Website – https://www.elite-basketball.com/ebs-scouting/

Email – bw@elite-basketball.com

Twitter – @BradWinton

Brad Winton is currently the Co-Owner & Director of Scouting for Elite Basketball Services, which is one of the largest men’s basketball scouting and event companies in the United States. Brad scouts high school, junior college and international basketball players for more than 300 college and pro teams. He has directed events featuring many of the top high school and junior college prospects in the United States.

Brad was previously an NBA and FIBA certified agent with the Crowne Agency.  He has also written for Slam Magazine, performed scouting for the NBA Director of Scouting, and worked at the Portsmouth Invitational. He spent time as a college basketball coach at Myers University and Indiana Tech and coached one season with the Cleveland Rockers in the American Basketball Association.

Brad played college basketball at Lakeland Community College and Indiana Tech

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Have a notebook handy as you listen to this episode with Brad Winton from Elite Basketball Services.

What We Discuss with Brad Winton

• The key components of what Elite Basketball Services offer – events and scouting
• Growing up as the son of a high school coach in Northeast Ohio
• Following the “basketball calendar” throughout his childhood
• Getting his first look at JUCO basketball at Lakeland Community College where he ended up playing
• ” If you can catch and shoot and you can shoot it above 40% from three, I think there’s a place for you.”
• “I think social media has made some guys delusional.”
• As a JUCO coach you have to move your guys on and win games
• “You got to use the game, it’s going to use you otherwise.”
• Coming back to Indiana Tech where he played the year before as an unpaid coach
• “Some guys think that’s what coaching is. I have to jump in and immediately jump on somebody to prove that that I’m here and hopefully they’ll then respect me.”
• Early in your career you have no responsibilities except to coach
• Coaching some pro basketball with the Cleveland Rockers of the ABA
• “It’s so hard to get head coaching experience on your resume no matter where it is.”
• Returning once again to Indiana Tech, this time as a head coach
• “It’s not as easy as I thought to get a division one coaching job.”
• Trying his hand initially as an agent and then starting Elite Basketball Services
• The All-American JUCO showcase
• His process for running a successful showcase/event
• You have to get players and coaches to trust you and actually show up
• The importance of Twitter in the growth of Elite Basketball Services
• “It really all went hand in hand and still does to this day between the events, the scouting, and then that media side of it.”
• “You can’t be an agent and run certified events and do scouting because of all the rules, agency wise, NCAA wise and things like that.”
• Representing both players and coaches as an agent
• “Can you guard your position and then who else can you guard?”
• Working with G League players as an agent
• “Being an agent is not nearly as much basketball as you think.”
• “Everybody’s situation is different. Some guys have families, some don’t, some don’t want to be in certain regions, some want to get back to a certain location or region, some want to leave division one, go take a division two head coaching job. Some are the opposite.”
• “All these guys are in one place and you really get a good evaluation of them going head-to-head against other top players throughout the country.”
• “We’ve seen more and more high school coaches and travel team coaches working hand in hand.”
• “Let’s go back and look at the data and see if that matches what I saw.”
• Comparing a player’s role on their high school team vs their AAU team
• Lack of effort is his biggest turnoff when evaluating a player

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THANKS, BRAD WINTON

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TRANSCRIPT FOR BRAD WINTON – CO-OWNER & DIRECTOR OF SCOUTING AT ELITE BASKETBALL SERVICES – EPISODE 610

[00:00:00] Mike Klinzing: Hello and welcome to the Hoop Heads Podcast. It’s Mike Klinzing here with my co-host Jason Sunkle tonight, and we are pleased to welcome Brad Winton co-owner and director of scouting at Elite Basketball Services. Brad, welcome to the Hoop Heads Pod.

[00:00:13] Brad Winton: I’m glad to be here guys. Thanks for having me.

[00:00:16] Mike Klinzing: Excited to have you on. I want to dive into all the varied experiences that you’ve had in the game of basketball we’re going to are tonight, just by giving you an opportunity to tell us a little bit about exactly what it is that you do with Elite Basketball Services.

We’re going to start there and then circle back to how you got into the game of basketball when you were younger.

[00:00:32] Brad Winton: Great. Yeah. So currently, like you said co-owner director of scouting and elite basketball services. We’re currently based in Orlando, Florida. It’s a national group as far as scouting and events go.

You know, the, the company itself which we’ll get into down the road, but I founded back in about 2009, 10 when I transitioned outta coaching originally. With a, kind of a different intent to where it is now, but we’ll kind of talk about eventually how it got to where it is. But currently as the co-owner director of scouting myself and my business partner we oversee the company, we run about 10 or 15 events a year.

A lot of the high school events we do more of the non-live events, they’re down in Florida with all the top high school players throughout the state and, and throughout the Southeast, those happen in the spring and the fall. We’re also huge in junior college event wise just to touch on the event side.

First we run like an April live period coming up here. We run the biggest unsigned events called the All-American available showcases part of our All-American JUCO showcase kind of brand company underneath elite basketball services. And that one, and normally has two to 300 unsigned players, all the top high school and JUCO guys this year in the 2022 class.

And those guys play in front of usually. About two to 250 college coaches division one and two mainly. And those happened in Dallas and Atlanta coming up in April. Now those were on pause for three years due to COVID. This would be year three since the last April life period happened when you come to this April.

So it’s a there’s, I’m sure you guys are aware of massive log jam, just recruiting wise, due to the pandemic junior college guys got an extra year of eligibility and then also the D one transfer stuff is heavily impacted and slowed a lot of high school and junior college recruiting because the D one transfer no longer have to sit.

So all that kind of, you know in a way is not a perfect storm, but these guys need opportunities. We kind of provide those always in April. We’ve done those since 2012, since they first open those April live windows for division one coaches to attend. And we’ve helped over a thousand guys move on, receive scholarships and things like that.

So that’s a big thing of what we do too. You know, obviously it’s a major thing is just scouting and events, but the byproduct is you’re helping guys move on, receive scholarships to the next level. And ultimately kind of a lot of times change the course of their life. Helping ’em find the right fit as well.

Not a lot of guys may come in with no offers, one offer, things like that, where then they come and play these things and, and have multiple offers and schools interested and, and so on. And it just gives them so many opportunities. And you recently, I ran into a guy once  Johnson plays pro for the Pelicans.

He played in our JUCO event, kind of where Missouri state first found him when he was at Frank Phillips junior college, but now he reached back out and his brother and cousin want to come attend. And then we also had somebody else who’s currently a high school ad and a coach that played only six, seven years ago.

So just again, he just popped up in an event to say hello. So just to see those things and really what ultimately makes it all worthwhile and why you really do it. You know, I know people say that, but, but it really is. It means a lot to see these guys and totally help them change the course of their, their career and their path and their life and things like that.

So we do those and in July we do during that live period invite only it’s about top one 50. JUCO guys that has 300 plus coaches every year of all levels high, major, mid, where they can see all the guys in one place. And we do that in Atlanta. You know, and that that’s, we, we do a lot of other events jam Beres where the big JUCO jam bere and prep schools, and so on where those guys attend and as well in the fall and the scouting side, is a huge piece as well.

We cover when I of transitioned back from the agency business I, there was a, kind of an, an opening there. A lot of guys left the national high school scouting during the pandemic and went different way. Some became agents, some went to college, coaching staff, some NBA, front office and Scouts and things like that.

We already had a, a major major coverage in the Southeast United States in Florida. And then we have national JUCO service. We’ve all always done, which I started years ago that we now have somebody else that kind of does that Cody Hopkins, former college coach, and then Scott Golden is my business partner who does all the, the Florida high school scouting and, and events and, and oversees all of our events as well.

And then on my side now, I’m, you know doing national high school scouting you know, and really. Navigating that now, as I transitioned back in, in January 1st to, to this side of the business and also covering college guys as well for a new pro report we’re doing, which is a pretty smooth transition because being an agent prior a lot of contact with international teams and MBA, front office and things like that.

And I just kept hearing when I was an agent that there was a demand and a need for independent scouting. Cause a lot of these guys on the NBA front office level, they’re not allowed to go to certain high school events and not allowed to attend certain things and they’re spread too thin.

And you know, those staff those level people think they have 70, 80 guys, some of those, including like golden state, for example, have pretty small scouting staff do an excellent job. They’re not massive though. And you know, we heard a lot of that and just kinda something I want to to get back into to kind of get back in the gym and just evaluate guys and so on.

So right now I’m covering high school guys nationally as well as college guys and then just helping oversee the whole, the whole service we have about, oh boy, 200, probably somewhere in that range, subscribers colleges, and then pro teams. And we’re expanding the pro stuff as far as NBA international.

So that’s kind of where we currently stand with things a lot more to it. But in a nutshell, that’s kinda what we do scouting and event wise.

[00:05:27] Mike Klinzing: We’re going to dive into all that as we move through your story and, and we’ll get back to some questions related to some of the things that you talked about with recruiting and just how the class of 2022 and 2023, and everybody’s being impacted by the transfer portal and the extra years of eligibility and all that.

So I definitely want to dive into that when we get to that point, but let’s circle back in time to when you were a kid. Tell us about your first experiences with the game of basketball. Your dad was a high school coach. So just kind of walk

[00:05:54] Brad Winton: us through all that. Yeah, basically, like I said, there, I was kind of born into it, luckily you know, you gotta have some luck as well, just it was that type of stuff.

And I know guys get into this thing different ways and have different paths, but yeah, so born in the Cleveland area some Northeast Ohio guy as well. And and originally my dad was at new London. And then Alliance kind of down in the Canton Akron area. As an assistant, things like that, I believe a head coach at New London.

I was too young to really remember that part, remember Alliance a little bit being about four or five years old. And then he got a head coaching offer at Paynesville Riverside there on the east side of Cleveland. And I think about first grade we moved up there and he was there for years throughout my high school playing career.

But back to that,  you need to grow up in the gym. So nothing better than that as you look back in hindsight, that was just normal to me. But you know, as you get older, you realize, oh, wow, that was a unbelievable opportunity just to be thrown that fire and things like that, you know?

And he threw us in there too sixth, seventh, eighth grade as well. Like growing up, watching him coach he was pretty pretty intense guy back in the day, as I said, a lot of people were in the eighties and nineties and things like that growing up. And, but I really enjoyed watching that and just the experience to be around practice all the time, be around the players, just the atmosphere and things like that.

So I grew up day one only remembering basically a basketball calendar. Here’s how we do things in in the summer there’s summer league, there’s this to go to that, to go to the fall we’re doing late summer and fall, we’re doing conditioning and the season ramps up and didn’t really remember it in calendar years, really.

Which I still operate that way, but so, but it was awesome, man. You could, you can’t beat it. So we were always at the gym with him. Both parents to. Teachers as well. You know, mom taught in the Mentor, Ohio area elementary school eventually. And then my dad was obviously coach and then taught biology or science at Paynesville Riverside, and, and grew up there, grew up on the players and just saw it firsthand and got, and just was obsessed with the game and working out and everything else from the, the, the pistol Pete you know, homework, basketball drills, to all the other stuff that you used to watch back in the day.

But, but I loved it, man, couldn’t get enough of it. And always just wanted some type of career in basketball. That’s all I really wanted to do. I didn’t really care what it was. Obviously everybody wants to play in the NBA, play professionally and things like that. That’s the initial goals, a player.

And then I think it should be for everybody. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you have to have obviously various options pass, backup plans and things like that. As you get older to start to develop those. And obviously I had good guidance and so on there, but eventually, yeah. Then I had an older brother, two years older.

He’s currently a principal Rocky River High School. So he stayed in the education game up that way. And But we play together going up a lot, two years apart he was at two years ahead. And we both played for my dad at the same time when he was a senior, I was a sophomore which is awesome experience for sure.

You know, sometimes my brother and I obviously you get into it and things like that after get, get after a little, yeah. There some fun rides home after you take an L or something like that, everybody’s jammed into the pickup truck together, going back home. After the game in the middle of wintertime.

So but it was awesome, man. You wouldn’t change it for the world. You know, and then knew I wanted to, to get into coaching ultimately that was the initial goal. If I couldn’t play professionally and, and the first stop was trying to play in college, but able to play for him. And it was a great experience at Painesville Riverside got recruited by of various schools some, and back then there was only maybe, maybe two AAU slash travel teams in that area.

You know, it wasn’t like now where there’s kind of, it’s amazing how it’s progressed and you know, and developed. So, so yeah kind of played for him and then Played at Lakeland community college Willis Brown came and recruited me and it was more so the JUCO stuff. And that’s how I kind of first got a taste of that, which ultimately led to something I would do down the road from an event and scouting standpoint.

But that stuff I met so many good people. He offered me when I was playing the Riverside, had some, some eyes kind of sniffing around D twos, not pulling the trigger on a full scholarship and a lot of division three schools, which is high level basketball. Well aware. My dad played at Baldwin Wallace.

My Grandfather was a coach and an ad played at Edinborough and he was an AD in Madison, Ohio. So a lot of guys obviously the family had been all through it and played and things like that, but, but I wanted to see what happened. I went and watched a JUCO game my senior year and couldn’t believe how good they were.

I mean, they had Jonathan Burge who was running up Mr. Basketball from Cleveland south. And, and they had Tito Houston. I couldn’t believe it from Glenville. I mean and I went and watched that game and I’m like, look, I told my dad, I don’t know if I can play here.  I really don’t.

I was just being honest with myself. I couldn’t believe how different and how fast that level was blown away. So I’m like, okay, this guy offers me. I gotta just take it and figure it out. you know what I mean? And we’ll figure the rest out later. Cause the foot speed wasn’t there neither was the athleticism, but if you can catch and shoot and you can shoot it above 40% from three, I think there’s a place for you.

You know, if you have enough size and things like that and you can figure it, it defensively, you can hide yourself. You can, you can play some zone, you can guard the worst player. You can go forearm here and there in somebody’s hip when they’re driving to the basket and get away with it and you gotta just figure it out and keep people in front of you.

Defensive. And that was a major thing I knew I had to work on. So we put tons of time in with the all of the. The air alert shoes, the jump rope programs and, and everything under the sun, manly metrics. But for most of it, we figured out what worked and we just went and worked every day, my brother, some friends and things like that.

We worked at it, man, and, and got the best out of ourselves that we could, and that’s all you can really do as a player. But had two great years in JUCO you know, under him and met some lifelong friends and, and things like that.

[00:11:02] Mike Klinzing: Where is Willis now, do you know where he is?

I used to play. Growing up and when he was at BW. So he’s, he’s just a, I think he’s a year or two, maybe younger than me, but you know, played a lot of pickup basketball in summertime. Like I don’t even call AAU, but they used to have the Ohio sports festival and stuff. So his guys with Joe Mackey and Chris Cebula and just the whole crew from BW.

And so I haven’t seen or heard from Willis in a long, long time.

[00:11:28] Brad Winton: He was in coaching for a while. I actually coached a year with him. We were at my, which I’ll get into in a, at Meyers university was in upstart. I right in downtown Cleveland there you know, we, I was there with him and he was director of a boys and girls club in Cleveland and things like that.

He actually was at Ohio university, moved to the women’s side for a while. Later on there, and then eventually was out in Vegas for a while. Doing some things running some rec programs and things like that out that way. And we actually ended up using one of his facilities down the road for one of our top a hundred JUCO events in Vegas, years down the road.

Which is pretty cool. You know how those. Relationships stick and things like that. And you end up kind, keeping in touch, working together. And I saw talking this day, he’s out, he’s out that out west now though. Doing well. Okay. And enjoying himself and things like that. Yeah. And they, they had some, I, Jim, I think Dolan was the head coach, initially Jim Dolan at Lakeland and wills assistant, and then eventually Dolan moved on and he took over, but there used to be some even the open gyms they used to have in the summer up at LA, it was just, it was mind boggling to me.

But, but it wakes you up as a player, if you’re on yourself, evaluation wise, I think that’s something that guys have to I think social media has, has made some guys delusional and there’s, there’s tons of great kids out there, but, and I don’t blame them. There’s so much coming at you nowadays and things like that.

I couldn’t imagine growing up in that world, but you know, you just you go play pickup back in the day and you figure it out and okay. You know, if I have to deal with these guys and play at this level, I got some things to work on. I better go back home and just, and just get to work. There were a lot less distractions.

I really don’t know how these, I give these kids nowadays tons of credit, man. I don’t know how they really handle all this and things like that, that you have to kind of grow up a lot faster, I think. And but it was great, man. You know, they love the JUCO experience again, and, and we had just guys from everywhere different backgrounds, things like that, you meet great people and, and you realize what it is.

You know, the, the JUCO is as far as a coach and things like that, like what Willow had to do and all these other guys currently do is it’s one of the harder jobs out there in college coaching. Because not only are you constantly recruiting, you have to move your guys on and win games. It’s not just sign guys, lock ’em in and then go win.

You know, you can win 25 games. If nobody graduates qualifies for division one or moves onto division two receives full scholarships you’re not doing your job. So there’s such a juggling act and it’s a two or sometimes one year turnaround. If you get a D one transfer to a JUCO, you got him for nine months and you gotta move him on while recruiting a whole new group.

I mean, it’s such a balancing act and. I realized that I realized the importance of doing everything I could on my end on top of, on the court, off the court, I gotta, I stay outta trouble. I have to make sure my academics are on point. I have to graduate on time and, and will, has really pounded it into our heads and, and made us understand the importance of that.

As you guys know, and we all know now, if you don’t do that part in the classroom and take care of business just in general off the court, every on the court becomes just kind of null and void and becomes a waste. So but I saw so many guys grab that opportunity that didn’t have the opportunities I had growing up, being born into a family that coaches and things like that.

And so on and really having that guidance and they took it and really took it by the horns and used that as to their advantage. And he always used to tell us you, you got to use the game it’s going to use you otherwise. And that’s one that always stuck with me that wills would tell us and you know, and you gotta make sure you do it, not in a bad way but you gotta take all get everything out of it that you can personally as well while also fitting into that team concept and environment and so on and make sure you’re taking care of scholarships.

So on getting your education done. So that was kind of the JUCO experience, but it always stuck with me. I still talk to my teammates to this day from, from Lakeland and, and keep up with what they’re currently doing. I saw they just lost in like in the JUCO national tournament. So I kind of keep tabs on that.

And you know, I had a few offers out there, different places and different interests and had a couple D two offers. Some things fell through coaching changes. And then Jason Klein was the head coach at Indiana tech, which is an AI out in Fort Wayne. They came to see me play in a regional tournament.

His dad was a former coach Dan Klein, and was also the athletic director. At the time at Indiana tech and I kind of told him the whole deal. I’m like, look, obviously I’d like to play professionally, but, but I understood at that time I understood what it was like, maybe I can go overseas because of growing up in a family and dad’s a coach you’re going to live in reality.

I didn’t think I was going to jump from NAIA to the NBA, you were going yeah. Or Scotty were going to be a manager going, going that route had no nine inch gross spurt left in me, like Pippen head back in the day and so on. So yeah, so I lived in reality, but I told those guys I told Jason Klein and his dad was the ad longtime coach.

Like I said, for years at neon tech they were kind of a staple there. Like, look, man, when I’m done here, I really if I can’t play, I’d love to go into coaching me. You know, they said, look, if you, if you want to do that, you know as long as you do your part, we’ll have a spot for you.

Obviously it’s going to be part-time not much money, but just an opportunity to be on the staff as an assistant. Once you. Once you graduate. So I’m like, okay, listen I couldn’t beat that. You know, met some guys out there, loved it, loved the I stuff I, in a way can be an extension of JUCO in a way you get a lot of guys that are D one transfers JUCO transfers, older guys.

So, so it was a good fit. It was a good mix and went out there and loved it, man. We had a great time, went to the NAIA national to in Missouri and so on. Unbelievable experience. I just got lucky, man obviously playing for my dad, but, but really lucky playing for two good college coaches who always kind of held up their end of the bargain as long as I did though I knew I had to do my part or they but, but that happens often where sometimes the player to their part and you see that the other end of the bargains not held up.

So, so I got luck lucky in a way. Still talk to coach Klein as well nowadays all the time and, and things like that. But his dad was, was huge too. Dan Klein because he’d coached so long, he was an ad. So he had that extra time to kind of explain how that coaching. The coaching path can work. You know, you always think, oh, I’m going to go to coach, Indiana tech for a few years.

I’ll just bounce to the D one level and it’ll be easy. And it’s just a hundred percent the opposite. But luckily he was honest and told me that Dan was super straight shooter, which I, which you need. As a young coach or, or late in your college career, just moving into that industry and basketball in general, I think you really need people to be brutally honest with you and then, you know what you’re getting into and you choose to do it you know what’s going to happen.

So, so anyways, I had two good years. There had a few like low level offers overseas. Just didn’t want to do it for for a few hundred bucks a month and living with a host family. So I chose instead to make a few hundred or bucks a month coaching and

[00:17:28] Mike Klinzing: At least you’re in the US.

[00:17:30] Brad Winton: So yeah, it’s the first year, but it was awesome, but I was also coaching. It was a weird transition becauseobviously you have a lot of your former teammates who you’re hanging out with partying with whatever it is and, and after the season’s over, when you’re a senior and now you gotta go back into conditioning in August and September and you’re supposed to get on ’em and that was a weird deal.

But I, but I also knew my role I, I know that wasn’t needed for me so I was there of more of a kind of bridging the gap between them and the coaching staff and things like that. I just saw how I anyway, I could help. I just jumped in and did it and know, and really loved it, man. It was awesome experience.

And that’s kind of how the coaching career from there you know, got started.

[00:18:04] Mike Klinzing: What was it about about coaching that obviously you’ve been around it with your dad? Obviously you’ve been around it as a player, but when you first step out onto the floor and you got your whistle and you’re ready to go, what was, what was the piece of it that you really liked the most?

What was it that made you say, oh man, I gotta keep coming.

[00:18:18] Brad Winton: Actually, yeah, it was really, especially as a first year assistant, we had a head coach, we had some longtime assistants who had been there forever, who those guys, they took care of everything, offensively evenly. What, what it allowed me to do was really, like I said, bridge that gap and communicate one on one with the players.

And I found out like they actually my God, these guys actually listen and, and kind of respect it cause they know you’ve been through it. You’ve played you’ve, you’ve played here, you’ve won here as a player. You know, you’ve played JUCO. Like a lot of these guys have, so you’ve had all those experiences, got it done in the classroom.

Well enough at least to graduate and, and so on especially at the undergrad stuff, but. You know, so that the first thing that really stuck out was while you really are impacting these guys directly and, and from a one-on-one relationship standpoint that that was big. And I really saw that and I, I knew how that could grow, especially as I was able to eventually recruit my own guys and things like that instead of just coaching your former, your former teammates, but it was that relationship, honestly, it really was.

I was really blown away at, at how quick they, they kind of bought in listen, but I also, it was because I didn’t overstep, I didn’t get on ’em and I didn’t need to scream at them. And they allowed me to kind of do that and not throw too much at me as a first year guy. And, and the screaming was taken care of by everybody else.

I didn’t need to do that, but, but some guys think that’s what coaching is. You know, I have to jump in and immediately jump on somebody and get in and to it to prove that that I’m here and hopefully they’ll then respect me. And I think it’s the polar opposite when you’re a first year guy.

And that’s what you’re, as long as you’re not brought in to do that, listen, if sometimes guys are brought in, you’re the top assistant you’re 23, it could be a different role again some of it’s just luck and. Finding the right people to work for initially. But I also treated it as a full-time job too.

I didn’t treat it as a part-time job cause I knew I wanted to do that full-time and I figured out ways to make ends meet on the side to get by. But that, that was the first real thing I did that really. I saw that one-on-one connection, how you can actually impact the guy and helped him on the court, off the court.

And I was around campus a ton I think got one class to finish up or maybe was starting a master or something like that. So I was, I was on campus a lot. So if these guys were skip, if somebody was skipping class, I’d be like, look, man, this is, it’s just pointless

You’re going to get suspended for a game. You’re going to mess up your your post career opportunities maybe by, by doing this, just go in there and sit down and do the work and things like that. They listen they knew I had their best interest just trying to help them get the most of he could outta their outta their career.

So that was really the, the first thing that stood out was that that relationship building from a, from a coach to player, not just player to player it was a totally different thing. Kind of flipped it on his head a bit.

[00:20:38] Mike Klinzing: At that point, you were pretty much sold that coaching was where you were going to stay on your career path, correct?

[00:20:42] Brad Winton: going to stay on your career path, correct?

Yeah, a hundred percent in, yeah. Both feet in you know, did whatever we had to do myself and ad a roommate. I think we were making, I don’t remember what it was. Our rent was about 500 a month and we were making about 425 combined. So we had 75 bucks to makeup to pay the rent. So but it was awesome.

We, to backtrack growing up because my dad was a coach as you guys know, you have summers off and things like that, if you teach. So we had a house painting company, so all was manual labor. So I’d be playing high school, summer leagues and people would ask me, yeah. Is your, is your dad Rob Winton?

I’m like, yeah. How’d like, well you have paint all over your legs.  so like cause my grandfather started that when he was a teacher at Madison and the ad eventually a principal. And then my dad did it with him and so on down the line. So, and that’s one of, honestly, one of the better skills I’ve ever learned is how to paint houses, because that allowed me to survive for years as an assistant coach, until I was able to get full-time job because we to not to talk too long about it.

But my roommate and I, he’s a former teammate. He also is an assistant eventually and we lived together. And he knew how to repair cars. So we made some deal with a guy in South Bend that if we put up some soffit on a barn, he would give us a van with no brakes, but he would repair the brake line while we put up the soffit.

So we went up there. Nice. Yeah, good deal. Right. Long as those brakes working the way home to Fort Wayne, we go up there, do that little thing, bring the van back. That became a painting van. So we use that. Any downtime we had we’d paint. How is just to get by the wintertime? Obviously. I mean, there were time we, we had our, we intentionally shut our heat off and just had space heater to not pay the bill.

It was awesome. I mean, I loved it. It was so much fun just you have no responsibilities except to coach and right. You know, do whatever you want. So in hindsight, it was great, but few cold nights here and there, but, but again, no complaints. It was awesome. And so, yeah, it was both feet in man.

And then coach there for a few years. Again, when and then Kline Jason Kline left the park university where he still is this day. A great NAIA division one school in Kansas city. He’s done a great job. There had a ton of success, but the his associate head coach got the Indiana tech job. I stayed with him and kind of bumped up a little bit as far as way more involved in recruiting and things like that.

I went hard back in the Cleveland area and even to Lakeland Junior college guys and things like that brought a bunch of them out there. We got back to the national tournament eventually became associate head coach. That’s when Willis got a job at Myers came back there with him just to get back into Cleveland area.

And so on there, after that, then Meyers shut down. So I took a job, I believe, as the director of the West Park Y sports program, and then coached in the ABA , which was interesting. The modern day ABA, obviously and the team was the, the Cleveland Rockers, not very creative. They pretty much stole the old w B a name and just made it their own.

But that also, I ended up coaching former teammates from Lakeland. I coached Chet Mason, current coach at Brush there, who doing an unbelievable job. He was just back from overseas for a second. So since we knew all these guys, they came and played. You know, and I got a quick taste of that pro level.

I mean, Sam Clancy played a few games for us in between some, some 10 days with the calves guys would come up and down. So it was really cool. Jonathan Burge ended up playing with us for a little bit so I had to coach one of my former teammates and things like that, but it was awesome.

They were receptive. I knew how to handle them, let them do their thing. I wasn’t overbearing. But that coaching experience it’s so hard to get head coaching experience on your resume no matter where it is. That’s the big knock. When I applied for head coaching jobs at the, at the division two AI JUCO level was, well, you don’t have any head coaching experience.

And I’m like, of course, that’s why I’m applying. I need some, so I’m trying to get you trying to do here. So, but that gave me that on my resume though. So even though it was kind of a part-time side gig, it allowed me to go back and take over to Indiana Tech when that job came open. I think that was about 2008, nine, somewhere in there.

But that’s kind of when the financial crisis happened, they start cutting. I was there for a year. We got different change of people as far as ad I think, and things like that, they wanted to stop recruiting junior college guys kind of, and to, so to speak just different philosophies and things like that and who we’re going to bring in.

And I said, look, if I can’t do that here I know that’s, what’s going to win here. If I can’t do that here, I don’t need to be here. And, and so on. And just during that time it was I wanted to move on maybe and try something else in basketball long I was in basketball.

So at that time actually went into the agency business for just brief stint for about a year or two. But just didn’t have the relationships and things like that, you know? And so on, just trying to figure out what was going on basketball and, and kind of what to do next. Basically, and, and that’s when I got started in the, in the scouting side of things at that point thereafter, and that’s kinda when the coaching career winded down and I knew, okay, this is It’s not as easy as I thought to get a division one coaching job or whatever it is I had a good relationships.

I had some opportunities for some ops type jobs and so on, but I just didn’t want to be in the office all day. I wanted to get out. I wanted to see players and things like that. So eventually that’s when I first kind of founded and started Elite Basketball Services back, I might have been 2010 and somewhere in that range, maybe as soon as I got outta coaching and kind of put it on pause when I was an agent for a while, but then came back to it and initially was going to start just events in Northeast Ohio and, and do some scouting in Ohio and things like that.

But that’s when honestly, when Twitter really exploded and, and that, that helped a ton. It was it that’s when all those sites were really blowing up from scout.com to rivals, but I realized, you know after of playing JUCO, recruiting JUCO guys for years, That nobody, there were some JUCO events of course, and guys did a great job with those, but nobody covered it from a, a media standpoint that offers recruiting website standpoint.

And that’s kinda when I founded that JUCO recruiting.com grabbed the Twitter feed and and just, just start interviewing guys that are junior college guys started posting the offers, their recruitment, things like that. And, and it, it grew rapidly, you know from there, and, and of course with a scouting service attached to it, it wasn’t just a kind of a media or Twitter company.

It was initially a scouting service, but that helped it’s so much, so much easier now to, to draw attention to your business, if you know how to use it properly on social media. So that was 20, 10, 11 back then we really got it going and, and just added the, the All-American JUCO showcase piece too.

It and that’s when I started working with current business partner who had the Florida high school thing really locked down and kind of merged the two and it took off from there.

[00:26:35] Mike Klinzing: At that point, how games are you watching a month, a year at that point, how many games are you getting out and watching, obviously now you can not only watch games in person, but with, with everything being whether it’s huddle or synergy or whatever schools are using, but just how many games are you getting out in, in person when you initially started scouting?

[00:26:51] Brad Winton: As many as possible, we got doubt to a ton.

The good thing about junior college was even back then was number one. They the N JCAA did a great job of, of having things organized statistically online, which, which now is common. But back then, it was rare to find legit stats, everything was up to date. They had, you know pretty good video, even back then, back in the day.

But as many games everywhere went everywhere, went to summer events. You know, we hosted our own events, which had up a ton with, with just getting to know the players off the court, you know? Cause you, you run an event guys checking the day before you get to know ’em, you get a feel for ’em you watch ’em play.

You can really step aside and talk to ’em unlike you can. During the regular season, then the regular season, that was all over the place. I don’t know how many games per month. Exactly. But. There’s a lot of holiday tournaments, which is great to have 8, 10, 12 teams in one place. We, those Jambories are just unbelievable for scouting.

You know, the pre-season Jamborie. We get to California, becausebecause in N JCA you have N JCA division one, two and three, and then you have, California’s completely separate and there’s tons of JUCOs California. They don’t offer scholarships. There’s a lot of high level kids there. And then you have the NWA, which is basically Washington and Oregon JUCO.

So there’s a bunch of separate entities that you have to figure out and, and cover. The main thing obviously is still the division one junior college in division two N JCA, but, but we find a lot of good ones in California and so on, but again, they have pre-season events where 50 teams playing one location for three or four then you bounce another city and go watch 10, 12 teams, sometimes 24 teams, sometimes many as 60 we have to narrow it down and just see of course from a scouting perspective, Hey, I want to go see these 20 teams over the next four days and just pick those and, and focus on the regular season.

Just all over the place. Regional tournaments were great national tournaments right now. They’re down. I believe the, the final eight final four tomorrow in Hutchinson, Kansas used to always go out there and and we still have coverage of that. I don’t do it myself, but God does our junior college stuff does now.

So just a ton of games, as many as you go to relationships with kids, junior college coaches, as well as division one coaches and things like that on the scouting side. So but there was a massive need for that. From a, from a recruiting standpoint, a website, social media and honestly it sounds crazy, but I mean, a lot of it was due to the ability to get information out quickly on social media, Twitter, and things like that, as it really started to explode back in, you know 2009, 10, 11, so on, and then we just kept adding the event piece to it.

And it grew rapidly from there.

[00:29:09] Mike Klinzing: How’d you build the first event? So when you’re looking at it, you’re saying, okay, here’s an opportunity to get these JUCO players some exposure to be able to help them to be able to put ’em all in one place. So that. College coaches can come see ’em. How do you go from all right.

That’s a great idea to, we gotta find a venue. We gotta make sure we get the right players there. We gotta get enough players to be able to have the event be worthy of having a bunch of college coaches show up. Well, so what’s the process from idea to, Hey, we’re actually going to do this right?

[00:29:37] Brad Winton: Yeah. Great question. Cause that, that is the event. Operations and planning, I think are, are one thing that, that people really discount and that’s really the hardest part is, is number one just, just the event, operations themselves, like you said, the venue, the officials, the trainer, what else is, what else is required?

How do we certify it with NCAA? Just all of those things. So division one coaches can attend. And then the next piece is you can certify whatever you want, but if you players there, nobody’s coming and you’re, you’re going to fall flat in your face. Cause college just don’t care. You may be friends and you may know them, but they have a small, small window.

So they need, they need that player list early and, and they need those guys to actually be there when they arrive. So I knew that early on though. So what I did luckily was spent about two years, a year and a half, at least just only scouting getting a feel for it, researching it, and then growing the scouting service itself.

And again, going back to that media side, because, and I also on my own time wrote for slam magazine as well. Just they had just for free, but the cover JUCO guys, cause it was a big presence slam and it was kind of popped back up nowadays and it was really big again, but back then it was pretty big as well.

It was big and I grew up, so, so I wrote for, I did anything I could to help the JUCO guys get exposure, helped connect them just publicly with the, the largest platform possible. And I think that allowed them and their coaches and so on to trust me, you know? Okay. And also being a former coach, a former JUCO player got, and I knew a lot of these guys anyways from coaching and recruiting their kids.

So they trust it. You know, you kind of have that background of, it’s not just somebody randomly calling, that’s going to run an event out of nowhere. I knew a lot of the junior college coaches. I got to know the kids well. You know, and, and just kind of figure out a platform. And what we did also from like, going back to the original question was we made sure initially that we were in cities that had other massive events, E Y B L you know, we went to Augusta and did it during the peach jam.

Guys are coming over no matter what early on, you know? And that was big because coaches already in town. So it’s much easier to pop over if you’re already there, then fly somewhere and hope it’s a good event. We ran one in Orlando that was back when they had like, kind of that rolling live period in July as well, where you were kind of just out there for three weeks, figuring it out and coaches were exhausted at the end and finished up in Vegas and so on.

So what we did was split it in half. We, we only use one chord only initially to give it kind of that more of an Allstar game feel but much easier for coaches to evaluate on one court. You know, so you’re watching guys come through 10 per team at a time playing 40 minute games.

And then we also, we kind of did that only invited the top 200 kids and just ran that July event. We already had run though, Florida high school events for a little while. My partner had already done those. So we had that event operation experience outside of the live period, which is a little bit less stressful, still a lot to do, but, but we understood the process of getting facilities, insurance, referees, things like that.

Well in advanced trainers and, and so on to keep it very professional. And then we just kind grew that JUCO piece from there. Got good players, worked all year on it, full time, inviting kids are early and really got a good group. And you just pump those lists out nonstop. You, you go to other events and make sure guys know about your stuff.

And that was still tons of word of mouth back then just getting out to other things in advance, telling ’em what we’re doing. But, but again, like I said, ultimately, when you, you pump that player list out, you’re committed to list and guys can trust, they call those JUCO coaches and kids and say, Hey, are you actually going to this?

The kids all say yes they show up. But that was probably the most nerve-wracking time you have running events is kind of wondering that first year, Hey, we got a live event. The list looks good, but is anybody going to come? You know? And then that sounds good. Easy, you get that week up.

Like, oh boy there are a lot of events going on and. And things like that. So, so, but that once that first one got off the ground and we did Orlando and Vegas and then the following year, things kind of shifted on the recruiting calendar. We did Augusta and Vegas and we’re always eating the Southeast and then Vegas for years until they changed it again, kind of during COVID.

But so anyways we did that for years and then, and during 2012, they’ll in the April live periods and everybody else was kind of running to do travel teams slash AAU events. And things like that were like, look, April’s the perfect time to do events were available, guys. And we started those all American availables kind of attached to all American JUCO showcase from July.

So everybody already knew the brand from July cause they were so good in July added those April events on during the live period. And you know, the first year I think we did it in Atlanta and we had, I think a hundred, 120 coaches, which is a lot back then show up to that. For about a hundred available guys.

Now we get anywhere from two 40 to 300 available guys and 200, 250 coaches at those, those events during those live periods now. So, so yeah, it it takes time to grow it, but I think we kind of made the right decisions and, and grew it the right way. You know, for years there.

And then I did junior college scout and got entire time until eventually transitioned out in about 2016-17 to be an agent.

[00:34:11] Mike Klinzing: You talked a little bit earlier about the importance of Twitter and social media and trying to get things out there in front of people. How did you go about just learning how to use it?

Obviously it’s a new tool and you’re just trying to figure out, okay, what can this be? How can it help our business? What was your process? Or what were some things that you tried on Twitter that worked immediately? What were some things that maybe you tried? Something that, oh, that kind of fell flat? Just what was your for figuring out, Hey, here’s some new technology.

How can we make this benefit, our business and benefit the kids that we’re trying to work with?

[00:34:43] Brad Winton: Great question. When I was coaching, actually, when I was coaching, I had an agent as a coach, which is very rare, especially back then for small college, but because I was coaching in the ABA, had somebody reach out to me, that was an agent and say, look, I know you’ve coached in college.

We had some common people that we knew and he just kept me on board when I went back to Indiana Tech, he didn’t have anybody else that coached non division one, really. But during that time, he kept telling me like, look, man, you might need to get on Twitter.

This is really good for your program. Things like that, just this thing seems to be picking up steam coaches are reading it a lot now and things like that. So I always had it in the back of my head from a initially, just from Hey, let’s promote our program here at Indiana Tech and, and things like that.

Great way to get information out to potential recruits and so on to see a lot of guys at that age were starting to use it as well. High school guys, JUCO guys were all on there and, and so on. So initially, and I was aware of it then, but they had no clue how big it would become or, or the importance of it long term.

But, but then transitioning in I’m like, you know what during my downtime kind of in that overlap between coaching and figuring out what to do. One thing I did, that’s been one of the most important things ever was taught myself how to build websites. So I got WordPress, things like that.

So I just figured it out eventually trial and error. And then that’s when I built that site to attach it to the Twitter feed. So that way I had a place where I could put content for interviews and things like that. When I reached out to those guys and so on. So as you know, back then, like just on Twitter, wasn’t good enough.

Now nobody seems to even care about a website. They just want to read tweets. And, and so on’s kinda flip upside down, but there’s still people that go I think this format is better now to have long longer conversations about things and so on. And people like video and they still read tons of articles and so on.

And we still have tons of traffic on that. But, but back then that was really that people were still used to just websites and then social media was news. So having that website, it happened to be a good domain named JUCO recruiting.com. The Twitter feed was JUCO recruiting, you know?

So like those things early on are all available back then which they’re not now, but those things, people saw it and I realized, oh, look, if you if I follow a lot of these coaches and I have some good information on here and things like that that they’ll, they’ll follow back, they’ll respond, they’ll contact you.

And again, a lot of guys knew me from knew what I coached and so on. So, but really I realized not initially that, Hey, like just posting, who offered who? Because nobody did it. Then on junior college, everybody did it for. It was massive then for high school scout.com rivals and so on. Obviously ESPN has, has been huge over that whole period, but everybody’s doing that.

So the, the formula was already there just, nobody did it. It was just a wide open category. Nobody had touched yet. So you know, whether it’s luck or just finding the right spot and all of it stems from going back to playing JUCO recruiting, and only JUCO guys really, and things like that.

That’s really all I knew we didn’t recruit a ton of high school guys ever, or anything like that. So that’s all I knew. And you know, and there was some trial in there, but not much, honestly, I just knew that worked their offers and then just doing some interviews, what they’re looking for in the school and things like that, that would drive traffic because then the fans at the next school division one, want to read it, obviously the coach just want to read it and see it.

See who’s offered who and just and just also just one you’re at games which we still do when you’re evaluating guys. And the main thing you’re doing is just kind of privately evaluating having your own notes and things like that. But obviously just tweeting about posting on when now it’s Instagram everywhere else too, but.

Just kinda where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re seeing, who stood out to you that kind of generates interest, traffic and so on. And then you just take it from there and you kind of sell the scouting service and so on, but it really all went hand in hand and still does to this day between the events, the scouting, and then that, that media side of it.

So those are the main things we did though. And it, it just took off from there and to the following you know, and we still use it daily right now. I mean, a ton it’s, it’s one of the best tools that that we have along with a bunch of other stuff, but now it’s been, it’s been great. That’s just again, some of that’s locked too you’re, you’re just right place, right time coming through.

Right. You know, where that stuff exists and it’s just getting started. So there’s, these categories are kind wide open. Some of them where you can jump, jump in and and just cover that stuff. And we’re the only ones doing really still are now that really cover things to that extent on a full-time basis.

And then also do the, the scouting junior college nationally, and then the the events along with all the other new stuff we’re doing now, as I transition back from the agency business.

[00:38:53] Mike Klinzing: Right. So let’s go flip that transition. So you’re doing the scouting, you get this whole thing started. It seems like it’s starting to really turn into something and then you flip and decide.

All right. I want to go into being an agent. What’s that process? Like why, how was there a thought that you wanted to go back to coach? Were you still looking for coaching jobs at that point? Just what was the process to make that the next step?

[00:39:17] Brad Winton: Yeah, so as I touched on before, when I first left coaching at Indiana Tech I dabbled in the agency business.

I liked it, but I didn’t think I had the contacts at that time, just coming from a an NAIA and things like that, different coaching experiences I had it didn’t, it just wasn’t enough. From a relationship standpoint to really get higher level clients, at least, but in the back, something always what I enjoyed doing at that time, eventually maybe wanted to get back into if the opportunity presented itself, but things were going well really well in the JUCO side, some people thought I was nuts for doing it, but my thing is when you gotta roll the dice, if it’s something you want to do to see Kind of how that goes career wise and so on, and pretty much ended up doing almost every job in basketball by this point.

But you know, I had a lot of guys ask me a lot of players, that’s what it was. I ended up knowing so many high level players from doing the junior college stuff that went on to, to high majors that were getting drafted, playing professionally, always unhappy with representation. All lot of college coaches of course have become so close with so many college coaches over the years represented players and college coaches.

So when I was an agent, that was a big thing too, was it was the coaching division that guys kept asking. And I knew that business was in a stable place that if my business partner, I made sure he was good to go kind of just sold my portion of the company, because you obviously can’t do both you can’t be an agent and run certified events and do scouting because of all the rules, agency wise, NCAA wise and things like that.

So we had hired somebody to kind of do junior college to make sure it was, it was a fit and things like that. And you know, it was a good time for me. I just wanted to experience that and give it a shot before sometimes you don’t do it. You’re never going to do it so I and sometimes you gotta roll the dice and if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work.

You figure it out, down the road. But you know, I rolled the dice. I did it, I loved it, but you know, really, so, so that transition there it was pretty smooth. I mean, the first guy I signed was a former guy that played one of our events former JUCO guy who had a great career division, one, signed him in like March.

I was out in Vegas at the, all the conference tournaments out there, kinda looking at guys and things like that. And so on. Unfortunately, I first transitioned into, when you get certified, you have to be a, you have to fee a license and NBA license. Normally with the NBA, you would just pay your fee. As long as everything checked out, they give you your license.

So of course the year I go back, they, they install a test in New York city in times square at their headquarters.

Mike Klinzing: So what did that entail? What’s that test look like?

Brad Winton:  I’ve never taken like a bar examining like that, but I’ve heard it’s it’s, it’s not that bad of course, but so what you do is you, the test is on the collective bargaining agreement, which is 600 pages, maybe for the CBA

So that whole business would not have worked. If I didn’t pass the test to. So I pretty much had to move on from the other business, become an agent, but not announce it becausethe test is in the fall, you get your results a month or two later you know, so yeah, a little, little stressful there, but no pressure, no pressure, no pressure there.

It was bit of stress there, but, but did well on it past it and then got that NBA license Fiba license and then you’re, you’re often rolling so having balance of coaches and players was ideal for me though, it wasn’t because representing coaches was great. Because it’s likeminded guys.

You’ve known them for years. You’re just helping get coaching jobs, you helping with the resume stuff and things like that. There’s a lot more to it, which we can touch on, but basically having that balance I was comfortable. I didn’t feel like I needed to go get 10 to 15 players.

Only that first year I knew I’d have 10, 12 coaches already signed and, and sign a couple players, take it slow and make sure those first players are really taken care of. Cause you can’t get those guys jobs mostly internationally that first year. The thing’s going to fall apart.

You know, if you can’t produce that and the coaches can’t trust sending you guys or the kids don’t trust signing with you and at least recommending you and the coaches and things like that the players always make their own decision ultimately with their family, but, but you know, having those relationships help, but year one was, it was stressful, you know?

Cause you gotta make sure those players are placed, things like that, you know? And but we got it done. We got those guys as all the coaches were set and going into year two, I was really comfortable with it and we, I realized quickly though, how hard it was going to be to potentially get a draft pick or something like that.

You know, we got really close a lot of times with first rounders, you get down to the final two and somebody comes in and they have 10 All-stars on their client list. You’re obviously going to get steamrolled that recruiting game. It’s, it’s not easy, but it was a great experience there, but I realized quickly I had the shift and it goes back to scouting and evaluation then which I’m doing now and for good, basically, but had to find guys that were under the radar that were, we didn’t take on any investors.

So it was all self-funded. So make sure it was cost effective. Cause everybody needs training in the off season. A lot of guys there’s a lot of things they need to make sure they’re ready to go for that pro level. Cause as soon as that college season ends they’re done, they might be moving back home.

They want to come down to we’re based in Florida to come down here and train and things like that. So just making sure it’s worth the investment. Like anything else just like a, a college would when they recruit a guy like a pro team will, before they sign a guy, whether that’s a draft pick or an inter team before they, they make that commitment.

Everything has to check out of course, on the court, but definitely off the court as well. So we call just like the NBA teams do the research and overseas teams and colleges and so on for recruits. It it’s identical in a lot of ways. We, we really, with the fine tooth comb go through that obviously talk to the college coaches and, and because of that prior scouting and event experience and so on and coaching, they were going to tell us the truth.

The college coaches were honest you know, and told us the good, the bad everything in between and, and so on. And we made our decision from there to take guys on and then you gotta keep ’em because as an agent, you can pretty much be fired at any time. You know, those contracts you sign ’em to a contract, but the rules state that they can determine that at any time.

So and then they can do that. So you gotta make sure your current guys are really happy and, and you’re getting offers and things like that. Or if it’s an NBA level guy, P draft workouts Portsmouth opportunities, if they’re a senior summer league and so on, but we’re able to do that though the first couple years and.

Grew the coaching thing to about 20 plus coaching clients. Mostly division one assistants, some D two head coaches as well. That we had in there along with the, the player side of things. And, and we, we found some guys, I mean, we found Todd Weathers is a great example. He played at Queens in Charlotte.

I went and saw him knew his coach as well, and just loved him. I mean, great kid, but he was a 6’8” 3 and D, which everybody looks for now the game I saw him, he had eight points and then 12, and I think he, he didn’t think I was going to be interested. I went through a shoot around and you know, and I just couldn’t believe the way he got it off at six eight, and he was an elite defender.

And that’s the biggest thing now is we look for which we’ll touch on down the road here in a second is the evaluation side what we’re currently doing, but you know, one of the main things I started to look for is I realized what teams wanted and what we always look for. You know, we were recruiting guys coaching or, or whatever is obviously you have to be good enough offensively for sure.

And that’s a no brainer, but, but can you guard your position and then who else can you guard? You know, cause a lot of guys would tell us, Hey look man, I’m in college I was a four. I believe I a three, which does happen sometimes that, that you gotta do different things when you’re, depending on what level of division one you’re playing outta division two and so on.

But that’s all great, but you know, if you’re going to be a three, can you guard a pro NBA level three? Can you keep him outta the paint? You know, can you, can you defend him? Can you guard a two, can you guard a point guard if you get switched off? You know, if everybody switches everything nowadays.

So knowing that if guys could not do that, they would immediately be sent home whether internationally or cutting the G league or whatever it was, you know you know, we look for those things and, and we built it up a lot through the G league as well. Huge, opportunity, same thing, good timing.

The G league really grew a lot between 2009-10, and, and now I was doing this in 16, 17, 18 and so on. The G league was just an unbelievable tool. For guys, especially division one and division two guys, they have a rule as far as their, their. Training camps, where if you are not first or second team, all conference at a division one in the G league, you can get signed directly to the team.

It’s called an open tryout contract, but you can circumvent the G league drafts. The G league’s almost the opposite NBA. You do not want to be in the G league draft, so to speak. And there’s some guys that stick, but they sign a lot of their guys through this open tryout contract. They can call it as well.

As of course guys getting sent down from the NBA, getting cut in the NBA training camp, but that was the way to circumvent the G league draft, which happened late in the fall and kind of get those guys locked in on rosters. So that’s how we did it with a lot of those guys. We, we got them connected early.

They had some pre-draft workouts in the NBA teams. If they didn’t get in the summer league, we’d use the G league. And then if you play a year, two, the G league and you really do well, the teams internationally really respect that. And you can also get the call up to summer league opportunities.

So kind of figured out that path of how to get guys to the highest level. The weather ski, who I reference from Queens eventually made it to the piston summer league played well, there was in training camp with Detroit, it played some preseason games. And so kind of up and down and event. Now he’s in the NBA Australia, which is one of the top leagues in the world and having a great career.

So he went from that D two to where he is now. It was some NBA chances. He got a couple offers in that NBA bubble, but he was, is already signed at a top league in Italy and things like that. So, so we really it helped me a ton scouting wise, honestly, cause I knew what every level looks for by that point.

I obviously knew what college guys look for being a former coach and then running that scouting service and things like that. And then from there knowing what NBA teams look for and then in the modern game I had an idea, but you really don’t know until you get behind the scenes of having those conversations of what they actually need and what they need that guy to do.

So it couldn’t have been better honestly. Now from the scouting standpoint but really what happened during COVID was a lot of the international budgets got hammered, you know on the, on the agency side and they just, they were having trouble paying a lot of guys paying commissions to the agents and, and things like that as well.

So in the back of my head, I’m like, okay, this, this thing may not this thing may be in rough shape as far as we, we did, did well internationally with our guys and sending a lot of them over there. And then that gave us the opportunity to really spend time here, trying to get guys in the NBA and so on and, and chase draft picks and, and so on from there.

So FIBA changed some rules on how the commissions are paid and, and so on. So anyways, it was just I started probably back before last July, like late into in probably 2020 started thinking about a little bit and honestly, agency business. One thing that I think guys, a lot of people want to go into that business.

So anybody like aspiring agents I teach college courses as well, just on the side you know, sports, marketing, sports law, things like that, and a ton of our the undergrad and graduate levels and, and a ton of people. I realize one of the agents, I get it. You know it’s, it’s, it looks like an exciting career and it really is.

It it’s fun. I built tons of relationships, still great friends with a lot of my player clients. And of course the coaching clients as well. But one thing that to be ready for is it’s, it’s not nearly as much basketball as you think. It’s it’s, which I knew going in it’s tons of contract work.

It’s putting out tons of fires off the court helping source tickets for this or that or whatever it is, and just making sure you’re, you’re working for your clients so that that’s job number one. So while people watch shows movies, entourage, Jerry McGuire, we hear all these things Jerry McGuire and so on.

I think people just need to understand what that job entails and how difficult it is to break into. And if you’re younger, the best thing do, I would say for, for any aspiring agencies, try to get on with an established agency, preferably if you can get on with a large one, great, or at least a smaller one where they give you more responsibility, internship wise, things like that.

I think that’s huge to make sure that’s what you really want to do. Because it’s Night and day from coaching or scouting or things like that. There’s definitely that piece to it. The scouting piece, you’re breaking down film for your current clients. I love that part of it, you know?

But you gotta chase guys, you gotta recruit and, and you have to also keep your current clients happy and you have to understand the contracts and understand all the international leagues, understand the dynamics of what’s going on over there. As we see right now, you know like the Ukrainian league, for example, it’s a very good league it’s well respected guys leaving there’s multiple Euro league teams in Russia.

I mean, just all these different things. And you have, you have to understand you can’t just give a guy any job. You have to do your due diligence and research to make sure that’s somewhere, you would send your own kid your own family member and things like that and understand the international dynamics and just international business in general, everybody has different business.

This is whether it’s Europe, Asia, Australia, South America, just different things, understanding that and respecting that, you know as well respecting their culture first is, is important as well. And having an understanding of what they do in doing that research. And we did that and we have great relationships, still good friends with all my partners ahead overseas.

So. I wouldn’t change it for the world, but just kind of during that time with the pandemic and stuff we had guys that were had to rush home and that, that business became and it became a lot to do so I started thinking, look I really want to get back in the gym and, and just, just be in front of, be around the game.

Like I had been in the past, evaluate guys help oversee these and things like that. And that’s kinda where that first transition kind of, I thought about it coming back to this side.

[00:51:30] Mike Klinzing: All right. So one question related to being an agent, you were an agent for players and also for coaches, which one was, which one was easier, which, which type of client was easier.

Was it easier to be a player agent or easier to be a coach agent?

[00:51:43] Brad Winton: So kind of double edged sword coaches was easier because the guys I signed already were established and they had division one jobs because I knew them prior and they trusted me. They wanted somebody that was going to work for them.

That’s one thing in that coaching agency business there’s some guys that are smaller agencies, like we were. And there’s some massive conglomerates that, that have that agency piece that, that definitely have more juice and more relationships and things like that.

But a lot of the guys we had a lot of the guys I had initially they wanted somebody just to work for them, was willing to make those calls and kind of believe in them Hey, look, I believe this guy’s good enough to be a head coach here. Or if we had a D two head coach, like if I’m putting his name in for a job or calling a search for, and things like that those guys wanted somebody that’s really going to go to bat for them, not just throw their name in as one of 15 people on the list and so on.

So, so that, that was easier from a work standpoint and workload, things like that. And, and you’re talking to other coaches, you’ve been a coach, you know? So during the season, you’re just talking about their current team, how things are going, popping into some games, making sure they’re good to go, having resumes, organized, things like that.

And then this time of year, of course, back in the early February, even late January, you start hearing the rumors of what’s coming open, things like that. You’re talking to them all year about number one, what they’re willing to take. Where they’re willing to go. You know, everybody’s situation is different.

Some guys have families, some don’t, some don’t want to be in certain regions, some want to get back to a certain location or region some want to leave division one, go take a division, two head coaching job. Some are the opposite and some just want to move up from a low to mid, to high, major assistant, whatever the case may be.

Just all kinds of different scenarios. So that was the main thing. Just kind of had, think that’ll organize for each guy’s path is way different from the next guy coaching, as we all know, but in the player side though, you get immediate returns financially more so on the player side and, and I really enjoyed both honestly equally, well,  I just say the coaching side was easier because there’s less recruiting, less competition as well on that side to recruit where you, you, you find a guy anywhere.

Now, the average is 10 to 15 of the division one he’s going to have probably anywhere from five, 10 agents contacting him. You know, some are just guys internationally that maybe only have a fee license. And then there’s guys here as well. So that that’s a highly, highly, highly competitive business.

And, and to the point where guys nowadays are offering draft picks 0% commission on their first contract and things like that, just to get ’em, which makes sense trying to get that second contract and so on, it’s a way to do it. So you have to do what you can do to kind of compete and stay afloat.

So yeah, but I really enjoyed the again, what it went back to was I enjoyed the scouting piece, finding guys that were under the radar that, that not many other people were looking at and then figuring out ways to get them in front of NBA teams or overseas teams, whatever the case may be, and then seeing how those guys did it, that level and seeing them blossom was really an awesome, rewarding experience.

But yeah, I’d say that it’s the coaching side. If you have those relationships, I mean that, that’s a different type of business. It’s all private behind the scenes. Nobody really knows who represents who, unless you really tuned into all that. But that side of things is probably a little easier to get started than if you have relationships there.

And a little more low maintenance, you know But the player side also again cause you’re, you’re watching guys you’re evaluating, you’re helping work them out. You’re helping break down films. So that side also in a different way and a different light is extremely rewarding as well.

[00:54:52] Mike Klinzing: All right. So talk about the transition back, getting out of the agency business, going back to sort of your roots, getting back to scouting, just tell us a little, little bit about the business side of that. Yeah. Move and how, how you put that all together. And then we could dive back into a little bit more about what you’re actually doing day to day.

[00:55:08] Brad Winton: Sure. Yeah. So that, that one, you know like I said, about a year and a half ago kind of had in the back of my head and, and so on and, you know still thought about it for a while, wanted to make sure that was the right move to, cause that was a lot of time and effort and things like that work to get into the agency business between just the licensing aspect and understanding the business itself and so on and really building it up and those relationships with NBA teams and, and so on.

But you know, I really Like I said, I realize the part I enjoy the most is getting in the gym, evaluating guys and things like that. And then just due to the the, the whole the, the COVID and things like that really disrupted the international market a lot, which was kind of one of our, our bread and butter.

While we also worked to get guys to the G league NBA level over here. But that was a great way to get guys there, get or started and things like that. And so once that kind of was really heavily disrupted I’m like, okay, I may need to transition out and really realized sat down and thought about it for, for a while, talked to family, things like that and said, okay, this is what I want to do.

You know, so, and, and then just kind of started working on making that transition back called formers business partner told ’em what I was doing and we already had somebody at that time covering the due your college stuff and so on. So things were already set and it was an easy transition back.

It took some time to really do it, get rid of all the licensing, things like that and so on. But you know, I thought about it and then before the season here, I just pretty much. October through November, December, let all of our coaching clients know well in advance. So they had time to find new people, let the players know, but we made sure every player had a job first.

You know, they were all signed. They were good to go. So nobody was left hanging. I wanted to make sure it was done that way and done the right way where everybody, Hey, these guys, all the players have they’re lined up. They already have contracts in play. So that way, when it when they transition to a new agent, they’re already under contract.

So it’d be easy for them, easy for the new guy, whoever they’d choose to go with the same for the coaching clients I, wasn’t going to call them in January, February and let them know, Hey guys, I’m out you’re on your own now know before the season started Hey, look, here’s what I’m going to be doing.

I’ll help you anyway. I can, in the meantime, whatever you need, of course call me, but made that transition though, eventually. And you, and realize, like I said, initially when we first started talking that That there was some a need for, for national high school scouting, as well as the, the, the covering the college players from an independent service, basically for the NBA teams, along with all the college guys we have.

So I really started researching that and then still doing so we’re still making that transition. It’s not like you’re just going to show up back on day one and know every single guy in the, in the country and so on and, and everywhere, but I’ve watched a ton of college games over the years, recruiting guys.

So we knew all the players anyways, knew all the high school guys and, and kind of added that we already had the junior college service nationally, all those events were already going on. So. The main thing I really thought that was needed from a scouting standpoint was that national high school coverage along with the college.

So we made that transition, kind of announced it all early January and then hit the ground running really ever since. And just getting out to games, getting out to high school tournaments. And honestly, it’s amazing how much that landscape has changed as well. Because there’s luckily we’re in a Orlando, so you have such many high level teams in Florida the IMGs and Mountverdes of the world and things like that down here.

So you see so many high level prospects just come through. So it’s pretty easy to get started. There’s just the amount of national high school tournaments. Now everywhere is amazing to me where teams are flying around playing in the game. The dynamics changed so much, but from a scouting perspective, it’s great because all the guys are kind of in one place, a lot of them, at least we have some regional Scouts that help in different regions to cover most of the high school guys. And then you, you have all the, the, the EYBL the circuits the. The Adidas circuit, under armor, you have a lot of good independent circuits.

So all these guys are in one place and you really get a good evaluation of them going head-to-head against other top players throughout the country, just to kind of go back and check to make sure saw this guy with this high school team, let’s go check him again. And in a different environment, I know people kind of people always get down on AAU and this and that.

I completely disagree for the most part. You hear stories in any business of good and bad people, but, but nineties plus per 99% are good. And they’re in here to help the kids. I think know, getting to know a lot of these people over the years and I think now we’ve seen more and more as of high school coaches and travel team coaches working hand in hand.

And that’s how it should be if we’re really in this for the players and helping ’em that that’s how it should be. Hey, look, I have ’em during the year, you know you know, here’s how we do things. What do you guys do? And, and these guys have them from April to throughout the summer and, and kind of some overlap there.

Of course, they go back with their high school in certain times of the year and, and things like that. Like those June events they’ve added now where they can play with their high school team. And I for us, from the scouting perspective, we’re just trying to get as many looks as possible at guys with their, their high school team, which is extremely important, becausethat’s kind of the most the, the best look you’re going to get, that they would be in a team environment like a college team it’s, they’re with them through eight or 9, 7, 8, 9 months how do they interact with their coaches, their players and things like that, their teammates, and then let’s get a different look for the high, high level guys, maybe it’s at the NBA top and a hundred camp or one of these other, these individual events plus with different teams of the highest caliber players all together in April and July.

So that’s kind of what we’ve done now. With, with that transition back. But, but it’s not been bad. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it. Couldn’t be happier with it, you know? And really just looking forward to getting out in April in, in July and looking at some of these guys in a different setting than we’ve than we’ve currently seen them.

[01:00:09] Mike Klinzing: How many times do you have to see a kid before you feel pretty comfortable that you have a handle on what that kid can and can’t do and what level they can play at?

[01:00:18] Brad Winton: Yeah, that, that’s a great question. I mean, and that’s, you know I would say in person, you know at least 3, 4, 5, I mean, as many as possible, of course, right.

You see a kid 10 times, obviously that’s ideal, but you know, the, the initial time we, we go out I’m big on Well, college guys, it’s much easier to, to get a mixture of analytics and, and just in person evaluation, I know people think you have to have one or the other. They love to argue on the internet about this stuff.

I think it’s ridiculous. I think the analytics are great. I use that as an agent, a ton as well. Ken Palm is great. All synergies analytics. We would go through that just to kind of narrow things down. Let’s get a look at who’s doing what you know, who who’s performing well, offensively, offensive ratings, percentages, and things like that and how they’re rated on synergy that matches up over here.

Just traditional stats obviously are important points three pounds assist you percentage and, and there’s nothing, no need to downplay those. And then the, the terms around as the I test, but just going in person is he as big as they say he is, does he weigh as much as they say he does?

And things like that. But merging those two together, I think is ideal. You know, not relying on one thing or another, but using those to really kind of cross-check yourself. You know, I saw this guy in person, he did these things really, really well. The first time I saw him, let’s go back and look at the data and see if that matches what I saw.

Go see him again and so on then the line, and obviously some of that, stuff’s not going to show up like we’re talking about, everything’s not going to show up that you do defensively, you know not everybody charts, deflections or keeps track of that defensively. Whereas the guy positioned off the ball, like we talked about, everybody switches everything nowadays for the most or not everyone, but a lot of guys do.

Can you guard if you’re a two or three, can you, can you guard a point guard if you’re a stretch four or a supposed small forward, can you, can you guard a point guard and contain him and keep him outta the paint? If, if you’re a four, three cause you have to be able do those things defensively now.

And you always have, but especially nowadays with, with the ball screen action switching and, and so on and different coverages. So just looking for those things, but I I’d say you can get a good feel three to four times, but it it’s nice to see them with their high school team two or three times during the year which is pretty easy to do nowadays, especially for those national level top 100, 200 type guys, but also going to other things and finding those under the radar guys, like we’ve done with the agency and things like that.

I mean, there’s, we’ve seen this over and over again, Ja Morant whoever else it is, you know what I mean? Not, not highly ranked heavily touted as a high school prospect, but those guys are out there as well, and they need to be located, evaluated and, and, and kind of found and things like that. And the same as everybody else does, but, and then also mixing that in and going to watch guys in April and July and saying, okay, I saw ’em at this high school team, depending on who they play with.

If they’re at a high, high level prep school, things like that, you’re going to see a similar level of competition as you would kind of in the EYBL or Adidas through under armour circuit and so on. But just, just getting a different look with different teammates maybe they have a different role.

A lot of guys have a certain role in their high school team. That role could be, you know much different on their travel team and things like that. How do they handle that? You know, if they’re averaging 20 plus points a game of the high school level and, and they’re the seventh man on the EYBL team.

How do they handle that? How are they off the court? How are they when they’re on the bench? Things like that, because again, we’re what we’re doing is we’re evaluating guys on behalf of, of college coaches and proteins. So we need as much honesty as possible about what we see and relay it to them, and then allow them to make educated into informed decisions with their team.

Cause ultimately as a coach to it’s their team, we’re not deciding for anybody, but we’re narrowing that down. We’re providing detailed reports, painting that picture, providing a projected level of where we think they could play and do well. But as you guys know, everybody’s system is so different, you know?

So we want to make sure also that ultimately when those guys go out to see them, they make that final call. Of course we play this way, so I need they need to go watch themselves, but we’re trying to really narrow that down and give them multiple options to make their job easier.

As they’re currently coaching their team, keeping their current roster intact and you know, and, and, and so on, as we know at the college level, you’re trying to keep your job every year, nowadays, especially at the high level division one. So they have a lot of things to do with only a head coach and three assistants that can get on the road.

So that there’s a massive need for legitimate scouting services to, to kind of help with that piece.

[01:04:21] Mike Klinzing: What’s the biggest intangible turnoff. When you see a kid that has nothing to do with their ability as a basketball player, but just when you see a particular trait or a particular intangible in a kid that they don’t have, or just something that they, something that they do, what’s the biggest turnoff for you to, to a player just personally,

[01:04:41] Brad Winton: Lack of effort and just poor body language in general.  Lack of effort’s the main thing though. Cause cause we, we know that you just can’t, there’s, that’s, that’s hard to change in my opinion. There’s no eye off switch for effort and motor, you know? I don’t think, I, I think there’s, there’s definitely, I’m sure some guys that have changed. I mean, and I’m not saying you write ’em off for good we’ve seen a ton of guys who people have written off and we’ve evaluated in junior college and they figured it out and, and they turned that back on and then, and they realize, whoops if I make this mistake again, My career’s done.

So I’m not saying that’s the end all be all by any means, but just the biggest initial turn off when you walk into a gym first time seeing a guy you know, if, if they’re just, and, and I say lack of effort, usually it ends up being lack of defensively on the glass, away from the ball defensively, standing straight up and down not ready to play, not in position, cause that stuff’s hard to teach you.

You don’t have guys very long, especially some of of these guys were evaluating. It could be a, a one and done a two and done, or at least needed to be an impactful player at a, at any level division one, two, whatever it is right away whether it’s a freshman or a JUCO sophomore or a JUCO guy transferring in as a junior who completed the sophomore year.

But those are the main things. Just lack of effort, bad, poor body language. Coming off the court coach gets on how do they handle it? Those things they sound simple. But, but again, I, it’s very, very difficult in my opinion being a former coach as well. And just watching guys over the years to once a guy’s maybe a senior in high school, it’s hard to, to get somebody to play harder once they first arrive at college.

If they’re not, haven’t done that, you know? So that’s the biggest I’d say the biggest turn off.

[01:06:10] Mike Klinzing: All right. Let’s transition to the business side of that. What. Are the different revenue streams that you have as the owner of a scouting service. So yeah, you’re out on the road, you’re scouting, you’re doing all this stuff.

How does the money come in?

[01:06:23] Brad Winton: Yeah, so’s how it works is you have to have a NCAA certified scouting service, so you have to get approved to NCAA for division one institutions to, to purchase your service. So just an annual sub and same with a lot of 91. And then those are your major customers, of course, cause they have larger budgets and then they’re the ones kind of recruiting on a national and international scale.

But so you have a scouting service you, you charge whatever you charge, you know? And and, but it’s not an easy business because obviously as you just mentioned, there’s travel. There’s tons of costs that, that come and deploy. So you have to have enough subscribers to make it worthwhile long term, especially obviously starting off, you’re going to start from zero.

Like everybody’s done you’re going to start from scratch and have to build up those relationships, build that trust and you know, and really provide value. Otherwise they’re not going to renew your service. You know, might get a guy for a year to do it or a school to do it for a year, but, but if you’re not providing value and really out there working and, and getting after it and evaluating not only the top guys, you see, but everybody else in between.

And then also having conversation, understanding what their needs are and how they play and things like that. So, so that’s that’s important obviously that’s, that’s the major revenue source force scouting is, is subscriptions from, from colleges and the pro teams. If you’re able to do that, you know and they, they can purchase it as well, but kind of the format’s different.

They don’t have to get certified for anybody else, like NBA teams, overseas teams, they can just buy it at whatever rate your pro level service is. But those guys want information as well. They want information on high school guys, JUCO guys, and everything in between as well. Cause they want to know about guys as far in advance, as possible in the pro level as well.

So, so there’s a big market there, but again you’re not just going to walk in somehow get the cabs or buy your service. You know, how the heck do you even get ahold of those guys? I mean, it’s not like the, they don’t post their phone and email online that, that type of stuff. So in the college stuff, again, you gotta get out there though.

You gotta be there in person, you know? And I think with us, knowing the players was a big advantage, you covered their recruitment. So you kind of know who’s involved with them. Like we talked about back to the original stuff with the social media.

And so everybody does that now. So it’s not as much of an advantage, but, but yeah, with scouting, that is, is that is your revenue source. There’s really only one we don’t do any stuff as far as like the media side, as far as online subscriptions or monthly subscriptions, just for the general public where you’re posting stuff behind the paywall or anything like that.

So it’s strictly our websites and social media pretty much just support our scouting and events, but that is the way for scouting. We have different levels too, of the coverage you can get what you can get as far as the different databases we have, ours is all an online database.

So, and plus reports, we send out previews for tournaments to get guys organized and things like that. And so on. So kind of know what they’re looking at in advance. So but yeah, that that’s, that is the revenue source for scouting is, is you have to get schools to pay for it, get it certified and, and so on.

And then hopefully if you’re, if you’re lucky enough and do get enough job, you can eventually get pro teams in the mix as well.

[01:09:06] Mike Klinzing: You’ve jumped back into this thing now, where do you see it? Going in the future. Have you thought about what things you may want to add, do you think, Hey, we just gotta build what we have.

What are your thoughts in terms of the future and where you guys are headed or maybe headed?

[01:09:21] Brad Winton: Yeah, sure. No, I think really what we’re doing now is I’ve come back is I think we’ve added plenty with me coming back. And, and that’s all we’ve added is what I’m doing basically. And everything else is still in place.

Cause it was going extremely well. You know, so yeah, what we’re doing knowledge is really, you know continuing to grow everything we do from the events from the junior college and, and things like that, as well as the scouting and then just really adding this national scouting piece and then covering the college guys and that thing’s that, that thing takes time as well.

Cause when you jump in you, in, in January, February, obviously the NBA teams, they, they have an idea of who all these, these guys are, but that’s more of a long term thing looking at high school guys, underclassmen. So on is really growing, growing the scouting service. Portion the national high school portion and as well as covering the college guys and then just not maintaining, but really doing an excellent job of making sure that everything else we already have in place that’s going really well continues to do so so making sure anyways, we can expand the events to enhance them, make them better and things like that.

You know, maybe a new location here or there for something that’s already going well that we’ve already done in from places and just kind of expanding that piece to something that already works. You know, we’re not eager to try tons of new stuff, everything we have already does well and is going extremely well.

So I think the main focus is just really growing this other aspect, because obviously when you’re doing national high school, you have different guys that recruit different people. So there’s different schools that only recruit high level high school guys, and there’s only, and schools only recruit JUCO guys and, and you know, everything in between.

So that’s the main focus is just really to number one, make sure everything that’s currently in place continues to. To do what it’s been doing for years, while also adding this this high school and college piece to the scouting service. All right.

[01:10:55] Mike Klinzing: How can people find out more about what you’re doing?

How do they connect with you share social media website, everything that you need to share, and then after you do that, I’ll jump back in and wrap things up.

[01:11:05] Brad Winton: Sure. Awesome. Yeah. So you know, again, our, our, just our company site, elite-basketball.com, that’s kind of just an over comprehensive overview of what we do.

Some of our high school events and things like that are on there. Personal Twitter feed, just my name @BradWinton. You know, the other stuff we do on Twitter mainly is the the JUCO stuff @JUCOrecruiting and JUCOrecruiting.com and so on. And then the JUCO showcase is @JUCOshowcase that’s for all those events.

And those are the main things we have online wise there kind of the main things we do.

[01:11:31] Mike Klinzing: Good stuff tonight. Brad, it’s been awesome. Really appreciate you taking the time outta your schedule, likewise, to join us and jump on. I think it’s been super informative. I know I learned a bunch of things just in terms of exactly what your business looks like.

And I think there’s a lot of good things that you shared for coaches and for just the idea that I think sometimes we forget as basketball people that there’s more paths to being involved in the game of basketball than just being a player or being a coach. And there’s lots of different ways that you can stay involved in the game.

I think your story does a really good job of illustrating that, that look, you don’t have to just be on this one career path. There’s lots of other different ways that you can stay involved in the game that you love. And really, to me, that’s what it’s all about. So again, we cannot thank you enough brand for are jumping on with us tonight and to everyone out there.

Thanks for listening. And we will catch you on our next episode. Thanks.