Commentary sponsored by
Milton Newton - NBA's Washington Wizards - Vice-President of Player Personnel
April 30, 2008

MILTON NEWTON
VP OF PLAYER PERSONNEL - NBA WASHINGTON WIZARDS

By: david.edole
From Our Apr. - May 2008 Issue

Milton M. Newton has been with the NBA's Washington Wizards for the past five seasons. Newton wasn't blessed to be on an NBA roster as a player, but did the next best thing when he was named Director of Player Personnel in 2003. In 2004, he gained a promotion to Vice-president of player personnel.

Newton is tasked with assisting the Wizards President of Basketball Operations in the day-to-day front office responsibilities of the organization – including salary cap and player management – while overseeing the domestic and international scouting efforts for the organization. His scouting efforts recently brought him home to St. Thomas for the Thanksgiving Holiday for the University of the Virgin Islands Paradise Jam Basketball Tournament.

Newton grew up on St. Thomas and attended Addelita Cancryn middle school.  He later transferred to Calvin Coolidge High School in Washington D.C.  The 6-foot-5 guard/forward used his natural talents on the basketball court to attain a basketball scholarship from the University of Kansas coached then by Larry Brown.   In his junior year, he played alongside Danny Manning and led the Jayhawks to an NCAA title in 1988. Newton played so well he was named to the Final Four all tournament team.  

Upon graduation in 1989, Newton tried out for a pair of NBA teams including the LA Lakers and did not make it. He actually played in the CBA but knew it was not for him. So, he did the next best thing.   He went back to school and earned his master's degree in Sports Administration from Kansas in 1992. 

Newton then did what we all do after college; he bounced from job to job.   He worked as a scout for the Philadelphia 76ers then he had a four year stint with USA Basketball as an Assistant Director for the Men's Program. Then the break he had been waiting for came.

In 2000, the NBA was toiling around with a development league and tabbed Newton to be the Director of Player Personnel for the D-League.   All Newton did in his first two years of operation was to transition 22 players from the D-League to the NBA.

Because of his success, the Washington Wizards came calling and the rest is history.

In your position as the team's Director of Player Personnel, you spend 365 days a year evaluating talent and that often takes you into international territory. How do you see international players affecting the Draft?

I think, like last year, there will be a few international players selected, but not as much as in years past because over the past couple of years some of the more highly touted international players haven't really panned out as teams would like them to have. I think a lot of the international players are really wary of what it really takes to play in the NBA, so a lot of them are waiting until their draft year. That said, there are going to be a few international players picked, but I think a lot NBA teams have seen the college players, so they know everything about the college players that are in the draft. I think they might be a little more comfortable picking an American player, coming out of college, as opposed to an international player, especially if they are looking for something right now to help their team.

What are the Wizards or any NBA team looking for in pre-draft workouts?

That is pretty much a time to cross the T's and dot the I's for myself and the personnel staff. As far as our coaching staff, they haven't really seen that many players, but as far as me and the rest of the personnel staff, these are players that we have seen over the year three, four, five times.

When we bring them in, it's more so for the coaches, but it is also a chance to put them against the other top players and see them compete. Sometimes they have to do certain things for their college team and so we put them in situations here to do things that they didn't do during the year; see if they can handle the ball a little bit better, see if they can shoot the ball with a little bit more range. Because maybe if they are a power forward their team needed them in the post and they've spent the whole season in the post. We try to see if their range is a little bit more, we try to see them compete in one-on-one and two-on-two drills.

The workouts are held to pretty much to confirm what we have seen during the season and also to see if they can do things a little bit more than what they were allowed to do during the college season.

If a guy has a great college career but has a poor workout with a team, does that affect a team's opinion of that particular player?

No. Like I said, you have to go on about your work. If the kid comes in and he doesn't have a really good workout or if he doesn't shoot the ball well, maybe he had a long trip over or whatever, but you know this kid can shoot the ball - you've seen him shoot the ball well in games. Then you just chalk it up to him not having a good work out. Maybe he was nervous, but in our work outs we really try to concentrate on competition and seeing guys compete. Will they compete when they get tired? Will they compete when they get knocked down? Will they get up and fight again? And so if a kid has a bad work out that's just a very small blip in terms of his body's worth that we've seen over the years.

I know you worked in the D-League how much pride do you take in it?

I'm really proud because some of the things that are going on right now are things that we were pushing for in the initial stages. But you had to have an agreement between the league and the association in terms of whether or not you could send guys down from the NBA and things like that.

Another thing we wanted on the jump street was maybe having a D-League team per NBA team and they're not to that point but they're getting there.

The league has definitely grown, we've seen a lot of players go down and come back up more mature and ready for the NBA.
Copyrighted by CORE Magazine 2008