Thanks to Mr. Research, we have a memory from Marty Blake, the late, longtime NBA director of scouting:

“Years ago, nobody scouted. We didn’t have the funds. My first trip scouting in ’54, I paid my own way by bus to Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri to see AL BIANCHI, who later became an NBA player and general manager of the Knicks, and SAM JONES, playing in an Army tournament. And I never got my $28 back. All of the GMs doubled as scouts. And a lot of times when we would get together on the draft, especially if we went deep into the rounds, people would come up to me and ask for heights and weights on a particular player. And you’d try to help. If we had a good year, my owner would let me film three or four games. Today, you have NBA teams that have literally a whole floor for computer technology, with international film units, where you get films from all over the world. And everybody has scouts, and very, very good scouts in Europe. So you don’t miss anybody.”

In my upcoming book, you will read that Camp Chaffee, Arkansas, won the Fourth U.S. Army tournament at Fort Hood, Texas, in 1956, then picked up Sam Jones and Al Bianchi and went on to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, and won the All-Army championship. How about that?