Tom Barrise Shares Coaching, Scouting Wisdom

There are many directions in which one can go at the conclusion of their college playing career, but it takes a special breed to have an interest in going into scouting. With long hours spend on the road, the life of a scout isn’t nearly as glamorous as it may seem.

After his playing days at Fairleigh Dickinson came to an end, Tom Barrise knew that he wanted to remain close to the game of basketball. He didn’t have to look too far to pursue this passion, as he accepted an executive assistant position with the school to get his post-playing career started.

He spent eleven years as an assistant at a variety of different stops at the collegiate level before finally being given the opportunity to run his own team at Ramapo College in New Jersey. Before this opportunity came about however, he had almost decided to walk away from the game.

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“I was in the process of working full-time in sales and I was contemplating my basketball days being over. I would go over to the college on Saturdays and get into pickup games and one day as I was walking out of the gym, I run into a high school teammate of mine that was on the athletic board at Ramapo and he asked if I would be interested in the job and we started practicing about a month later,” Barrise said.

As if the challenge of being a first-time head coach wasn’t enough, Barrise managed to maintain his full-time position throughout the week.

“Kids had to be in the gym at 5:45 AM and then I would go do my full-time job. I really enjoyed it though, we went from 7 to 13 to 16 wins and I had a wonderful group of kids.”

As luck would have it, Barrise’s efforts with the program gained some notoriety around NBA coaching circles and prior to his fourth year with the university, the door had been opened for him to make the jump to the professional level.

“I thought we would do really well in my fourth season, but I got a call from Mike Fratello who was coaching the Cleveland Cavaliers and I had to make a choice. I had wanted to get into the NBA for a long time and that was my opportunity to do it. We would have been really good at Ramapo, but I had to take the opportunity while it was there.”

As an Advance Scout with the Cavs, Barrise was able to learn more about the game than he would have ever imagined. There were so many different facets to the positions that he hadn’t considered previously, but it was a role that he took on with joy.

“When you do that job, you have to be particularly attentive to detail. I had maybe 60 games that year which was my first time doing that. Staying organized and studying tape before the games so you have a feel for the game and other things like that. You’re gone 22 to 28 days per month and it’s a different city every day. You would have a day where you’d get home and wake up and wonder where you were.”

After spending four years with Cleveland, a colleague that he worked with at East Carolina University had been hired by the New Jersey Nets under new head coach John Calipari. His colleague recommended that Calipari reach out and before long Barrise was back on the East Coast.

He continued to spend time as a scout, but 22 years after his head coaching stint at Ramapo he returned to the bench; this time at the NBA level under head coach Lawrence Frank.

“It was really easy a really easy move because I was always a coach. Scouting was my job, but basketball was my life and the adjustment to me was in the lifestyle. The NBA is a great league and we had some success during my time on the bench. My time with the Nets was like the Clint Eastwood movie ‘The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.”

While the Nets had talented players like Jason Kidd, Vince Carter and Richard Jefferson during his time as an assistant, they were never able to get to the top of the mountain and win an NBA Championship, something that Barrise partially credits to an unstable ownership situation.

“When I got hired, John Calipari was hired by one group of owners and then Don Casey came in for a season and a half and towards the end of his tenure we became the Yankee Nets. Steinbrenner started to get more involved and was more influential and he brought Lou Lammorielo to run both teams and the first thing he did was sign Alonzo Mourning. They brought in Byron, we struggled a bit and then had the huge offseason where we traded for Jason Kidd, then the draft came and we felt that we had to get multiple players. We found Houston and ended up trading for the picks that turned into Jefferson, Jason Collins, B.J. Armstrong and Brian Scalabrine and were very happy about it.”

He continued, “We had a solid roster and had back-to-back finals appearances and then bang, we got sold again. We were going in the right direction, but when we were sold we started moving a bunch of pieces around. We survived a couple of years as a playoff team, but then we blew it up and it was a disaster. When the team was sold to Bruce Ratner, they immediately came out and said that they would move the team to Brooklyn. Then Mikhail Prokhorov came in and they made a horrible trade and they’re back to being in an ugly situation.”

In 2010, the team reached all-time lows. They started off 0-16 and dismissed Frank, which opened the door for Barrise to get his first chance as an NBA head coach, even if the interim tag was connected to it.

“It felt great to be a head coach. The first game was in Los Angeles against the Lakers and it was kind of surreal. I was standing there by the bench watching the Lakers warm up and I got a tap on the shoulder and I turned to look and it was Jack Nicholson. He asked how I was feeling and I said that I picked a good seat for the game. Even though it was brief, there are only so many jobs and it made all of the work worth it. I’m still in the record books, even if it’s only for two games.”

Since departing from the Nets after nearly 20 years with the organization, Barrise spent time with the Chicago Bulls and has returned to scouting with the Detroit Pistons. Though he is happy in his role with Detroit, he has continued to keep an eye on the college game.

“I have considered returning to coaching in college. The month of March drives me nuts because I think that would be a fun thing to do, go and work with the kids and give them some wisdom. I was one of the youngest assistants in the country and now I’m in my early 60’s and I would definitely go back.”

A true basketball lifer, Tom Barrise has been able to fulfill his dream each day that he’s spent in the NBA. The knowledge that he’s been able to impart on countless players throughout the years has undoubtedly been invaluable to their success and he still has years to go in the game that he loves.

Quick Questions

When you’re evaluating talent, how much comes down to the “eye test” and how much comes down to analytics?
We have an interesting mix of both in Detroit. Stan Van Gundy wants our opinions to not use analytics because he trusts our eye tests, and we put it together with the analytics. It’s a great feeling to be trusted, that the man in charge trusts what you see. I think there is a value to analytics but I think there may be too many variables. You see some tendencies and there’s a value, but you have to use what you’re comfortable with.

What are some things that most people wouldn’t think to look for when scouting basketball?
I think you develop a feel for personality, it’s a people business. You need to be able to communicate, direct and discipline a guy without problems. So attitudes, reactions and little things, you just know it when you see it. How he interacts with his teammates and coaches is big. How he interacts with his teammates and coaches. A lot of this comes back to the one-and-done rule. You dismiss four-year players now because teams want the ‘upside’ that comes with drafting a younger player. So now let’s draft the 19-year old, but it’s hard to coach them in an adult league. There are grown men that are 10 years older than them with families on their team and it’s just tough. I wish more guys would stay and I wish the league would move the baseball rule in terms of draft eligibility, as well as expanding the draft to incorporate the D-League a bit more.

What is one characteristic that you see starting to fade away?
The hardest thing to find are traditional, run-the-team point guards. Along with that, we’ve seen the mid-range game fade away a bit and it’s nice to see guys that can hit that consistently. That’s one of my disagreements with analytics, you have to take the best shots that you can get even if that means you’re shooting from mid-range. A lot of these teams like the Rockets are pushing towards all three-pointers and layups, but you won’t win playing that way unless you happen to have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

Are there any players that you’ve scouted that completely blew away your expectations? What about the opposite?
I think it happens every year. CJ McCollum, he’s turned into a really really good player and I thought he could play in the league but not at this high of a level. He was not only a four-year player, but he was also someone who played at a smaller school.

As both a scout and a former coach, which direction do you think the Nets should head with players like Brook Lopez and Thad Young?
I think they hired the right guy. I like Billy King, but with the move to Brooklyn they had to win early so they made the trade for Pierce and Garnett. It has to be a piece at a time and they have the confidence of the owner and just need some luck on their side. I spent a lot of years there and we had a lot of pride in what we accomplished, so I don’t like seeing them like this.

How real is a “losing culture” in regards to teams that commit to tanking like the 76ers?
That’s a very real term and I’ve lived it. I watched what losing looks like and what it does to a team. It’s a dark every day and it’s hard to get off that track in the NBA. A lot of things have to go right for the draft to go well and you have to commit to making the right trades. Players can get into bad habits and when you see a guy who carries himself like that, you don’t want that culture and you don’t want people to see that. It will be hard for Philly to get off of the deck and they’ll have to turn some of that young potential into real talent.