They travel all over the country, all over the world. They employ a team of scouts, consultants, player-personnel directors, and vice presidents. All to get a serviceable player in the NBA Draft.

They leave few rocks unturned, scouring college games, foreign leagues, postseason camps for any hint of usable talent. They utilize years of experience, supposedly vast basketball acumen, canvassing hardwood from Duke to Deutschland, searching for something, anything, that might improve their ball club, that might inject it with fresh minds and legs, with jumpers and slam dunks, constantly sizing up prospects like blue-ribbon Berkshire hogs. They jump planes to Fresno, to Lexington, to Spokane, to Chapel Hill, to Madrid.

And, more often than not, it's a complete waste of time.