Marty Blake Is One Scout Who’s No Cub

Did Rex Chapman leave school too soon? How will Hersey Hawkins stack up against NBA defenses? Can Rik Smits become a top center? Is there anything Danny Manning can’t do?

For the answers to those questions, and just about any others concerning college players eligible for the draft, NBA teams can, and usually do, turn to Marty Blake.

Who is Blake? And why is his word gospel?

“What he does is provide so much of a service, so much information on players,” Laker General Manager Jerry West said. “He’s got a vast network. His work his just invaluable, he’s a basketball junkie. (It’s an) incredible service.”

Blake is the NBA’s scouting director and operates out of his Atlanta firm, Marty Blake and Associates.

“We’re the scouting arm of the NBA,” he said “We work exclusively for the NBA. I meet with many teams, am on the phone constantly. I’m available to do as little, or as much, as a team needs.”

“We talk to Marty a lot,” West said.

Every team has its own elaborate scouting system, compiling vast videotape libraries. But as Blake says, “You can’t break down his moves using videotape.”

Blake and his staff of 50 to 60 send scouting material to teams. They grade college players daily and also evaluate high school talent.

“There are no sleepers any more,” he said. “A sleeper is somebody we haven’t heard of. You have to scout in the wild.

“We’re at the pre-draft camp in Chicago, postseason tournaments, we have people all over the world.”

“He’s very familiar with foreign players, we used him with Jose Ortiz,” Utah President and General Manager Dave Checketts said. The Jazz expect to sign Ortiz, their 1987 first-round draft choice, after he competes for his native Puerto Rico in the Seoul Olympics.

Blake, 61, grew up in Wilkes-Barre, Pa. He played high school basketball and some in college. He traveled a long road before settling into the NBA in 1954.

At 13, he earned $1.50 a day to keep score for the Wilkes-Barre Barons, a semi-pro baseball team. He claims that at 19 years old he was the youngest boxing promoter ever in Pennsylvania, doing publicity work for Sugar Ray Robinson. In 1946 he was hired by Cleveland Indians owner Bill Veeck as a minor-league publicist. Blake remained until 1951 when Veeck sold the club.

After more promotional work in boxing, wrestling and concerts, Blake rejoined the Barons in 1953. He soon attracted the attention of one of the more influential NBA owners, Ben Kerner of the Milwaukee Hawks.

“I booked the Harlem Globetrotters to perform at a Barons’ game and 12 to 14 thousand turned out at Artillery Park, which held 7 to 8 thousand.

“Kerner was there and asked Mendy Rudolph (a mutual friend and then NBA referee), ‘Who did this?’ Mendy said, ‘Marty Blake,’ and Kerner hired me.”

Blake was general manager with the Hawks from 1954 until 1970, moving with the team to St. Louis, then Atlanta.

“I tried to put in scouting procedures from baseball, I tried to figure out the college seniors,” Blake said. “I never look at a negative surrounding a player. If a player doesn’t have positives, then why look at the negatives?”