Welcome Mike Gribanov

Locker Room Access is happy to announce that Mike Gribanov has joined our team as the new Scouting Analyst.  He'll be contributing to all of the LRA team sites, providing in-depth breakdowns of current and future college players.  Mike brings a fresh, at times outside the box, perspective to his scouting work.  He's become a highly respected voice, both in NBA Draft and youth basketball circles, even having his services enlisted by major college programs. 

I’m Mike Gribanov. I have always wanted to work in basketball since I was a little kid. Being a terrible player, I didn’t have a chance to find my way into the basketball world earlier in life. However I was known as being highly knowledgeable about the sport in my neighborhood, even to the bookie!

In 2016, I came across people like Cole Zwicker and Ben Rubin on Twitter. They had a similar lack of connections, so their online presence inspired me to join the conversation on social media. I was lucky to be able to form friendships with them and soon after we (along with a few other similarly minded people) started an NBA draft website - The Stepien. The site was received well by many coaches, scouts and front office personnel. Almost all of its former writers are now employed by NBA front offices. Due to this so-called “brain drain”, it went defunct.

Over the last couple of years, I have been attempting to dig deep into prospect evaluation in order to create a fleshed out philosophical approach to player projection in organized youth basketball. Ideas about prospect evaluation should come from the scientific method more often than is currently the case and I am hoping to make that a reality. At the same time, I hope my work sparks discussion and produces utility for the other bright minds that are highly devoted to this topic. -Mike Gribanov

Give Mike a follow on X @mikegrib8.  And come join him in the discussion on any of our Locker Room Access forums.