Good feature on international talents

"NBA's 'international' presence on the rise as basketball keeps growing globally" -- Ethan Skolnick

An excerpt: "...But teams clearly haven't been scared off by failed high picks like Darko Milicic and Nikoloz Tskitishvili. Philo deems those situational anomalies -- that Milicic was drafted to the wrong place (a contending Detroit team) and Tskitishvili was probably taken too high for his skill set. He said that internationally scouting needs to shift to more than just skill evaluation but also "finding out what makes the person tick internally," with an emphasis on their influences and individuality. When Philo first started scouting, Nelson told him to embrace the unique culture of every country he visited, because that was the only way to understand its players and how they think. "The French think differently than the Serbians, the French think differently from the Danish, the Swedish think differently from the Croatians," Philo said. "You still see the same [NBA] teams making the mistakes internationally and the same teams doing well internationally, and I think that the different is some teams understand the culture..."

One would think actual due diligence or a change to such would be the norm considering the millions it costs to sign a high draft pick.