Fax Machines and Popcorn Spills: The Rocky Road to N.B.A. Coaching

Wes Unseld Jr. had done almost everything possible to prepare to be a head coach, from interning to selling tickets. But, he said, you can’t fully understand the job “until you’re in it.”

Wes Unseld Jr. still has some of the reports he filed as a young scout for the Washington Wizards in the late 1990s. When he looks at them now, he said, they appear so basic. He still has no idea why Mike Brown, one of the team’s assistants at the time, was so encouraging and supportive of his work.

In any case, Unseld has kept those reports as artifacts from the first of eight seasons that he spent combing the United States for prospects and studying opponents. Sure, there were moments when he questioned the general direction of his life. So many late nights. So many seemingly endless road trips. (“You get into Year 8, and you’re like, ‘This is a grind,’” Unseld said.) But from his courtside seat, he was immersed in the game that he loved.

“It helped me enormously, because you’re seeing all sorts of philosophies firsthand,” Unseld said. “You’re watching all these different coaches and teams and how they use certain players: ‘That’s really good. It might work for our guys.’ In the process, you start to formulate your own ideology.”