Methodology
We measure brand potential, not basketball potential.
The Roscoe Combine is a grading system built on objective research to identify the top brand prospects of the draft class. We built across seven categories to identify cultural & commercial scalability. Prospects are scored on ceiling rather than current positioning, using public information to forecast brand potential. This is agnostic of what city prospects get drafted into & how they perform on the court. Of course, on-court performance is intrinsically tied to brand potential, meaning performance isn't fully disregarded. Their NBA performance is rather unknown at this point, so each prospect is treated neutrally. Some prospects' brand potential is more tied to performance than others, which is reflected in their profiles.
As with any scouting system, there is a level of subjectivity. This project is deeply rooted in objective scoring and research, with each prospect being graded by the same rubric and researched in the same fashion. This was built to minimize subjectivity. Where it's present, my brand strategy POV comes in to round out the prospect's potential.
The Seven Metrics
Each metric is scored against fixed behavioral anchors.
Charismatic Fluency
18%Measures the prospect's natural command of a room, camera, platform, or moment. This is a look at a mix of charisma, self-awareness, and personality, rather than general likeability.
Narrative Elasticity
17%Measures how many distinct and credible story arcs this prospect's identity can sustain over a 5–10 year career. More arcs means more surface area for media, brands, and fans to attach to.
Commercial Expandability
17%Measures how far this prospect's archetype can scale commercially without diluting what makes them compelling. A look at brand stretch potential without the erosion of authenticity.
Cultural Adjacency
14%Measures the prospect's natural proximity to cultural domains that produce the largest brand amplification in sport culture — such as music, fashion, activism, international markets, gaming, tech, and more.
Digital Fluency
14%Measures the prospect's ability to operate effectively within digital culture, considering things like platform behavior, audience resonance, internet narrative participation, and growth trajectory.
Institutional Fit vs. Independent Gravity
12%Measures whether the prospect can operate inside the NBA's institutional ecosystem while also creating standalone brand equity that sits independent of any team or league.
Volatility & Risk
8%Measures the probability that this prospect's brand remains stable and resilient over a 5–10 year career. While not all risk can be predicted, this looks at off-court character consistency, narrative fragility, and more. This is the only inverse metric — a high score means low risk; a low score means higher risk.
The Math
How each score is built.
The built system considers each metric category at its own weight to produce a final weighted composite score. The prospects are then placed into tiers based on the composite score.
The Process
Every prospect goes through a fixed nine-pass research process, completed in order, before any score gets assigned. The process covers everything on the prospect from baseline identity to risk assessment.
Research includes a mix of qualitative and quantitative research — spanning everything from watching hours of press & media interviews, to utilizing digital presence data tools, to diving deep into their current brand infrastructure.
Limitations
Transparently, this process is not perfect yet. 2026 is the debut — proof of concept of the Roscoe Combine. It will continue to get sharper and more predictive as I build out across sport and draft class. The scores are a projection, not a prediction. Cultural ceiling is independent of basketball outcome, and scores will move as evidence moves.