Legend of Staten Island: Former NBA scout and college coach Evan Pickman

It’s a hot, humid Saturday morning in New York City. Los Angeles Clippers player scout Evan Pickman is taking his usual early morning stroll through Central Park with his light-coated golden retriever Maggie. It’s September 2010, and the Clippers are ramping up for training camp after coming off their fourth consecutive losing season. There is a certain anticipation for the upcoming year with former No. 1 overall pick Blake Griffin fully recovered from a knee injury that sidelined him his entire rookie season.

The 5’ 3” Staten Island native is going into his 24th year as the Clippers head Eastern scout, yet he has never been more uncertain about his future. Rumor has it that newly promoted Clippers general manager Neil Olshey is planning on making various changes in leadership after being in the position for only six months.

It’s on this particular morning that Pickman receives a phone call from Olshey, who informs Pickman that he will let him remain with the team, under the condition that Pickman accepts a significant salary cut and a reduction in the number of games he can scout. Olshey goes on to tell Pickman that he should be grateful that he’s allowing him to stay on at all. 

Anxiously running his hands through his slicked-back dark gray hair, Pickman asserts his experience and longevity as a knowledgeable veteran NBA scout. Olshey retorts that he can find 20 guys in New York City who could do Pickman’s job covering the East Coast that he wouldn’t even need to pay, so he should appreciate the favor he’s doing for him.

In reply to Olshey, Pickman shouts into his phone, causing every nearby dog walker in Central Park to stop and stare: “Well I’ll tell you what, YOU CAN GO –––– YOURSELF NEIL.” 

After over two decades with the team, Pickman’s career with the Clippers was finished. 

In August 1970, 16 years before he joined the Clippers, Pickman was hired as the basketball coach at Staten Island Community College (SICC). This was Pickman’s big break into a career he had aspired to set foot into since playing basketball at Brooklyn College four years earlier. 

It took some time for Pickman to grasp the transition from player to coach: The team did not have much talent to begin with, and Pickman initially struggled with game management as well as not getting too emotional in the heat of the moment. However, over time, Pickman learned how to control his emotions and became much better at avoiding rookie coaching mistakes.

In 1977, SICC merged with Richmond College to create the College of Staten Island (CSI), right around the same time everything began to click for Pickman. From here, the rest is history.

Three NCAA Tournament appearances. Four City University of New York Athletic Conference titles. Back-to-back years where CBS Sports ranked CSI the No. 1 Division III school in America. Pickman was as good a coach as there was in New York City.

“He’s a legend on Staten Island,” Pickman’s former CSI player Tony Petosa said. “You have around 500,000 people on the island, and he’s arguably the most well-known basketball coach from Staten Island.”

Petosa believed Pickman was the sole reason why they became a national caliber program. Pickman demanded a lot out of his players and was at times extremely hard to play for, all so he could get the best out of his team.

It was Pickman’s rise to prominence at CSI that landed him a job as a skills coach at the preeminent Five Star Basketball Camp in New York City. Five Star was a camp where the best high school recruits around the country would come and play to improve their abilities and gain recognition from top college coaches. 

“I went to this camp, and I found out how much I did not know about basketball,” Pickman said.

Coaching greats like John Calipari, Rick Pitino, and Bobby Knight would all run their own skill stations and give lectures on specific aspects of the game. Pickman became what they called a Station 13 Master, where he taught players the art of setting on-and-off ball screens. 

“That was my reputation at the camp,” Pickman said.” “Pickman teaches how to set picks.”

Pickman got help running his station with young rising coach Tobin Anderson. Anderson, who currently coaches at Iona, coached 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson to a historic upset win over No.1 Purdue in the 2023 March Madness NCAA Tournament.

Anderson was trying to do whatever he could to be a part of the camp, so when he finally got the chance to learn and work with Pickman as an apprentice, he used the opportunity to continually “pick Pickman’s brain” about basketball. 

“Whenever he would work, I’d want to be there,” Anderson said. “So, I always tried to know when he was working, like if Pickman was going to be there, I would be there that week too.”

Pickman was a natural-born teacher to many, and his commitment to selflessly mentor others resulted in him coming across Abdul Deen, whose story can only be described as a miracle. 

When Pickman joined the Clippers in 1986, the team was in a state of turmoil. The organization made the move from San Diego to Los Angeles in 1984 despite being denied permission by the NBA. To combat many seasons of hapless performances in the ‘80s, Pickman was brought onto the Clippers staff under newly hired manager and Los Angeles Lakers great Elgin Baylor.

Pickman’s main responsibility with the team would be to watch college players and make recommendations for the draft. Barry Hecker, the Player Personnel Director at the time for the Clippers, was the team executive Pickman would report his findings to directly. 

“I had Evan going everywhere, it wasn’t easy,” Hecker said. “He’d travel everywhere scouting the top prospects across the country.”

Since the team would come in last or close to it each year, Pickman would have a vital opinion on who they drafted with their high pick. And even though they guessed correctly and drafted future NBA-caliber players most years, former Clippers owner Donald Sterling would elect to not pay the money needed to keep these cornerstone players after their contracts expired. 

As a scout who was trying to help the team improve, Sterling's financial tactics were understandably frustrating to Pickman – something he didn’t have to account for when he was on the sideline coaching. Nonetheless, Pickman still enjoyed the camaraderie with the other scouts and coaches he crossed paths with over the years. 

One person he had a particularly lasting impact on while he was working with the team was the Clippers Director of Scouting Gary Sacks. Sacks joined the organization in 1994 as a basketball operations intern before working his way up the ranks. From the onset, Sacks had a remarkable day-to-day collaborative chemistry with Pickman.

“How willing he was to not necessarily take me under his wing, but treat me with respect and try to teach me as much as he possibly could about basketball,” Sacks said. 

That was Pickman for you. Someone who was never half in half out, who would treat someone he had just met like he had known them for years. Once you’re in his circle, you’re in. Pickman would never be afraid to voice his opinion either. Even if he was wrong, he always wanted to at least make a case, and exert all of his energy and passion in the process. 

During the 1991 NBA Draft, Hecker was situated in the Clippers war room in L.A. with the entirety of the organization’s coaches and executives. For each player the team decided on drafting, Hecker would make a phone call to Pickman to give the selection to the commissioner, who was located on-site for the draft in New York City. When the Clippers came up on the clock with the 22nd pick, there was a long deliberation back in the L.A. office.

“I call up Evan and tell him we’re taking LeRon Ellis,” Hecker said. “Even says, ‘Tell me it’s a ––––––– joke.’ And then he starts yelling on the speakerphone for everybody in the room to hear: ‘TELL ME IT’S A ––––––– JOKE.’” 

Let’s just say when Pickman scouted the 6’ 9” center from Syracuse, he didn’t like what he saw, and he even thought he wouldn’t last five years in the pros. However, Pickman’s argument was of no use: the decision had already been finalized. After Ellis was drafted by the Clippers, he played three seasons before being cut and transitioned to play overseas.

Sometimes you’re right, sometimes you’re wrong. That’s the “high risk, high reward” aspect of being an NBA scout. An aspect that after many years, had finally perhaps taken its toll on Pickman. But he wasn’t ready just yet to retire and sip gin and tonics in the Florida Keys. 

No. Pickman wanted to make, at his age, an improbable comeback into coaching. 

“I loved doing the job at the beginning, meeting all the scouts and meeting the coaches,” Pickman said. “But I really missed coaching.”

Pickman was living his best life in the early ‘80s, coaching his team at CSI during the school year and at Five Star over the summer. He had even found time to fit in another job over the summer running the basketball program at Kutsher’s Sports Academy in Massachusetts. 

Pickman’s assistant at the summer academy was another up-and-coming coach Joe Jones. Jones, who currently coaches at Boston University and had coached under future two-time national championship coach Jay Wright at Hofstra, thought Pickman was as tough and hard-nosed a coach as you could get. 

“Pick made me a better coach,” Jones said. “He helped me understand discipline and tough love. That guy would rip your –––, but you knew he cared about you. He wasn’t going to let you shortchange yourself.”

Pickman could not have foreseen what would come next. On an afternoon stroll to the grocery store back in Staten Island, Pickman noticed a seven-foot teenager—who by the looks of it was cutting class—hanging around at a nearby park. Not knowing who this kid was, Pickman approached him out of the blue. He learned the kid’s name was Abdul Deen.

“I never wanted to play basketball,” Deen said. “My first time ever playing was when I met Coach P in high school. He asked me, ‘Do you play ball?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well take this ball and dunk it.’ I jumped up and dunked it. He said, ‘Oh, so you’re an athlete.”

This was the first of many encounters between Deen and Pickman. Pickman was eventually able to persuade Deen to come to live with him in Massachusetts over the summer so that he could work him out in his program at Kutsher’s, all free of charge. Deen, whose parents were rarely around and who would constantly bounce between places to sleep at night, saw this opportunity as a no-brainer from at least a stable living perspective.

“And that first summer, he had never played basketball before in his life,” Pickman said. “But I saw serious potential in him and he started to work hard in my drills.”

Pickman provided Deen the foundations to be not just a good, but great basketball player. He taught him how to use the glass, how to play in the post, and how to dribble without letting smaller guards steal it from him. 

Deen’s improvement over just one summer was astronomical. Pickman continued to train Deen back home in Staten Island as he thrived in his junior season at Tottenville High School, averaging 24 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 blocks a game. The following summer, Pickman convinced the big bosses at Five Star to let Deen showcase what he had to offer at the camp.

Leigh Klein, the former CEO and director of Five Star, was on board with Pickman bringing Deen to the camp if it meant Pickman would continue fitting Five Star into his summer plans. 

“He had a busy summer outside of his Kutsher’s program and regular coaching,” Klein said. “But, he made the sacrifice to continue working at Five Star to make sure Abdul Deen could have the opportunities and exposure at the camp.”

The big-time college coaches at Five Star were all impressed by Deen and his abilities. No one had even heard of Deen before now, so when anyone would ask where the hell this kid came from, the response was unanimous: “That’s Pickman’s kid.” 

After playing at Five Star, Deen was recruited by all of the best teams in the Big East. Rick Pitino, the coach at Providence at the time, really liked Deen’s game and made the biggest run at him. Deen immediately bought into Pitino’s coaching style, noticing a lot of similarities with Pickman’s personality, and committed to the future Hall of Fame coach.

“They are both straight shooters,” Deen said. “They both tell you what it is. Not what you want to hear, but what you need to hear. They’re not going to blow smoke up your –––. So, it was easy for me to play with Pitino because he reminded me of Coach P."

And four years later, in the second round of the 1990 NBA Draft, the Seattle Supersonics with the 53rd pick selected Abdul Rahman Shamsid-Deen. 

Deen’s life trajectory took a complete turn the day Pickman decided to randomly walk up to him in the park six years earlier. Deen believes if they had never met, he would not have even graduated high school.

“He literally saved my life,” Deen said. “Evan Pickman is the reason I’m alive.”

Pickman is out for another one of his early morning dog walks with Maggie through Central Park, about three years since he left his job with the Clippers. Towards the end of the walk, a dog walker Pickman has never seen before approaches him. She recognizes him from a story in the newspaper about Five Star, and tells Pickman that both her sons play basketball at Heschel High School—a Jewish private school in Manhattan—and that the school is planning on firing their current basketball coach. 

27 years.

That’s how much time has passed since Pickman has been able to coach his own team, and he is itching to get back into the game. So when Pickman follows up with the high school about the job opening, it’s not long before he introduces himself as the Heschel men’s basketball coach to the kids who are looking to try out that winter. 

“I enjoyed my stint with the Clippers, but the truth was I missed coaching a team,” Pickman said.

Pickman has never been more excited for a new opportunity, and his players believe it showed.

“His intensity stood out the most,” Pickman’s former Heschel player Jeremy Spiera said. “Whether it was a practice in the middle of the summer or the day before the biggest game of the year, he’d be running around and screaming with the same intensity.”

Not only was Pickman more invested than prior coaches the high school had, but he would also look out for the kids on his team as people, rather than players.

“Coach Pick always kept the bigger picture in sight,” Spiera said. 

Pickman is adamant that he was never a coach per sé: he was a teacher. He never tried to coach his teams at Heschel, or CSI for that matter. Rather, he would teach his players. Pickman took a kid from the streets of Staten Island who had never touched a basketball before, and taught him the fundamentals so remarkably that he got drafted into the NBA.

This was Pickman’s biggest strength throughout his coaching career. He knew how to motivate players to work the right way to get better, a skill that only improved as he got older, and gave the now 70-year-old coach an advantage over all of the young budding coaches in Heschel’s high school league. 

“When I went to Heschel at the end of my career, I was a so much better coach than I was all those years coaching successful teams at CSI,” Pickman said.

Public acclamation and on-court production backed Pickman’s premise. In 2019, Pickman was named Jewish Hoop America’s Coach of the Year after winning Heschel’s first-ever basketball league championship. He officially retired from coaching for good the following summer. 

Old-school. That’s the way the “Legend of Staten Island” was. He wanted his players to be responsible and show up on time. He wanted his players to be doing what they were supposed to be doing, because “he didn’t take any ––––,” as vocalized by multiple colleagues and former players. He was animated, he was disciplined, and he was competitive. 

Pickman never did it for the money or the glory or the fame. Everything he did was for the people around him, and doing what he loved to do most: coaching and teaching basketball. 

Pickman, Pick, Evan, Coach P – a man known by many names and titles. A man who never actually worked a day in his life. A man who, if you’re ever walking through New York City and acknowledge him on the street, will take the time out of his day to get to know who you are and try to learn in that one conversation how he can help you become more fortunate in life.