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CHICAGO -- The 2014 NBA draft combine officially got underway Thursday. Once again, a plethora of NBA GMs, scouts and head coaches were in the gym to watch around 60 of the top draft prospects run through five hours of drills and measurements in the morning. In the afternoon, teams sat down, one-on-one, with the prospects to interview them. On Friday, the combine continues with more intensive drills and live action, along with athletic and strength testing and more interviews in the afternoon. (Watch on ESPNU from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. ET.). On Saturday, players will get physicals conducted by the league. I was in the gym for the five hours Thursday and in the Palmer House hotel lobby, where the players were staying, for most of the afternoon and evening. Here's what I learned. Elite players missing in action The NBA draft combine continues to struggle to get the top players to go through the drills portion of the combine. Two years ago, 11 players, including Anthony Davis, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist, Bradley Beal, Thomas Robinson, Andre Drummond, Harrison Barnes, Dion Waiters,Jared Sullinger, Jeremy Lamb, Austin Rivers and Arnett Moultrie, refused to do the drills. Last year, the numbers were equally bad. Ben McLemore, Otto Porter Jr., Trey Burke, Victor Oladipo, C.J. McCollum, Michael Carter-Williams, Cody Zeller, Dennis Schroeder and Mason Plumlee all bailed on the drills section. This year, things took a turn for the worse. They were joined on the sidelines by a number of injured players including, Adreian Payne,Spencer Dinwiddie, Kyle Anderson and Sean Kilpatrick Add in a few top international players who stayed overseas -- most prominently Dario Saric,Jusuf Nurkic, Clint Capela and Kristaps Porzingis -- and a sizable chunk of our Big Board did not participate Thursday. That's a disaster for the NBA, which changed the format from 5-on-5 to drills several years ago in an effort to encourage more top players to attend. At this point, with so many players refusing to participate, they should just go back to 5-on-5. I floated the idea to two NBA officials Thursday and both of them said it's a real possibility. If top players are unwilling to do the drills, then going back to 5-on-5 at least gives scouts and teams something useful to watch for 10 hours. Lack of physicals hurting team decision-making The NBA also has another issue. Wiggins, Parker and Embiid's decision not to show up for the physicals is a much more serious issue. Refusing to go through drills or be tested athletically poses no real harm to NBA teams. They've been scouting these players forever and should have all the information they need. But medical information is much more critical and, as a result of HIPPA laws, isn't available to teams without the permission of the player. When you are making a huge investment in a player, teams need to know the player they are drafting is healthy. If agents want to keep that information from teams, it dramatically affects their decision-making. Joel Embiid's combine absence negatively impacts teams' ability to assess his health. Embiid is the big question mark at the moment. He's struggled with back issues for the past few months. With no NBA physical, teams have no clue what the issue is. If his agent decides to release medical information to just a couple of select teams, he's essentially cutting top lottery teams out of the process. The Bucks, for example, couldn't really take Embiid unless they knew his back was healthy. If Embiid's agent didn't want the Bucks to take him, he essentially cuts them out of the process by refusing to give them the physical. Look for the league to try to address this by next year's draft. They don't need players to work out or do interviews. But they really need those medical reports. Parker not in elite shape? Rumors are running rampant among NBA scouts that Parker's no-show had less to do with his lofty draft status and more to do with the fact that he still isn't in elite shape. Several teams told me that their intel has him as much as 15 to 20 pounds overweight. It's clear that Parker could be susceptible to weight gain, so that's not a surprise. But given his work ethic and character, I'd be surprised if he was really that overweight. If the rumor is true, that won't bode well for his draft stock. Players who helped, hurt their stock Of the players who did show, a handful really stood out. The drills aren't really designed to necessarily make one player look good or bad, but a few players made an impression. UCLA's Zach LaVine was the big winner Thursday. Not only did he look the part of a big NBA point guard (he measured 6-foot-5.75 with a 6-8.25 wingspan) but he showed off some terrific athleticism and shooting ability. With most of the rest of the potential lottery picks sitting out, LaVine was the one guy who really looked like he had star potential. "We've liked him from Day 1," one NBA GM said. "But it helped to see him out there. He was competing. Shooting the ball. And he looked like he wanted it. I know he's a project, but there is so much there to like." Virtually every GM I spoke with had him pegged as a lottery pick. He'll have to keep up this pace in workouts (he'll see a lot of Marcus Smart, Tyler Ennis and Elfrid Payton in those workouts), but no one had a bigger first day than LaVine. LaVine's teammate Jordan Adams also impressed. Not only did he put up the second-best spot-up shooting performance of the day for a guard (Washington's Chris Wilcox was No. 1), but Adams showed up at a svelte 208 pounds, 22 pounds below his listed playing weight at UCLA. Adams was knocked for being out of shape during both of his seasons at UCLA. The weight loss not only made him quicker, but showed he was committed to improving his game. Michigan's Glenn Robinson III also was good. Not only is he one of the best athletes in the draft, but he tried to answer critics who said he couldn't transition to the 3 by posting the best spot-up shooting numbers of all the forwards, hitting 31 of 50 from college and NBA 3-point range. With Robinson expected to post around a 45-inch vertical leap in the athletic testing session Friday, seeing him shoot the basketball well should help his stock. Other players who drew praise in the shooting drills included Virginia's Joe Harris, Missouri'sJordan Clarkson and Wisconsin-Green Bay's Alec Brown. Who didn't help themselves? It's pretty hard to hurt yourself in a camp like this. But there was some negativity around the poor shooting performances by James Michael McAdoo,Jarnell Stokes and Patric Young. All three players are bigs and aren't expected to be shooters, but watching them brick shot after shot didn't help their stock. Every year NBA scouts and GMs scour the measurements portion of the combine. We published the results Thursday night, and you can find the measurements for every player in the camp plus analysis here. The big winners? Exum, Vonleh and Payne. Importance of interviews and medical evaluations Virtually every GM in the league will tell you the most important part of the process for them is the interviews and medical evaluations. Teams spent up to four hours a day on both Wednesday and Thursday conducting sit-down interviews with individual players. A number of players had great interviews, including Exum, Payton, Smart and Gordon. Payton had the most interesting line of the night. We know teams can ask some funky questions. One team posed this one to Payton: "If you are on a runaway train and the conductor dies, what do you do?" Payton didn't hesitate: "I try to drive the train." Spoken like a true point guard. What to watch for Friday The NBA combine resumed Friday with on-court work plus athletic testing. Here we expect most of the participants, with the exception of Parker, Embiid and Wiggins, to participate. There are some great athletes in this draft. All eyes will be on Exum, whom teams are just anxious to see. For many of them, this will be the first time they see him live. Look for Robinson, Arizona's Nick Johnson and Clemson's K.J. McDaniels to give the biggest wow factor. All three are crazy athletes. LaVine, Syracuse's Jerami Grant and Nevada'sDeonte Burton also should impress.
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