Yeah, that's why he's on a panel about basketball analytics... His complaint seems to be that neutral stat compilers are useless to him because his view and their view of what a play is differs, so he can't draw anything useful from it.
I was there representing Rice in the business case competition. I tried to get the student ticket but it was sold out by the time I bought my ticket so I had to pay the full price. Rice paid for my ticket/trip so I didn't get hammered by that $500 ticket price. As far as the conference I thought the best discussion was between Malcom Gladwell and Adam Silver. The negotiation workshop with Daryl Morey and Bob Myers was also badass. The funniest part was Morey's story about how he called Mark Cuban and asked him to trade Dirk Nowitzki out of desperation. Here's the article to it: http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....ast-summer-asking-to-trade-for-dirk-nowitzki/
Yes it was an amazing conference. It's gotten bigger and better every year. Tickets sold out 2 months out and I was told there was a secondary market for them. And of course I made sure to talk to and get a picture with DM.
I would imagine there isn't "showing one's work" for this conference. More like a bunch of talks of how A(some operator)B=849 without giving up too much info on what A, B, or the operator are. I could be wrong, but I imagine analytics=secrets to the successful statisticians there and represent among other things job security and a competitive advantage.
That's interesting that Malcolm Gladwell was there. For those who might not know, he's a writer for The New Yorker magazine who has written some very successful books like The Tipping Point about interesting concepts he sees in the world. He's an egghead, in other words. Here are a couple of clips from their talk at Sloan. The first one is about the draft lottery and whether the NBA is a purely competitive or more socialist system. The second about the evil Dolans getting a property tax break on Madison Square Garden from New York City. Adam Silver, the new commish, comes across as both smart and pretty funny. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PrhgGg1mVN0 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cub3vBTuwbo And, yeah, the Mark Cuban story is completely hilarious.
Gladwell is a popularizer with an interest in sports. He goes to conferences to report and make comments about other people's work. The true eggheads are the presenters and the analytics teams in the GM offices.
