Daryl Morey & Sam Hinkie: Moneyball and the Houston Rockets

Wow. That was an impressively boring and un-insightful read. But thanks for posting something Rockets related!

 

Wow. That was an impressively boring and un-insightful read. But thanks for posting something Rockets related!

 

Wow. That was something or other ......... tks

 

Not drafting based on potential is a mistake.

 

Define potential...

 

One word:

Kwame

 

Omer Asik and Marc Gasol come to mind.

 

A latent excellence or ability that may or may not be developed:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/potential

Sure you may have some busts going this route, but all you need is one player to pan out to vault you into contention. Otherwise, you end up with a bunch of rotation players that are average to good, but not great. It involves risk. Again, not drafting based on potential is a mistake. Do you agree or disagree?

 

Thanks for the explanation Kwame.

I agree to an extent. I freaking love Patrick Patterson and Marcus Morris.

 

I thought the article was interesting, even if it isn't news to me. It's just not really basketball-related. I did appreciate the use of footnotes.

I actually only read the article because of this comment, and he doesn't address this subject at all.

 

Because that was a troll-ish post. I'd like know since when aren't we drafting the player who the org. thinks will become the best player down the line?

Granted that our equation for potential factors in heavily on the likeliness of hitting said potential, maybe Kwame is upset about this and would have drafted the players he mentioned (would be great picks) along a collection of busts bigger than the 09'ers on our team.

 

I think you have to take risks to be successful, I hate companies that are run by CFO types, eventually they fail...people who focus on the pennies miss out on the dollars.

DD

 

Signed,

Eddie Griffin

 

or:

Dirk Nowitski

or:

Kobe Bryant

or:

Dwight Howard

or.........

well you get the point....I hope.

DD

 

The article doesn't state otherwise.

 

This article below is actually more insightful. Morey and Hinkie are right in the article above but ramble off-topic b/c they don't want to give away any trade secrets.

http://espn.go.com/boston/story/_/id/7000469/how-boston-dominated-sports-10-years-espn-magazine

There's an interesting bit where Morey is quoted saying that NBA franchise management is almost completely about optimizing your player salary vs production.

 

Huh, I wonder how the Mavs stacked up in that scenario....

DD

 

CFO types??... Im not sure what you mean by that. What "large" companies have you worked for in the past 10 years that aren't focused on the bottom line?

Taking risks in business can get you somewhere if your investment works out, but it can also put 30,000 pink slips on your employees desk in a couple months time. Just ask Bank of America employees.

With my experience in corporate America and how it relates to running an NBA team is that most companies are focused on boosting their stock price by growing their company while factoring in the bottom line, etc.

In business you hear stories about people like George Lucas (star wars geeks enter here) who took a gamble in his start up movie franchise that earned him a billion dollar movie franchise that he has the full rights to, but rarely in large corporate businesses would you see healthy companies make calculated risks that could totally kill their stock price or in the NBA world their branding/popularity.

In NBA ownership, branding is everything. Thats what makes the Lakers and the Yankees who they are... winning + superstars = mega franchise with a large stake in their respective sports market.

The Rockets are in a hard place because their branding was based on Yao Ming, and that was one hell of a product to sell. Argue what you want about Yao, but Yao was a solid Brand for a franchise.

So right now, as a brand the Rockets are shot unless they can continue to win games and contend. The moneyball approach gives the franchise the ability to get value for their dollar until they can re-brand the franchise. They are however still managing to take risks on players like Thabeet and Terrence Williams so Im not really sure what there is to complain about. They are managing a way to stay competitive, take on high risk prospects, and still have the ability to trade their way to a superstar or impact player.

So what "high risk" move would you suggest???... both in the business world and in the NBA. I for one and still glad that they used their analytics to draft Patrick Patterson over Hassaan Whiteside. There is taking risks, and then their is doing your homework. They did their homework and they took the player they believed would have the best NBA career.