If the stats don't match up with their opinion about a certain player, they dismiss it. Typical Joe Shmoe.
I'm not too concerned about whether you believe RAPM is useful. What matters is that Morey believes it. (Well, also Morey wins practically all his transactions, and I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you wouldn't if you were in his position, so Morey's opinion probably is more relevant to whether RAPM is useful, also.) Morey has said numerous things that RAPM confirms. Morey said Lin was an excellent defender last year. Morey said Lin won the third most games for us last year. Morey said the offense doesn't lose much when Beverley is subbed in for Lin. Morey said that Asik is a top 5 center (NOT just top 5 "defensive center"). All confirmed by RAPM. When you point to gotcha examples to disprove RAPM, a better response would be to consider whether there are hidden trade-offs in basketball that your eye test isn't accounting for. Morey doesn't use the eye test to rate basketball players. Who should I believe, Morey or your eye test? Morey or ANYONE's eye test?
According to Morey(RAPM), Lin is the 20th best point guard in the league. Maybe not too different than the eye test.
You and Morey should get a room. Don't get me wrong, I think DM is a great GM, and have always liked his statistical based approach. But he doesn't win all deals (cough, cough... Terrence Williams, Hasheem Thabeet) or make shrewd draft choices 100% of the time (Dorsey, Taylor, others). Fortunately, he is right most of the time, and his asset collection strategy all came to fruition perfectly. You've got to praise results in the big picture and things are at least looking on track. Let's not crown him quite yet, though. But just because he says some advanced stat is right doesn't make it so. Omer Asik was not a top 5 center last year. It doesn't matter what stat you want to point to, to make this so. We can look at his impact when he was on the court all we want.... if he was that awesome, he should have stayed on the court more. EDIT: For the stat guru's out there, have there been any studies on RAPM for players as they switch teams? What it was on team x one year vs team y another year?
