APBRmetrics

Statman wrote:I'm curious if any draft model has Jaylen Brown top 5 - because the video coordinator from Draft Express tweeted I would be laughed out of any NBA gym if I told them my model didn't have him top 5.

This annoys me - when scouts see a model agrees with their opinion of a certain prospect - the model is cool. When it disagrees - it's absurd. I hope Jonathan is considering the info with an open mind - where if models love a certain player the mocks have low (or vice versa) - MAYBE the mocks & NBA gms might need to consider their position on a player and not just assume outright the models are worthless. Especially when retrodictions can be done, & certain model results outperform draft position & mocks historically by a good margin.

The outliers either direction are red flags, but when there's agreement between scouts & models - then we have the sweet spot.

Crow wrote:Top 75 seemed to work for folks.

I put a few thoughts about the project in the 2016 NBA draft thread, if you haven't already seen them.

shock3 wrote:

Statman wrote:I'm curious if any draft model has Jaylen Brown top 5 - because the video coordinator from Draft Express tweeted I would be laughed out of any NBA gym if I told them my model didn't have him top 5.

This annoys me - when scouts see a model agrees with their opinion of a certain prospect - the model is cool. When it disagrees - it's absurd. I hope Jonathan is considering the info with an open mind - where if models love a certain player the mocks have low (or vice versa) - MAYBE the mocks & NBA gms might need to consider their position on a player and not just assume outright the models are worthless. Especially when retrodictions can be done, & certain model results outperform draft position & mocks historically by a good margin.

The outliers either direction are red flags, but when there's agreement between scouts & models - then we have the sweet spot.

BasketballAnalytics.com has him 18th http://www.basketballanalyticsbook.com/

shock3 wrote:

BasketballAnalytics.com has him 18th http://www.basketballanalyticsbook.com/

Dr Positivity wrote:
I'd be interested to see what led Ellenson to be rated high (3rd) on that list, I wasn't that impressed by his numbers. Only .53 TS% for a big man is quite low, almost all the PF studs lately are in the .60s in college. Nothing special in either stl or blk. Marquette competition is fairly unimpressive, ranked below teams like Wichita St. and Gonzaga in SOS, and not much talent on his own team for stats either. Decent rebounder and passer but nothing crazy. Rebounding is another stat where the bar is set pretty high among recent good PFs

Crow wrote:Draft analytics project for Draftexpress viewtopic.php?t=8904 began in mid-April last season and seemed to be rushed at a few points. Is it going to happen again and would it make sense to start a bit earlier?

One add-on idea I think might be good to try would be a poll that asked the project participants and folks who want to read the article and vote (here or at DraftExpress) to name their top selections (based on perceived long-term value, not where they will be picked). For simplicity sake I'd suggest a poll with the top 50-75 candidates and then ask voters to pick 5 guys into first, second and third tiers and then 15 into tier 4. I don't think people are so expert to try to decide between 3rd and 4th best or 12 and 13, but some might do well in sorting into 4 top tiers.

Adding a tiered poll would promote some humility about the quantitative analysis and make a clear statement that it is a step in a process, not the whole process in itself. Numbers can help but reasoning with consideration of the numbers and other information and awareness sounds better. But if you have the pure quantitative analytic answers and the reasoning with and beyond the number answers, one could compare the success of those analysts at stage 1 and 2.

In the world of team hiring it seems teams emphasize building technologically sophisticated, automatic and deep systems but never make any mention of degree of planned use of new analysts to reason from the numbers or judge their aptitude for doing so, at least in the job postings. I assume this is partly because the top executives desire to reserve reasoning from the numbers to a very select group (of 2-4? or maybe just one?) and assume they are highly qualified to do it and do it better than the analysts tasked to be system builders / runners. And maybe reasoning is tested somewhat in interviews even if not mentioned on job postings. It is understandable that influence on decisions would be earned over time and new hires shouldn't assume they start out with much or any time devoted to or influence on reasoning from the numbers but if your initial hiring decisions are exclusively or almost exclusively based on programming chops you might get a mixed bag of little studied or prioritized capacity to reason from the numbers and present coherent, measured and wise decision advice compared to a scenario where you prioritized hiring at least some folks primarily because they have some basis for being considered strong on the reasoning from and beyond the numbers stage of analysis. Teams need both system builders / runners and reasoners from the analytics and everything. As the systems get better everywhere, I'd think the latter task becomes more important and differentiating between teams. I doubt the top 1 or 2 guy has a lot of time to do detailed reasoning from the analytics or at least not all that would be worth doing, trying to get an edge and push the frontiers.