Eyes, Ears & Numbers
Back in April of 2017, I had just finished my fourth year as a student manager at UCF. We returned from New York after reaching the Final Four of the NIT in Coach Dawkins’ first year as head coach. I suddenly was at the moment where I needed to figure out what was next for me after graduation. I had a ton of ideas in my mind, not sure if any of them were worth anything, and a lot of free time as I helped transition out of my role as head manager for the team. I knew I wanted to be around basketball in some way next season, still trying to figure out where I fit into this business.
My dream has always been to get an opportunity in the NBA. That hasn’t changed. I had already been emailing operations people around the NBA, with some responses, and felt the way I could make a difference in my efforts with two measures, study some aspect of the NBA I enjoy, and put some of my own ideas together into work samples.
At the time, the NBA was set to adopt a new collective bargaining agreement that summer, and I lucked into a working copy I decided to print out and study. In addition, I started thinking about how I thought scouting might work for the draft. I have always enjoyed the draft, the narratives leading up to it, how teams evaluate, and ask questions, which at the time, I had little knowledge of how it’s actually done. I decided to make my own scouting report, but with an additional idea: What if you used a rating system for each area you look for? I had been introduced to this concept playing OOTP Baseball for a number of years, which allows you to set their ratings for all players to the scouting scale widely used in baseball going back to the 1940s: 2–8, or more commonly 20–80 today. I picked out some players our team had played against, or that I just happen to know of, and made my own scouting reports of each using this system.
To top off all these efforts, I randomly decided to drive 11 hours from Orlando to Portsmouth, Virginia to attend the PIT event for outgoing seniors, hoping I could introduce myself to anyone I could, many of whom I had already been in contact with via email. I consider the trip a success, not because of what I had come up with, but because it showed I was thinking about the game, and wanted to learn more, and some of the contacts I made there I still have today.
I think about that scouting report idea every once in a while. Four years later, I’m not sure I’m sold on needing a numbers based approach to an often subjective task, but it definitely helped shape how I view the relationship of analytics within the sport and how to approach evaluation at any level of basketball.
Last summer, during an interview for an analytics position in the NBA, a familiar phrase was thrown into conversation with a member of the organization that I had heard before: Eyes, Ears, and Numbers. A quick google search of the concept and you’ll find articles of Dean Oliver talking about his time in Denver, working for Mark Warkentien, who I am comfortable crediting with the origin of the phrase. I myself was introduced to the concept through having the opportunity to work with his family at Washington. The phrase is meant to establish each area you should consider when evaluating a player. I think about the phrase a lot, because it falls into the category of overly simple things that can be truly powerful when utilized.
Comparing it to the scouting report idea I talked of earlier, I think often in our careers we search to come up with something unique, that we don’t establish enough of a foundation for purpose that will help balance an important process for an organization. The staff member for the NBA team didn’t elaborate much what he meant by saying that, but I think it’s important to consider that simple phrases like that can often be slightly different to each person that may choose to use it. My definition of the phrase now could be a bit different than what Mark believes, or the staff member of that team, but I like to share the idea in my own way, because in its simplicity, it needs to be defined further to be utilized.
As I mentioned earlier, I have grown more to believe in the idea that there is a balance to everything, and in this case, I look at the phrase as three areas that need to be considered equally when evaluating a player. Covering ground in each area is one thing, but creating this balance in consideration may take it further than those that have followed this idea previously. The easiest decisions will be made when you like what you hear, like what you see, and the numbers back them up. Making a decision solely in one of these areas shouldn’t receive as much confidence. That doesn’t mean only make decisions that satisfy all three areas, but your confidence in the player you are evaluating, or the decision you have to make, should increase the more that these areas look good to you. I’m a visual person, so making a simple diagram to express the idea helps me visualize how a player might fit into each.
With how the game is often argued today, I think it’s important to visualize each area as equal distance from each other, not one area being valued higher or more important to the evaluation than the other. As an analyst, I know that no decision can be made just off numbers with a lot of confidence. A guy averaging 20 points in the Patriot League won’t do the same in the PAC-12. There’s more to it. However, just the same, a player with a nice shooting stroke is great to look at, but if he is shooting 20%, something needs to be worked on. Lastly, if a player is highly recommended, or known to be great for something, we should see what we think first and how he has produced to prove it.
This concept I believe in for any kind of business or organization. Simple is needed before complex can occur. The simple balance of these three, I believe is a key foundation for winning programs and organizations and any evaluation tool I’ll ever come up with must build off this idea.
