http://assets.sbnation.com/assets/25595 ... hassan.mp3
Audio is a little screwy, you're gonna have to use headphones and turn the volume waaaaaaaay up, but this is gold. Great look and insight into how our FO is structured right now, and how it's different from the way it used to be.
Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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rsavaj
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Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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raff
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Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
Oh good it wasn't just me. I tried listening on 100% volume with headphones abd could only hear kris talking. I might try again tomorrow.
GO SUNS!
Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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bigfoot
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Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
That was very interesting. Sounds like Blanks really didn't promote teamwork in the scouting area. Without a GM right now let's hope Mark West and the Suns scouting crew are working together for the upcoming draft and free agency period.
Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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rsavaj
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Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
raff wrote:Oh good it wasn't just me. I tried listening on 100% volume with headphones abd could only hear kris talking. I might try again tomorrow.
I had to download the mp3 file and play it in VLC to boost the volume to like 175%
Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
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rsavaj
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Re: Best Bright Side Podcast yet: inside look at FO!
http://valleyofthesuns.com/2013/06/10/a ... anization/
Another Amin podcast, this time with VOTS. Talks about the 09/10 Suns....it's kind of depressing in terms of nostalgia.
Also talks about the path from a sports MBA-->internship-->basketball ops, and his rising roles within the organization.
This guy was a real asset to the team. It's a shame that he didn't feel there was a place for him anymore once Blanks restructured the FO. Takes a jab at Blanks at the end: "If Lance Blanks called and offered me the Asst. GM job for $500K, I would have said no. I learned that who you work for is so important. It's important for me to be in a working environment where my opinion is valued; it doesn't have to be followed, but I need to believe that they believe in me."
Some excerpts:
On the three keys to getting a basketball operations job: “You’ve got to be lucky, you’ve got to be prepared, and you’ve got to know the right people. If you have those three things, you’ll get it.”
On the state of advanced stats: “There at least certain concepts we all accept [such as] … offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, rebound percentage. I feel like the optical data tracking is the future. This is going to be the be-all, end-all of statistics. It’s no longer an estimation or an overall look.”
On Kobe in Game 6 of the 2010 WCF: “I always go back to Game 6 because we did execute and it didn’t matter, and sometimes it just doesn’t matter. You can have the cheat sheet and you’re still not going to pass the test, and that’s where individual talent sometimes just rises above it.”
On Grant Hill: “We used to joke around that if you wanted to create the perfect athlete in the lab, you would create Grant Hill. All those on-court things, and also the pedigree of being the son of a pro athlete, but as a human being, how to treat people. He treated everybody with respect and gave them the time they deserved like they were all the owners of a franchise. … Grant as a person, that makes me want to be a better person every single day.”
On the 2009-10 Suns: “I think a lot of that whole year was the Culture of We, and everybody in that locker room bought in. We all understood if you do the right thing, rewards will come to you. … After that year obviously that team broke up and everybody went their separate ways, and I would see David Griffin or I would see Louis Amundson or I would see Jason Richardson after we traded him, and all those people we always said the same thing, ‘We didn’t know how good we had it.’ Because what we had in Phoenix that year, that’s not the NBA, that’s something special, and the NBA was what followed, which is people griping over minutes and people griping over shots and front office guys complaining about their coach, coaches complaining about their front office guys and coaches coaching for their jobs instead of coaching for the team. That’s what the NBA is.”
On searching for 2009-10: “I said something when it first started to break up, I said something at the time and to this day it’s the truest feeling ever. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives searching for that feeling one more time, and it’s true, everyone I’ve talked to, no one’s been back to that feeling. We’re searching for it forever.”
On players with elite basketball intelligence: “I can count three guys that I’ve been around that I would put them up IQ-wise against anybody in the NBA right now: Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Boris Diaw. Brilliant. Basketball-wise IQ, brilliant as far as being able to recognize things on the fly, process and figure out all the different audibles. Nothing like those guys.”
On writing for ESPN Insider: “Now I’m officially a media member, and it’s weird because I never dreamt about this, I never thought it could happen even. I never thought people like me had a place in the media. Usually when they say ex-NBA guy in the media you’re thinking about Jeff Van Gundy, you’re thinking about Hubie Brown, guys with name cachet. I was in the room for big decisions, but I was a very small potato in the grand scheme of basketball operations. But now that I’m here, I love it. It’s opened me up to a completely different side of the game that I never got to experience, and it’s been a fun experience.”
On the Spurs team he picked to beat Miami in six: “This is a franchise — and I know this from personal experience — this is how they beat us when we were better than them: they don’t make mistakes, or at the very least they make less mistakes than you do. Whatever that weakness in the armor is, they’re going to get to it. They will exploit those mistakes that you make, and they will make less than you.”
Another Amin podcast, this time with VOTS. Talks about the 09/10 Suns....it's kind of depressing in terms of nostalgia.
Also talks about the path from a sports MBA-->internship-->basketball ops, and his rising roles within the organization.
This guy was a real asset to the team. It's a shame that he didn't feel there was a place for him anymore once Blanks restructured the FO. Takes a jab at Blanks at the end: "If Lance Blanks called and offered me the Asst. GM job for $500K, I would have said no. I learned that who you work for is so important. It's important for me to be in a working environment where my opinion is valued; it doesn't have to be followed, but I need to believe that they believe in me."
Some excerpts:
On the three keys to getting a basketball operations job: “You’ve got to be lucky, you’ve got to be prepared, and you’ve got to know the right people. If you have those three things, you’ll get it.”
On the state of advanced stats: “There at least certain concepts we all accept [such as] … offensive efficiency, defensive efficiency, rebound percentage. I feel like the optical data tracking is the future. This is going to be the be-all, end-all of statistics. It’s no longer an estimation or an overall look.”
On Kobe in Game 6 of the 2010 WCF: “I always go back to Game 6 because we did execute and it didn’t matter, and sometimes it just doesn’t matter. You can have the cheat sheet and you’re still not going to pass the test, and that’s where individual talent sometimes just rises above it.”
On Grant Hill: “We used to joke around that if you wanted to create the perfect athlete in the lab, you would create Grant Hill. All those on-court things, and also the pedigree of being the son of a pro athlete, but as a human being, how to treat people. He treated everybody with respect and gave them the time they deserved like they were all the owners of a franchise. … Grant as a person, that makes me want to be a better person every single day.”
On the 2009-10 Suns: “I think a lot of that whole year was the Culture of We, and everybody in that locker room bought in. We all understood if you do the right thing, rewards will come to you. … After that year obviously that team broke up and everybody went their separate ways, and I would see David Griffin or I would see Louis Amundson or I would see Jason Richardson after we traded him, and all those people we always said the same thing, ‘We didn’t know how good we had it.’ Because what we had in Phoenix that year, that’s not the NBA, that’s something special, and the NBA was what followed, which is people griping over minutes and people griping over shots and front office guys complaining about their coach, coaches complaining about their front office guys and coaches coaching for their jobs instead of coaching for the team. That’s what the NBA is.”
On searching for 2009-10: “I said something when it first started to break up, I said something at the time and to this day it’s the truest feeling ever. We’re going to spend the rest of our lives searching for that feeling one more time, and it’s true, everyone I’ve talked to, no one’s been back to that feeling. We’re searching for it forever.”
On players with elite basketball intelligence: “I can count three guys that I’ve been around that I would put them up IQ-wise against anybody in the NBA right now: Steve Nash, Grant Hill, Boris Diaw. Brilliant. Basketball-wise IQ, brilliant as far as being able to recognize things on the fly, process and figure out all the different audibles. Nothing like those guys.”
On writing for ESPN Insider: “Now I’m officially a media member, and it’s weird because I never dreamt about this, I never thought it could happen even. I never thought people like me had a place in the media. Usually when they say ex-NBA guy in the media you’re thinking about Jeff Van Gundy, you’re thinking about Hubie Brown, guys with name cachet. I was in the room for big decisions, but I was a very small potato in the grand scheme of basketball operations. But now that I’m here, I love it. It’s opened me up to a completely different side of the game that I never got to experience, and it’s been a fun experience.”
On the Spurs team he picked to beat Miami in six: “This is a franchise — and I know this from personal experience — this is how they beat us when we were better than them: they don’t make mistakes, or at the very least they make less mistakes than you do. Whatever that weakness in the armor is, they’re going to get to it. They will exploit those mistakes that you make, and they will make less than you.”