Pre-employment Testing in the NBA

[Neato]

Just coming out of a thread in which posters were criticizing the intelligence of various players, I started to wonder if NBA teams do any kind of pre-employment testing on its players. For example, NFL teams administer the Wonderlic to measure the general cognitive ability (i.e., intelligence) of players. I believe the Wonderlic scores are even made public.

Do you all know if NBA teams do something similar? Do you think it is (or would be) useful to administer such assessments in the NBA? Note that I am not limiting pre-employment tests to those of general cognitive ability. There are other pre-employment tests you wish to discuss, such as job knowledge tests, personality assessments, and situational judgment tests (i.e., What would you do in this situation?). I realize that teams already give work outs, so let's leave out simulation types of tests (unless you have recommendations to improve such simulation tests).

[Neato]

Here's a link to summary information on the Wonderlic, which is used in the NFL. It briefly mentions use of Wonderlic in NFL.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wonderlic_Test

[Neato]

Just some basic background on pre-employment testing from the psychological literature.

1. Public and private sector companies use pre-employment tests to predict the job performance of candidates.

2. Compared to other types of pre-employment tests, tests of intelligence are generally the most useful in predicting job performance.

3. Non-cognitive tests such as personality assessments (e.g., dependability, accountability, work ethic) have also been found to predict job performance in a variety of fields.

4. All things being equal, passing a pre-employment test can be a useful source of information in selecting between Candidate A and Candidate B.

5. Pre-employment tests should be considered as only one hurdle in the entire job application process.

Now, if the NBA were to use these kind of tests like the NFL, one immediate implication would be a player's draft status (all other things such as talent being equal). I start to wonder, would a player like Mickael Pietrus be drafted lower if surrounding players in the draft have similar talent levels?

[darth_federer]

Lot of teams including the Raptors use the Caliper Test.

[mavfan12]

Gerald Green hates this thread.

[Neato]

Lot of teams including the Raptors use the Caliper Test.

That's interesting. I believe the Caliper is a personality assessment. I wonder which personality variables they specifically look at for an NBA player.

[Neato]

Gerald Green hates this thread.

I didn't think about him, but definitely an appropriate comment here.

[darth_federer]

Lot of teams including the Raptors use the Caliper Test.

That's interesting. I believe the Caliper is a personality assessment. I wonder which personality variables they specifically look at for an NBA player.

“Teammate Anthony Parker cuts through all the psycho-babble. He says, "He's absolutely fearless. Why? I think he was just born with it." Bargnani himself brushes off talk of his extraordinary self-confidence. "I'm just a normal person," he says. But the trait is real, measurable, in fact.

"For years, NBA teams have used the Caliper Profile to evaluate potential draft picks. The Caliper is a personality profile used by numerous corporations and organizations to measure one's capacity to excel in specific situations. Over the past 24 years, Caliper has assessed more than 20,000 athletes, including NBA players from Detroit, San Antonio, Denver and Phoenix. Colangelo has long been sold on the system. When he heard how Bargnani measured up, he nearly dropped the phone.

"They said his upside and potential were off the charts," Colangelo says from the tunnel of the Air Canada Centre as Bargnani drains a three against the Cavaliers. "They said, 'Out of all the athletes we've profiled, we've never seen anything like this.'

"The test showed that Bargnani is virtually oblivious to what others think of him. And his tremendous ability to block out such potentially negative pressures enables him to focus completely on the task at hand. So the expectations and anxieties that come with being the No.1 pick, or the only Italian-born player in the league, or even taking a game-winning shot, don't even register with him.

Then, there's this from Dr Greenberg, the founder of the Caliper Test:

That's the kind of thing we're very, very proud of. We did some … I wouldn't say “arm twisting,” because they liked him, but they knew they'd get a lot of criticism for drafting him. I can tell you right now: He will be one of the top eight or ten centers in NBA history.”

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/stor ... g/bargnani

The founder is prone to hyperbole, but his stuff must be good because a lot of teams use it. Here is another article talking about it.

http://www.hoopsaddict.com/interview-wi ... greenberg/

[Neato]

Good stuff, darth_federer! Personality assessments seems to be rather popular for NBA organizations. I still wonder about intelligence testing, though. When organizations develop pre-employment tests, the first thing that they typically look at is some sort of cognitive ability or aptitude test. Well, that is, unless you are talking about sales occupations. Personality assessment is more common there.

[blkout]

"The test showed that Bargnani is virtually oblivious to what others think of him

he should come read RealGM for a few hours.