FrodoBaggins wrote:
From Nate Silver today:NBA teams undervalue production and overvalue “potential”
Cognitive biases also distort where players end up getting drafted. Consensus evaluation tends to prize linear ordering — ranking players from “#1 option” down to “role player” — even when that hierarchy doesn’t map onto how basketball value actually works for most teams. The result is that, relative to more “reliable” players, teams systematically overweight creator archetypes and the sorts of players who can turn into what our friend Jeremias Engelmann calls “quagmires”. At each slot, teams should be selecting for the highest expected value, not just the highest ceiling. Team-specific needs complicate things further, but figuring out how to define expected value is most of the problem.
Current production is also chronically underrated. Simply put, the strongest predictor of future NBA success is current success. This shouldn’t surprise anyone, and yet every draft cycle, evaluators find new ways to talk themselves out of good players. Paolo Banchero was drafted ahead of Chet Holmgren in 2022 largely on this basis despite far less efficient college stats, but Holmgren has almost certainly been the better pro from an impact standpoint.
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If you want an athletic guard because athletic guards get to the rim, a guard who already gets to the rim is a good bet, regardless of what he tests at the combine or what the aesthetics look like.
When we remember the great teams in NBA history, it’d be hard to not rank the Golden State Warriors dynasty from 2015 through 2022 near the top. Most narratives assume they caught lightning in a bottle, drafting Stephen Curry in 2009 and Draymond Green in 2012. But what if I told you those picks were layups? That the Warriors did something as simple as ignoring aesthetic biases — Steph was considered too frail to translate and Draymond didn’t fit a specific archetype — and simply selected the most productive players at their positions. Curry and Dray were two of the best college players two years before they were drafted. There are actually plausible arguments that both should have been drafted top five in 2007 and 2010, respectively. The cornerstones of a dynasty were not that difficult to identify years before anyone considered them future Hall of Famers.
“Analytical” scouting, which isn’t restricted to models, certainly has its place in NBA front offices today, but it’s not nearly as widespread as most fans would think. There seems to be this assumption that front offices are making decisions with extreme efficiency and little bias, but many teams still default to silhouette scouting — evaluating players based on physical traits and aesthetics rather than production, and projecting outcomes based on who a player looks like rather than what they’ve done. This might explain why Kon Knueppel got Joe Harris comparisons last season.
When a player consistently drives winning outcomes against high-level competition, the burden of proof reverses. The question shouldn’t be whether their game “looks” translatable, but whether there’s any structural reason it wouldn’t be. “Structural” might be doing a lot of work in that sentence, but we mean this should be grounded in real, current gaps in production — not just perceived translatability concerns. Luka Doncic shredded the EuroLeague before entering the NBA, winning its MVP in 2017–18, but fell to third behind Deandre Ayton (!!!) and Marvin Bagley III (?!?!?) because evaluators worried his lack of athleticism would neutralize his otherwise extraordinary skill set. It didn’t. Luka never became a great athlete; the traits that made him dominant in Europe simply remained dominant in the NBA. On the other hand, Jahlil Okafor was genuinely productive in 2014–15, but fell out of the league because of his low passing and defensive indicators — real holes in his profile, not just aesthetic concerns.
Nate Silver's comment is absolutely nothing but hindsight bias and fodder for draft nerds.
Sports is about aesthetics. That's primarily the reason why we watch. Professional sports is about the human ideal performing feats that average human beings cannot do. Sports isn't about inputs and outputs and raw production. It's about aesthetic beauty towards an objective. The perfect jumpshot, the perfect golf swing, the perfect baseball swing, the perfect through pass - sports is about that, it's not about winning. Aesthetics and athletic performance goes hand in the hand. No different than aesthetics and charisma. Or aesthetics and sexual attractiveness. Or aesthetics and discipline.
Aesthetics is fundamental all human activity, even sports. If a player's game is just straight up hideous. Full of double clutch, triple pump fake, muscle up layups, flat feet, can't jump, hunched over dribbling, but they win because they try harder than everyone else, or they become skilled enough with their athletic constraints, do you want that over a player like Michael Jordan?
Why was Michael Jordan the most aesthetic player of all time? Because he was one of the most athletic of all time. Big hands, body control, flexibility, and speed. He won because he was aesthetic. That athleticism allowed him to do things that even other NBA players cannot physically do. Then you combine his psychology and you get the most dominant guard the NBA has ever seen and cultural phenom.
Draymond Green played nothing like he did in college. Draymond was a senior, undecorated, do-it-all forward that was a tweener. He found his role in the NBA by being an defensive menace and enforcer. He acknowledges that. He could not play the same way he played in college because nobody needs that from a player with his dimensions and athleticism.
Stephen Curry had injury issues and had to put on weight. Now he is one of the strongest pound for pound NBA players in the league. He didn't stay weak. The issue that people had with Curry was the fact that he played SG until the last season of college career and wasn't a "TRUE POINT GUARD". It wasn't his weight. People stupidly still believed in having a "TRUE POINT GUARD" over a guy that can get buckets. And guess what, his SG role at Davidson is how he plays today. He isn't a "TRUE POINT GUARD". The negatives about him were right.
The Warriors didn't ignore aesthetic biases. Nobody ignores aesthetics biases, you account for them. You build around them or accentuate the strengths and minimize the weaknesses.
If the Warriors ignored aesthetic biases and thought Draymond and Curry were gonna be high end starters to HOFers simply because they were good in college, they would've moved up in the draft to get them. Especially for Curry.
Cameron Boozer has an ugly flat footed game because he isn't athletic. It's that simple. It isn't that deep. He has a bunch of triple pump-fakes and post foot work because he has too. He hulk smashes in the lane because he has to. His athletic constraints manifests in how he plays.
Stephen Curry was just skinny, he still had the best balling handling and shooting in his class. He still had the best hands in his class. He was still 6'2. His size and skillset fit his position.
Cameron Boozer is the best inside player in his class but he's 6'8 or 6'9 and not athletic nor highly skilled on the perimeter. Anybody that refuses to take that into account and rather just be like, "Well look at the stats", don't understand the purpose of sports. It's not just to win at all costs. It's to look good while doing it.
