Countdown to Ernie Grunfeld Firing (Part 2)

[Zonkerbl]

Shoot, we could use Sato right now. If he would just come over...

[closg00]

The Washington Wizards are interested in acquiring a backup point guard before the deadline, according to a source.

The Wizards have Garrett Temple and Eric Maynor on the depth chart behind John Wall.

The source, however, isn't optimistic of the Wizards' ability of executing a trade.
Via Marc J. Spears/Eric Maynor

Had enough Ted?

Grunfeld's insane rush to lock-up Eric Maynor while throwing-in a guaranteed 2-nd year will be what haunts the Wizards during the playoffs, AND what should be Ernie Grunfeld"s final failure.

[payitforward]

Hey! Thread is getting off topic.

Hands is not our GM. Firing him won't help the wizards. Only make Hands very sad.

Hey -- I love Hands; read back a page or two where I defended him from queridiculo, not the first time either.

[payitforward]

What angers you the most about EG?

For me it's frustrating seeing amateur GMs identify good players -- just by looking at their statistics! -- having those players be passed up by EG, and then seeing them end up performing as predicted.

I know there's a confirmation bias -- sure, there's lots of other players that should've been good but haven't, but still.

Steph Curry, Faried, Blair, Jae Crowder, I think are the ones that come to me off the top of my head. And Wolters. Who we had IN OUR HANDS.

It's one thing to have 20/20 hindsight and be like, oh, we should've drafted Kawhi Leonard. Because you can't predict that someone's going to develop a skill (three point range) they didn't have in college. But it's another thing entirely to miss out on a player who is performing now exactly as predicted based on their college statistics. That's what frustrates me the most.

I wanted Kawhi Leonard at #6 in 2011. Did I know he was going to be as good as he's turned out to be? No. But he was top of my board when the pick got to us. Well, more accurately, Faried was top of my board, but I felt certain he'd be there at 18 (and if he wasn't I figured there'd be a consolation prize: either Vucevic or Tobias Harris).

Confirmation bias -- I'd say that there are false positives, guys who put up good numbers in top-level NCAA play but don't turn into good NBA players, but I can't think of any false negatives -- guys who *don't* put up those good college numbers but turn into high-achieving NBA players. I can't come up with even one of those, and I'd like to hear about one if anyone else can.

[Zonkerbl]

If you heard the conversations I had about Crowder with a member of their front office...well, you'd be even more frustrated.

What did they say?

This guy talked about how they liked and respected Crowder. Said that Crowder did very well in their statistical models. And then dismissed the stats because he has "less than ideal size." I suggested he'd be a good pick in the 2nd round. There was some noncommittal muttering about seeing who was available at that spot.

And, they picked Satoransky instead.

Now, Crowder isn't a star. He probably won't ever be a star. He is a productive player, though -- reasonably efficient on offense, and making a significant impact on defense. He's very much the player I anticipated he'd be: tough, hard-working, and pretty good. Given that he plays hard, works hard, and is smart and competitive, there's every reason to think he'll continue improving.

God, what the heck is the point of a statistical model if you DON'T USE IT?!?!?!?!?!

[payitforward]

Note that Leonard was at the top of my board because he was an offensive-rebounding 3 prospect who got to the line a lot and put up outstanding overall numbers (high WS40 right from freshman year) but certainly not because of his 3-pt shooting. As a pro, he no longer is a big-time offensive-rebounding 3, he doesn't get to the line much, but he shoots the 3 !! and still puts up high WS40 numbers.

[Zonkerbl]

What angers you the most about EG?

For me it's frustrating seeing amateur GMs identify good players -- just by looking at their statistics! -- having those players be passed up by EG, and then seeing them end up performing as predicted.

I know there's a confirmation bias -- sure, there's lots of other players that should've been good but haven't, but still.

Steph Curry, Faried, Blair, Jae Crowder, I think are the ones that come to me off the top of my head. And Wolters. Who we had IN OUR HANDS.

It's one thing to have 20/20 hindsight and be like, oh, we should've drafted Kawhi Leonard. Because you can't predict that someone's going to develop a skill (three point range) they didn't have in college. But it's another thing entirely to miss out on a player who is performing now exactly as predicted based on their college statistics. That's what frustrates me the most.

I wanted Kawhi Leonard at #6 in 2011. Did I know he was going to be as good as he's turned out to be? No. But he was top of my board when the pick got to us. Well, more accurately, Faried was top of my board, but I felt certain he'd be there at 18 (and if he wasn't I figured there'd be a consolation prize: either Vucevic or Tobias Harris).

Confirmation bias -- I'd say that there are false positives, guys who put up good numbers in top-level NCAA play but don't turn into good NBA players, but I can't think of any false negatives -- guys who *don't* put up those good college numbers but turn into high-achieving NBA players. I can't come up with even one of those, and I'd like to hear about one if anyone else can.

Confirmation bias is when you see a player your model predicted to be successful have success in the league and you go, see, my model works! When the other 99 players your model predicted fail.

That's what EG thinks. When in fact what happens is his "eye test" players fail 90% of the time, while the statistical models only fail 25% of the time. EG sees a failure of the statistical model and says "See? You have to use your eyes!" While Dallas snatches up Jae Crowder and the Spurs snatch up everybody else.

[payitforward]

Hm...
Crowder's straight up stats are kinda underwhelming...

http://espn.go.com/nba/player/_/id/6581/jae-crowder

But he looks great on 82games:

http://www.82games.com/1314/1314DAL.HTM

Per 40 minutes, his numbers put him in the fat part of the curve of 3s. He's pretty good. And he's very good value. Now let me compare Satoransky's numbers in the league to his....

Sorry, can't seem to find them!

[payitforward]

If you heard the conversations I had about Crowder with a member of their front office...well, you'd be even more frustrated.

What did they say?

This guy talked about how they liked and respected Crowder. Said that Crowder did very well in their statistical models. And then dismissed the stats because he has "less than ideal size." I suggested he'd be a good pick in the 2nd round. There was some noncommittal muttering about seeing who was available at that spot.

And, they picked Satoransky instead.

Now, Crowder isn't a star. He probably won't ever be a star. He is a productive player, though -- reasonably efficient on offense, and making a significant impact on defense. He's very much the player I anticipated he'd be: tough, hard-working, and pretty good. Given that he plays hard, works hard, and is smart and competitive, there's every reason to think he'll continue improving.

Have you ever followed up with them? How do they like their decision in retrospect?

[payitforward]

Shoot, we could use Sato right now. If he would just come over...

Have no idea whether we could use Satoransky -- but we could use Crowder! Or Wolters! Or... (it's a long list!)

[Zonkerbl]

There really is way too much thinking going on with these GMs. I would hew closely to the statistics and deviate only when I had a really good reason to. Instead of like, well, his statistics look good, but that doesn't tell us ANYTHING.

You're throwing away good data. It's bad science.

[FAH1223]

Note that Leonard was at the top of my board because he was an offensive-rebounding 3 prospect who got to the line a lot and put up outstanding overall numbers (high WS40 right from freshman year) but certainly not because of his 3-pt shooting. As a pro, he no longer is a big-time offensive-rebounding 3, he doesn't get to the line much, but he shoots the 3 !! and still puts up high WS40 numbers.

He did a lot of rebounding in the Finals... Parker really should have gave him the ball more instead of chucking.

[payitforward]

Confirmation bias is when you see a player your model predicted to be successful have success in the league and you go, see, my model works! When the other 99 players your model predicted fail.

That's what EG thinks. When in fact what happens is his "eye test" players fail 90% of the time, while the statistical models only fail 25% of the time. EG sees a failure of the statistical model and says "See? You have to use your eyes!" While Dallas snatches up Jae Crowder and the Spurs snatch up everybody else.

I'm familiar with the term and the concept. In short confirmation bias is taking evidence more seriously if it supports your hypothesis and less seriously if it undercuts it.

See it all the time in the "science" around diet and disease, especially in this country.

As you do it's fraternal twin, selection bias -- choosing datasets that you know will support your hypothesis (and avoiding those that you know won't support it).

A classic example was the original 7-nation study that "proved" that a high-fat diet causes high cholesterol which then causes a high incidence of heart disease. France was originally slated to be in the study until someone pointed out that the French ate a high-fat diet but had a low incidence of heart disease. Oooops! Took France right out of the study.

[payitforward]

There really is way too much thinking going on with these GMs. ...

Is that what you call it! I was wondering....

[Nivek]

Have you ever followed up with them? How do they like their decision in retrospect?

The topic came up earlier in the season. The conversation was just about as infuriating as the "the stats say he's good, but we think he's too short to be any good -- even though he's tough, strong, hard-working, competitive, has great character and has been a leader on every team he's ever been on (and oh yeah, his dad's a great guy too)" conversation.

Basically, it was the "he wouldn't have been a good fit in our system" pablum. They're really happy he's doing well in Dallas, though.

[Zonkerbl]

Have you ever followed up with them? How do they like their decision in retrospect?

The topic came up earlier in the season. The conversation was just about as infuriating as the "the stats say he's good, but we think he's too short to be any good -- even though he's tough, strong, hard-working, competitive, has great character and has been a leader on every team he's ever been on (and oh yeah, his dad's a great guy too)" conversation.

Basically, it was the "he wouldn't have been a good fit in our system" pablum. They're really happy he's doing well in Dallas, though.

Wow.

Just, wow.

[closg00]

http://fansided.com/2014/02/10/nba-trad ... rd/#!u77df

Ernie trying to correct another gaff, can he work any magic?

[Zonkerbl]

Wait a minute. Jae Crowder is too short to be any good, but Trevor Booker is worth trading up for?

What the hell?

[tontoz]

*DOUBLE FACE PALM*

[FAH1223]

Have you ever followed up with them? How do they like their decision in retrospect?

The topic came up earlier in the season. The conversation was just about as infuriating as the "the stats say he's good, but we think he's too short to be any good -- even though he's tough, strong, hard-working, competitive, has great character and has been a leader on every team he's ever been on (and oh yeah, his dad's a great guy too)" conversation.

Basically, it was the "he wouldn't have been a good fit in our system" pablum. They're really happy he's doing well in Dallas, though.