Chad Ford changing and editing his draft boards for past years?!

[Knosh]

But we've been told by multiple current and former ESPN employees, none of whom wanted their names used, that the specific system used for the ESPN Insider NBA draft rankings pages runs under an entirely different, dynamic process—one they suggest is outdated and a remnant of the old Go.com era—and that the data administration tool used to construct the draft page has "far less oversight and audit records" than ESPN's standard CMS.

http://deadspin.com/sources-espn-really ... 1681858027

That doesn't surprise me since the draft rankings go back to early 2000's. It's just some internal web tool that likely just has a few weeks of we server logs retained at any given time.

except when I examined the source code for the 2003 draft (http://insider.espn.go.com/nbadraft/res ... /year/2003 ), I found the following code which was generated by the so called Omniture SiteCatalyst, now renamed as Adobe Marketing Cloud:
<!-- SiteCatalyst code version: H.21.3 Copyright 1997-2010 Omniture, Inc. http://www.omniture.com -->

There was also trace of using conditions for IE9, which was introduced in 2011. So they do have the proper tools to rework the old data and I would think a 2010 management suite would have enough information to determine who was the man behind this?

I don't see how that tells you anything about what goes into editing the page though. Obviously the look of the page has ben changed since 2003. Obviously it supports IE9. So they changed how they display the content. Doesn't mean they changed how the content is submitted and can be edited.

It's pretty embarassing for ESPN nonetheless.

[GreatWhiteStiff]

Disgusting how he makes millions every year and posters here create better content every day for free

Does he really make millions?

I don't know how much he makes, but it aint that much. He's a part time reporter, works as a teacher for his day job. He writes like 1-2 short articles a week and updates the big board every couple of weeks. That wouldn't take most writers more than 5-10 hours per week.

No idea if he teaches or what he teaches, but IMO if he's guilty of this as it seems he could be he should be fired from that job. I don't see how people can respect his intellectual honesty or he can have some sort of academic credibility after this. Of course this probably will not happen.

I honestly don't know how someone could go around changing his draft rankings without him knowing about it and or even being able to figure out who did it...and what is this persons motivation for improving chad ford's ranking years after the fact, its weird if it is chad ford, it seems (to me) a lot weirder if it isn't and chad ford hasn't a clue who could be doing it, or that his rankings have changed at all. Its some we love Eurasia we've always loved Eurasia/we hate Eurasia we've always hated Eurasia 1984 type of ****.

[insfo]

...so ok, is there any news station that's credible in America

Aljazeera is actually pretty good.

Wow, your sig is unbelievable.

Yeah, it was so unbelievable, that I went back and found the thread to prove to myself that this actually was true linky

[cpower]

http://deadspin.com/sources-espn-really ... 1681858027

That doesn't surprise me since the draft rankings go back to early 2000's. It's just some internal web tool that likely just has a few weeks of we server logs retained at any given time.

except when I examined the source code for the 2003 draft (http://insider.espn.go.com/nbadraft/res ... /year/2003 ), I found the following code which was generated by the so called Omniture SiteCatalyst, now renamed as Adobe Marketing Cloud:
<!-- SiteCatalyst code version: H.21.3 Copyright 1997-2010 Omniture, Inc. http://www.omniture.com -->

There was also trace of using conditions for IE9, which was introduced in 2011. So they do have the proper tools to rework the old data and I would think a 2010 management suite would have enough information to determine who was the man behind this?

I don't see how that tells you anything about what goes into editing the page though. Obviously the look of the page has ben changed since 2003. Obviously it supports IE9. So they changed how they display the content. Doesn't mean they changed how the content is submitted and can be edited.

It's pretty embarassing for ESPN nonetheless.

All I am saying is the code was generated and not hand-coded. I dont believe Chad Ford was an IT guy who has the authority and ability to edit the html/css himself without code generation. So Who run the software and who passed the generated artifact to the publishing directory? LOL ESPN knew exactly what's going on.

[Knosh]

except when I examined the source code for the 2003 draft (http://insider.espn.go.com/nbadraft/res ... /year/2003 ), I found the following code which was generated by the so called Omniture SiteCatalyst, now renamed as Adobe Marketing Cloud:
<!-- SiteCatalyst code version: H.21.3 Copyright 1997-2010 Omniture, Inc. http://www.omniture.com -->

There was also trace of using conditions for IE9, which was introduced in 2011. So they do have the proper tools to rework the old data and I would think a 2010 management suite would have enough information to determine who was the man behind this?

I don't see how that tells you anything about what goes into editing the page though. Obviously the look of the page has ben changed since 2003. Obviously it supports IE9. So they changed how they display the content. Doesn't mean they changed how the content is submitted and can be edited.

It's pretty embarassing for ESPN nonetheless.

All I am saying is the code was generated and not hand-coded. I dont believe Chad Ford was an IT guy who has the authority and ability to edit the html/css himself without code generation. So Who run the software and who passed the generated artifact to the publishing directory? LOL ESPN knew exactly what's going on.

The ESPN sources from that deadspin article aren't claiming that you actually have to hand-edit some html code to edit those pages. They are talking about a different outdated tool with less oversight.

[NashtyNas]

And people on twitter still going after this guy.

[tweet]https://twitter.com/vancityvigilant/status/560223315822780416[/tweet]

I hope this doesn't blow over. Someone needs to be fired.

[HotelVitale]

Does he really make millions?

I don't know how much he makes, but it aint that much. He's a part time reporter, works as a teacher for his day job. He writes like 1-2 short articles a week and updates the big board every couple of weeks. That wouldn't take most writers more than 5-10 hours per week.

No idea if he teaches or what he teaches, but IMO if he's guilty of this as it seems he could be he should be fired from that job. I don't see how people can respect his intellectual honesty or he can have some sort of academic credibility after this. Of course this probably will not happen.
I honestly don't know how someone could go around changing his draft rankings without him knowing about it and or even being able to figure out who did it...and what is this persons motivation for improving chad ford's ranking years after the fact, its weird if it is chad ford, it seems (to me) a lot weirder if it isn't and chad ford hasn't a clue who could be doing it.

If I remember right he teaches crisis management. I don't think anyone should lose their job over something like that, just doesn't seem like a big deal. If it's him, then he's guilty of being kind of a loser. But the rankings aren't peer-reviewed research, and he's not outright lying about them (there's nothing on the webpage that says 'these rankings are from X/Y date' or 'these represent my rankings from before the draft'). So he hasn't broken any explicit rule of academia that would get him fired. I wouldn't mind him getting fired since espn can easily find a better draft analyst, but I don't think he should be dropped just for that.

Also, to repeat again: the big board rankings are NOT his own rankings of the best players. Officially they're an estimate of how high players' stocks are in the eyes of GMs and scouts around the league. I keep up with them and a half dozen other pre-draft rankings every year, and I've never considered them the opinion of Chad Ford and he doesn't really present them that way. (That said, even though the rankings aren't technically his, I guess it's plausible he would have some secondary motives for making him look better--so he can talk trash with Simmons, so he can claim some more authority on the draft, etc.)

[NashtyNas]

If I remember right he teaches crisis management. I don't think anyone should lose their job over something like that, just doesn't seem like a big deal. If it's him, then he's guilty of being kind of a loser. But the rankings aren't peer-reviewed research, and he's not outright lying about them (there's nothing on the webpage that says 'these rankings are from X/Y date' or 'these represent my rankings from before the draft'). So he hasn't broken any explicit rule of academia that would get him fired. I wouldn't mind him getting fired since espn can easily find a better draft analyst, but I don't think he should be dropped just for that.

Also, to repeat again: the big board rankings are NOT his own rankings of the best players. Officially they're an estimate of how high players' stocks are in the eyes of GMs and scouts around the league. I keep up with them and a half dozen other pre-draft rankings every year, and I've never considered them the opinion of Chad Ford and he doesn't really present them that way. (That said, even though the rankings aren't technically his, I guess it's plausible he would have some secondary motives for making him look better--so he can talk trash with Simmons, so he can claim some more authority on the draft, etc.)

When you are paid to bring in viewers and analyse players PRIOR to a certain event and you have become "credible" for putting out "quality" analysis in the past which leads to said viewer ship, you are expected to conform to the highest of standards. You are expected to provide information true to what you know prior to that event occurring (ie. the draft). This hurts not only his personal credibility, but whatever little credibility ESPN has. If that's not cause enough to fire someone, I don't know what is.

This is like me going in to work and changing my stock picks from last week, or last month, or last year to make them look better on paper. That still doesn't change the fact that I had to get that the information I gave out wasn't great in the first place, nor does it make me credible. In fact, it makes me a liar, a cheater and a fraud. It also hurts the credibility of my employer.

[AustinPowers]

To me, you have to be a notch above "casual" to follow the NBA draft. And then Chad has his content behind a paywall. So I kind of like seeing him and ESPN trying to salvage the wreck because that frame is never gonna straighten. His demographic is closer to NBA diehards and now he'll always have a red nose and floppy shoes. If they fired him and brought in a new Zach Lowe, that would be a bummer for the WWL haters (like me).

[yellowsub264]

Am I missing something? I clicked on the reddit link and for the 2013 draft everything looks the same on both links. I dont get it. It says he changed Karasev but his ranking still shows 19/19 on both. Can anyone explain what I'm suppose to be looking at lol. What am I missing or what dont I get?

[AustinPowers]

Am I missing something? I clicked on the reddit link and for the 2013 draft everything looks the same on both links. I dont get it. It says he changed Karasev but his ranking still shows 19/19 on both. Can anyone explain what I'm suppose to be looking at lol. What am I missing or what dont I get?

They changed it back to the original rankings early the next morning

[yellowsub264]

Am I missing something? I clicked on the reddit link and for the 2013 draft everything looks the same on both links. I dont get it. It says he changed Karasev but his ranking still shows 19/19 on both. Can anyone explain what I'm suppose to be looking at lol. What am I missing or what dont I get?

They changed it back to the original rankings early the next morning

Ok, I just read the link at the bottom of the reddit page. Just another reason to never pay attention to espn.

[floppymoose]

Even if there were records, I doubt we will find out that a user by the name of 'chadbball2013' will be outed. It will be some IT guy, just like the Patriots and the locker room attendant.

No, the writers typically have access to these kinds of tools to edit their content. I don't work at espn so I can't be sure about their setup - just talking about the online media world in general.

[floppymoose]

But we've been told by multiple current and former ESPN employees, none of whom wanted their names used, that the specific system used for the ESPN Insider NBA draft rankings pages runs under an entirely different, dynamic process—one they suggest is outdated and a remnant of the old Go.com era—and that the data administration tool used to construct the draft page has "far less oversight and audit records" than ESPN's standard CMS.

http://deadspin.com/sources-espn-really ... 1681858027

That doesn't surprise me since the draft rankings go back to early 2000's. It's just some internal web tool that likely just has a few weeks of we server logs retained at any given time.

except when I examined the source code for the 2003 draft (http://insider.espn.go.com/nbadraft/res ... /year/2003 ), I found the following code which was generated by the so called Omniture SiteCatalyst, now renamed as Adobe Marketing Cloud:
<!-- SiteCatalyst code version: H.21.3 Copyright 1997-2010 Omniture, Inc. http://www.omniture.com -->

There was also trace of using conditions for IE9, which was introduced in 2011. So they do have the proper tools to rework the old data and I would think a 2010 management suite would have enough information to determine who was the man behind this?

The code that processes the database into webpages is likely completely separate from the tool that lets Chad input his rankings and comments into the database.

[HartfordWhalers]

Full chat today with zero mention of it. The response by him and Espn have been anything but confidence instilling.

[pacers33granger]

Unfortunately it doesn't look like anything will come of this. ESPN is mainly watched by casual fans. The only hardcore fans I know of who watch it usually just have it on as background noise and don't pay attention to it. If you look at Ford's chats, people ask him about things like trades all the time in there even though he likely has no more knowledge than your average RealGM poster on trades since he's a draft guy. And casual fans likely don't really know about all this or care.

[Doctor MJ]

It's so weird to me that he, or anyone else, would feel a temptation to do this given that Ford isn't supposed to be giving his opinion, he's supposed to be going by what teams actually think.

So, when MCW gets moved up from #9 on Ford's actual board to #7 on the fake version, he's actually getting further off the mark from what was actually thought at the time (#11). WTF?

I wonder if we'll ever know the story here. It won't shock me if it turns out to be someone other than Ford who is responsible for this. Regardless, it obviously make him look bad...but realistically, if Darko couldn't kill Ford's career, it's hard to imagine this would.

If ford isn't responsible for falsifying his mock drafts after the fact (not that this is some serious crime lol), then why is he ok with it? And why wouldn't he say anything about it now? Changing your draft rankings later to seem more right should kill all your credibility and it should also kill espn's credibility because they are clearly complicit in covering this up. So if ford isn't responsible, he'll come out and say so...or at least he should.

edit: espn is probably not covering it up I guess.

To be clear: My response came within hours of this stuff breaking while it was still quite plausible for Ford to not know what was going on - and before ESPN went and changed everything back to how it actually was when the drafts in question happened.

So at this stage, Ford knows, and ESPN management knows, and actually, now ESPN has issued a response saying that some unknown employee did it, but that it wasn't Ford.

So yeah, if it were Ford now, I certainly wouldn't sue given that ESPN publicly has my back. Instead I'd try to have fun with it with some jokes at his own expense (insert Darko here).

Interestingly it appears that the changes took place in 2012, and they occurred up through the 2012 draft when they happened. So it's not like whoever did this thought people wouldn't notice a change from drafts in the deeper past, they were just changing everything. That doesn't tell us who did it, but it does hammer in how stupid it was.

[Alfred]

Full chat today with zero mention of it. The response by him and Espn have been anything but confidence instilling.

Yep, they are going full on with the "hope it blows over" approach.

[Senchu]

Guy, we should all inform Woj about this #ChadenFraud. He absolutely hates ESPN and could use it as an ammo vs them!

[HotelVitale]

Also, to repeat again: the big board rankings are NOT his own rankings of the best players. Officially they're an estimate of how high players' stocks are in the eyes of GMs and scouts around the league. I keep up with them and a half dozen other pre-draft rankings every year, and I've never considered them the opinion of Chad Ford and he doesn't really present them that way. (That said, even though the rankings aren't technically his, I guess it's plausible he would have some secondary motives for making him look better--so he can talk trash with Simmons, so he can claim some more authority on the draft, etc.)

This is like me going in to work and changing my stock picks from last week, or last month, or last year to make them look better on paper. That still doesn't change the fact that I had to get that the information I gave out wasn't great in the first place, nor does it make me credible. In fact, it makes me a liar, a cheater and a fraud. It also hurts the credibility of my employer.

No it's like you writing a blog called, 'Here I Will Report What Other Investors Think about Stocks Now,' and then changing your reports around after a year. It's still suspicious--and make him look like a loser--but since he's officially just reporting what other people are saying about draft buzz, he has enough of an out not to be fired.