Great Inside Look at Sacramento Drafting Nik Stauskas.
Inside look at the Kings draft room as they draft Nik Stauskas. I must say, however, the draft room discussion doesn't sound much more savvy or intelligent than the discussions I have with my buddies leading up to the draft.
Yeah, that was...how to put this delicately...far less impressive than I would expect. Makes you appreciate a front office that can consistently identify talented players outside the consensus "cream of the crop" guys.
The people in charge of things are just in charge of them, for no reason (other than money, usually).
It's not rocket science - if the owner says "Nik Stauskas", you repeat "Nik Stauskas".
Here is the video poriton of it anyway...
Always want to see your guys go somewhere they are appreciated.
Couple interesting things:
1. They heard Boston at 5(!!!) was gonna take Stauskas. That's pretty impressive even if it's just a rumor b/c they believed it! That really means they think he's that good.
2. The GM actually thinking Parker was gonna go #1. I read an article about Parker's workout with Cleveland and even I knew it was gonna be Wiggins (Parker basically looked bad, overweight, and people thought he tanked the workout b/c he wanted to go to the Bucks). So I guess maybe this negates my point #1? I don't know but I do agree with some research I could have contributed to their draft. There's a ton of stuff they don't show, obviously, but point stands. Also, who were those guys they brought in with their analyses?
i doubt they are stats, math, computer science, or econ majors. probably business majors, maybe comm majors.
you'd know that they were in fact "interns" with backgrounds in stats, math and computer science from some of the most prestigious schools in the country. And, I am sure, there are full-time people on the Kings staff who do sabermetrics--particularly, as computing is how Ranadive (the owner) became a paper billionaire.
And I agree with whoever reinforced that this clip is just a snapshot into what the Kings did in preparation.
the head of analytics for the kings, rishabh desai, was a comm major from san fran state university.
did another second of creeping and 1 of the guys in the video was a film major from dartmouth.
you'd think if these teams wanted to really push the edge of analytics they'd spend some money and get statisticians, eecs, etc.
To me it seems like nobody had met those guys before. I know they were doing this "crowdsourcing" thing. I wonder if those were actually guys outside of the organization that were picked to come give their input.
in that we got to see it, but what actually happened seems pretty lame. "Nik Rocks" are you serious Clark? All those dudes looked like they were at thier boss's kids birthday party.
Man I think I said NIk Rocks after he hit that fade away 3 against State at Breslin. Oh well I must not be cool anymore. Wait maybe I never have been....hmmm
You mean you guys aren't down for a real California welcome?
probably the most boater exchange i've ever heard. sounds exactly like something my dad woulda said 20 years ago.
This one is of Nik's dad and the behind the scenes of his draft day. A lot of awesome Canadian accents in this one!
interesting, sacbee has an article titled "Kings hoping that Stauskas helps change shoot-first culture". NJAS!
Also, fun quiz. How well did you do? I missed 2 :(
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/06/27/6518565/quiz-do-you-know-nik-stauskas…
7/7 do i get to leave work early now?
Also, I am sure the Kings have other "quants" on the staff. However, the “crowdsourcing” “quants” who helped them probably did provide some cogent analyses. Eg An MIT grad, who currently runs a stock fund (Carlton Chin) actually wrote a book on using quantitative analysis to aid sports decisions. To see what kind of input he provided, you really need to look at a graph from a prior you tube video. Since I do not know how to embed a picture, you can stop the video at about 19 seconds and blow it up. Alternatively, let me just explain what I saw.
One graph from Chin (Draft value as a function of pick) showed the estimated value of a draft pick for this year is greater than the average value for other years for each pick from #3 to #14. So, if Sacto were to consider trading their #8 pick this year for another player or a draft pick in some other future years, it would on average need to get more than usual in return. The opposite would be the case, however, if Sacto decided to trade up to the #1 or #2 pick, which this year was lower than in other years.
There are a lot of other factors that the "quants" apparently considered, including computer simulations of ball movement and scoring averages based on whether they draft a shooter or someone more adept in assists or rebounding. Also, some information included graphs of player contribution as a function of year after draft. Such data could help them in deciding how to manage their roster (e.g., unload veterans so that the younger players peak together 4-5 years down the road).
Of course, there is more that mere player development involved in managing the temporal dynamics of the roster. eg I wonder whether the “quants” analyzed the possibility that players on a bad team would have a tougher time attracting the top free agents—as well as lose their own players to free agency. Regrettably, that has been the recent history of Sacto.
http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-sacramento-kings-fans-20140628-story.html
http://cowbellkingdom.com/how-the-sacramento-kings-crowdsourced-the-201…
That was a painful seven minutes to endure. I didn't make it all the way through to the end.
LINK to their process.
And, while we're at it, Nik's introductory press conference:
http://www.nba.com/kings/nik-stauskas-introductory-press-conference
i'm perfectly capable of doing what the owner tells me to do. i assume i can be a GM now, right?
Hits 17 of 20 at the end of the clip and his mom says "oh don't start that" when he misses for the last time. Relax, mom, he's on tthe team.