There is continued instability in the Kings front office.

High profile former ESPN analytics guru, Dean Oliver who was hand picked by owner Vivek Ranadive, as Director of Player Personnel, and Head of Analytics a season ago, and who has multiple years left on his contract with the Kings - was told by new Kings VP Vlade Divac not to attend NBA Summer League.

Oliver was in attendance anyway and was seen with King coaches. Oliver was not permitted to be there in his official capacity with the team.

Divac has told confidants that he is strongly opposed to the use of analytics in evaluating players, and has halted all communication with Oliver

WaltLongmire wrote:Does an "analytics guru" really need to watch players in a live game setting to make an analytics based evaluation on a particular player?

It depends if the guru is just there to present data or will they also make decisions.

WaltLongmire wrote:Does an "analytics guru" really need to watch players in a live game setting to make an analytics based evaluation on a particular player?

Modern "sports science" at the cutting edge monitor player hydration ( the water bottles are low jacked) and sleep cycles. They also rig equipment to players to track their movement. Most cutting edge sports science attempts to optimize a players training time and also factors in needed down time based on the individual players performance.

Some pretty interesting stuff. Some used by Sam Hinkie and the 76ers, some by Chip Kelly, even back when he was in college and some used by Pete Carroll with the Seahawks ( fascinating stuff on NFL skill players and trying to evaluate them using SPARQ scoring)

In short, if the Kings want to be competitive and on the cutting edge of sports science usage, while factoring in how analytics play into it, yes, there should be a full team with the players around the clock.

Vlade Divac probably doesn't hate sports science and analytics, he does likely hate the massive backlash he got from trade gutting/trade raping himself in the Nik Stauskas deal. I mean he got run over the rails by the sports media. That trade will ensure he will be crapped on for the next three years.

One of the reasons why the Germans pushed so far into the Soviet Union in WW2 was that Stalin purged many of his top military leaders and generals and advisors. Rumor was Stalin was about 5'5 to 5'6 and was always self conscious of any of his military advisors being taller than him. So dudes got clipped.

You can't have insecure and untrained people in positions of power like Divac. Dude is just clipping the easy targets around him because he is being raked over the coals right now in the media.

EVERY NBA TEAM SHOULD HAVE AN ANALYTICS DEPARTMENT, if only to try to understand better what other teams are doing. Even if you refuse to do it yourself, you need to be able to deal with it so you can try to be predictive about your competitions behavior.

CrushAlot wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

mreinman wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Does an "analytics guru" really need to watch players in a live game setting to make an analytics based evaluation on a particular player?

It depends if the guru is just there to present data or will they also make decisions.

In theory, though, is it possible for someone like this to simply take data on a player, put it through the analytics "blender," and then reach conclusions about the value of that player to a team without ever even seeing the player perform in an actual game?

Well guys sometimes use analytics without seeing a player on here to evaluate and it is usually very obvious that they haven't watched the player much if at all.

analytics are not good enough yet to use by itself.

yellowboy90 wrote:

mreinman wrote:

CrushAlot wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

mreinman wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Does an "analytics guru" really need to watch players in a live game setting to make an analytics based evaluation on a particular player?

It depends if the guru is just there to present data or will they also make decisions.

In theory, though, is it possible for someone like this to simply take data on a player, put it through the analytics "blender," and then reach conclusions about the value of that player to a team without ever even seeing the player perform in an actual game?

Well guys sometimes use analytics without seeing a player on here to evaluate and it is usually very obvious that they haven't watched the player much if at all.

analytics are not good enough yet to use by itself.

Maybe but who knows what in house analytics teams have. I think this is just another attack at Karl because I believe Dean Oliver was a consultant with Denver back when Karl was there.

Taken from a Benjamin Hochman article when Oliver got hired by ESPN in 2011:

One of my favorite stories I’ve written for The Denver Post was about Dean Oliver, the Nuggets’ director of quantitative analysis or, as Carmelo Anthony described him, “George Karl’s brains.”

In this story, we met Oliver, whose math and perspective helped make the Nuggets better – and help confirm the front office’s belief that North Carolina guard Ty Lawson could be a good pro.

They will be a fun franchise to observe from a distance this upcoming season.

Tweet was deleted or there was problem with the URL:

https://twitter.com/netw3rk/status/625379814615203840

CrushAlot wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:

mreinman wrote:

WaltLongmire wrote:Does an "analytics guru" really need to watch players in a live game setting to make an analytics based evaluation on a particular player?

It depends if the guru is just there to present data or will they also make decisions.

In theory, though, is it possible for someone like this to simply take data on a player, put it through the analytics "blender," and then reach conclusions about the value of that player to a team without ever even seeing the player perform in an actual game?

Well guys sometimes use analytics without seeing a player on here to evaluate and it is usually very obvious that they haven't watched the player much if at all.

you're misrepresenting once again. why do you do this? there is no point to it, really.

here's what happens with "some posters":

1)i see a player play live
2)i study his habits and tendencies
3)i reach a conclusion
4)i look at the box score to see whether the numbers correspond to what i saw and interpreted
5)i look further into the advanced box scores to further corroborate what i have seen to have a more nuanced evaluation

if by studying subsequent box scores i see the same patterns and numbers i can safely conclude what sort of game and what sort of player we are talking about, and yes-- sight unseen!

your statement "usually very obvious that they haven't watched the player very much if at all" = "i do not agree with that poster's evaluation so i am going to passive-aggressively poke holes any way i can"

BRIGGS wrote:This is phony baloney stuff. Id like to hear 1 time when an analytic judgement was used and worked in the NBA.

uh ... duh ... uh

like for every damn team.

you can't be serious with these posts.

BRIGGS wrote:

mreinman wrote:

BRIGGS wrote:This is phony baloney stuff. Id like to hear 1 time when an analytic judgement was used and worked in the NBA.

uh ... duh ... uh

like for every damn team.

you can't be serious with these posts.

Here is the analiytics the Kniocks put into making selection 4
Phil: How tall is he
Scout:7'2.5

done.

and you just showed how smart you are.

analytics are definitely not for you.