I was watching a great talk from Christopher Chabris, author of The Invisible Gorilla and Other Ways Our Intuitions Deceive Us. As with other scientists who study the brain, he revealed our brains may not work as well as we think they do. Some of his points actually explain how NBA management, despite being full of successful business people and former players, can be as bad as it is. It breaks down to two simple truths:
- We’re bad at judging our own abilities
- Being good at one thing does not mean we’re good at everything.
We’re Bad at Judging Our Own Abilities
Check out the video at 42:30 to see the specifics on this.
When analyzing basketball players a common theme comes up. People say it is hard to get a real objective measure of a player because of different variables and intangibles including:
- Clutch
- Leadership
- Different Teams
- Defense
- etc.
While I feel that these factors are overestimated, it’s true that basketball is not played in a vacuum. Let’s consider instead the gold standard of rating systems: chess. Chess is a one-on-one game. The rating system adjusts for your skill and the skill of your opponents and estimates your odds of winning against any given opponent. In short, the chess rating system is what we dream of when we look at pro sports. So what happens when you ask chess players about this perfect in a vacuum rating system?
They estimate that they are twice as good as they really are!
Yes, when you ask chess players to rank themselves, it turns out that they think they would win against themselves twice as often as their rating says. This feature of human cognition is especially important in a competitive field: most management thinks they are better than they really are. This explains how so many can be upset at their inability to win or make money–they think they should be making more or winning more because they aren’t good at judging themselves. Dave Berri has also pointed out that former players when given management roles may overvalue their old skills and look for similar players (with disastrous effects)
Good at One Thing Does Not Mean Good At Everything
Check out the video at 44:00 to see specifics on this.
Chabris performed an experiment in which participants were asked to draw a diagram of a bike. Many people failed miserably at this. More impressive was that even the people who rode their bike every day still had problems with the task. Likewise, players might assume that because they played ball for ten years they’ll be good at management. Owners might assume because they ran a successful company that running a team will be easy. But all the evidence indicates that it just doesn’t work that way. Being an expert at one aspect of something does not mean you’ll be great at related but different tasks. What’s worse is that your experience will cause you to overrate your skills in the related field!
Why This is Bad
These problems are not unique to chess players or NBA owners. The general trend in behavioral economics is that we have many flaws that prevent us from acting rationally. Normally when people are bad at judging their abilities it’s not a problem. If a chess player says they are twice as good as their rating it doesn’t mean they win more often. If an avid bike rider tries to get a job as a bike mechanic they’ll probably be shown the door without more training. However, with the owners things are different. When they fail, rather than leave, they have the option of being destructive. They can lock out the league and demand rule changes that may be detrimental in the long run. So the lesson is that we shouldn’t let the people making the decisions also be the people to judge those decisions. Unfortunately in the NBA that is exactly what has happened and as a result we all lose.
-Dre
Wages of Wins Journal 
wiLQ
November 18, 2011
Here’s my question: why do owners have so much trouble judging GMs?
I’m surprised how few of them are fired over multiple bad lottery picks and/or trades.
Dre
November 18, 2011
wiLQ,
Oooh I was going to reply but I think I have another video and post out of that topic!
Wayne Crimi
November 19, 2011
wiLQ,
It seems to me that a big part of the draft is luck. Aside from injuries (like Greg Oden), it has become fashionable to draft very young players with enormous upside. That raises the probability of either hitting a home run or striking out vs, taking a 22 year old guy you know will be productive right away but with a much lower ceiling, It’s hard to tell which guys with enormous physical and athletic gifts are going to develop into star players and which won’t. If you swing for the fences and strike out, it’s not clear if you did the wrong thing. You just know you got a bad result. It’s not like you could bench Reggie Jackson in the middle of October just because he struck out twice with men on base. It happens. I think draft results need to be evaluated over a longer period of time.
I think the trade side is much more revealing because you are usually dealing with players with established form and salaries.
pwbrannan
November 20, 2011
wiLQ,
Some teams sure get luckier than others. Is it luck that the Wolves have been terrible despite drafting consistently in the top 10, while the Jazz have consistently been able to find rotation players? Or that the Spurs are the Spurs and the Clippers are That Other Team From LA?
It could be. But I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the Jazz/Spurs have low coaching turnover AND do well making trades AND draft well, while the Wolves/Clippers don’t.
As mentioned above, good at one thing does not mean being good at everything. I’d be interested to see if there’s any correlation between how well GMs do drafting and signing FAs.
I agree that luck plays a part. But numbers from college/Europe are generally good indicators. “Physical gifts”, while certainly enamoring, are not. Most NBA prospects have been playing at an organized, competitive level since they were 10 years old. How much do you expect them to improve at the NBA, and how good can you expect them to be if they weren’t dominant against lower level competition? I’m all for drafting for upside, but it’s extremely rare for a previously unproductive player to excel in the NBA.
wiLQ
November 21, 2011
pwbrannan,
You’ve answered to Wayne’s comment not mine ;-)
But I agree with your point of view and I would add one more thing: if any GM believes that draft is a total crapshoot, he should sell those picks for players proven in the NBA!
Wayne Crimi
November 21, 2011
I wasn’t implying that anyone drafts players just because they are athletically gifted. I don’t think that happens very often. They are looking for players that are reasonably productive for their age and projecting probable improvement based on athleticism, work ethic, and a long list of other factors that aren’t on the stat sheet YET.
The less productive young player with higher upside is often a WAY better value than the more productive older player with limited upside. However, it’s a riskier strategy.
It’s kind of like paying more for a high growth company than a mature stalwart company even though the latter is earning more money now. It’s very logical and often correct, but it’s riskier and you better be sure about that growth or you’ll get burned.
If you want to compare drafting skills to trading and FA skills a good test case to prove they are different (or that you need very large samples) might be Isiah Thomas. He’s had excellent results drafting but atrocious results trading and signing FAs.