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John Hollinger, a long-time ESPN.com columnist and inventor of the Player Efficiency Rating (PER) for evaluating basketball players, is joining the Memphis Grizzlies front office as its Vice President of Basketball Operations. This is wacky on a number of levels. First, it represents the ongoing rise of the numbers geek in sports, a movement pioneered [...]
Last week, Sports Illustrated published an article about Georgetown’s basketball program and its coach, John Thompson III. Georgetown has a long tradition of producing skilled big men, starting with Thompson’s father in the 1970s and 1980s. And while Thompson has continued that tradition, he’s gained a reputation for something different: Much has been made about [...]
My friend, Andrew, recently gave me the book, Scorecasting. Just started reading it (thank you, Kindle), and I came across this excerpt: Exploring the hidden side of sports reveals the following: That which is recognizable or apparent is often given too much credit, whereas the real answer often lies concealed. Incentives are powerful motivators and [...]
Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. I know nothing about Tiger Woods as a person. Well, that’s not entirely true. I actually know much more than I want to know. But that’s not what this is about. This is about learning. And when it comes to his craft, Tiger Woods is the model learner. He became a [...]
During last Saturday’s playoff game between the Cubs and Marlins, Tim McCarver raised an interesting point about baseball players. He noted that when a player was hitting well, he would usually just shrug his shoulders about it and not try to analyze it for fear of jinxing things. However, when a player was in a [...]
