John Hollinger sucked at the 2012 draft too

As has been established in the previous blog, John Hollinger essentially got his job running the Memphis Grizzlies from his work with stats at ESPN.  Hollinger gets good press, by all accounts is a nice man who knows how to kiss the right media butts.  The problem is Hollinger should never have been hired in the first place, as we recounted in the 2011 draft some of his ratings were downright laughable.  Now lets move on to the 2012 draft, remember he got his job precisely cause his stats are great at determining good basketball players

Here is a link to the ratings:

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=221234

First off lets go over what Hollinger had right (remember this is the year before he took the Grizzlies job).  He like the rest of America had Anthony Davis as the number one player.    Remember Memphis Grizzlies fans less then a year after demonstrating his scouting acumen with this list.  He was hired to run your team.

The only ranking for 2012 Hollinger got right was Andre Drummond at number 5.

Here are the rankings he completely blew:

Thomas Robinson #2 (stinks)

Quincy Miller #6 Yes, Grizzlies, your team hired a GM who last year thought Quincy Miller was the sixth best prospect in the draft.

Terrance Jones #8

Royce White #10 two huge busts

Bradley Beal #11, yes you read that right, your new GM had Royce White and Quincy Miller ahead of Bradley Beal.  Beal was consensus 2nd best player in the class.  The consensus was right.  Hollinger went against consensus and was terribly wrong

Damon Lillard #18 Congrats Memphis Grizzlies your new GM thought the number 5 pick and Rookie of the year for this class was the #18 best prospect.

Furken Aldamir #21 Will Barton #22-  This man now runs an NBA team

Terrance Ross #27- Yea, he is your GM

Remind me, again what exactly this man has done to earn the right to run an NBA team.

The Myth of Hollinger's predictive success

John Hollinger is now running the Memphis Grizzlies.  John Hollinger comes from the field of analytics, where statisticians analyze basketball, to proof they are smarter then everybody else.  The thought is that statistics can be used to measure a players performance and how they do.  As one can tell, when analytics people get in charge of basketball franchises the media begins a full bore love affair, especially the stats community.  The thought is that stats can do no wrong and will always lead you to the better choice.  Part of this is the media's inability to breakdown flaws statistical reasoning since most were journalism majors (unlike the writer here, forgive my grammatical destruction).  They fail to see the flaw in some of their calculations, and the pro analytic crowd will talk about their foresight.  Apparently, they were the first people to realize that shooting a jumper a step in from the three point line is a bad shot.  But, I am not here is degrade analytics people, John Hollinger did not work his way up through the system like a normal NBA executive, he ran a blog of stats in the NBA.  This has left a track record.  I keep hearing about his great track record on predicting successful players, actually an examination of the numbers indicates that is a false premise.  In fact Hollinger's draft rankings were embarrassingly horrible.

I am not arguing the Rudy Gay trade was bad, I understand the reason for it.  Could they have beaten the Spurs with a small forward with range, I doubt it.  Would they have won a game or two, most likely.  In fact, I think trading Zach Randolph this summer is probably a good idea.  I think getting rid of Hollins shows a naivety about a skeptical NBA fan base, and this regime is risking a serious backlash.

But onto Hollingers scouting acumen.  Lets us focus on the 2011 draft
Here is a link to his 2011 ratings:
http://realcavsfans.com/showthread.php?37205-Hollinger-s-Draft-Rater-Who-wiill-be-good-pros

He had Kyrie Irving number one like everyone else on the planet.  He had bust Derrick Williams number two, so I guess the draft rater is not good at sniffing out busts.  He did have Valucianas and Kawmi Leonard four and five so he deserves credit there.  He was also down on the Morris twins and Josh Selby, so he called that correctly as well.  But looking at some of the players he had rated higher then they went:
10. Jordan Hamilton
13. Tyler Honeycutt
24. Greg Smith
28. Davis Bertans (a spot ahead of Kenneth Faried)
Now here is the rankings of the players that he whiffed on, in other words players he had lower then they were actually taken, that succeeded:
18. Klay Thompson
29. Kenneth Farried
35. Reggie Jackson
50. Jimmy Butler
Remember we have no history to asses on his basketball decision making all we have is his predictions which are his resume.  Would anyone higher him based on these ratings?  Next blog will be 2012, and if you thought he whiffed on 2011.