Daryl Morey let his staff's nickname of Marc Gasol not draft him

[Moranis]

The nickname was Man Boobs

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/12/how_daryl_morey_used_behavioral_economics_to_revolutionize_the_art_of_nba.html

The whole article is a fascinating read, below is the part about "Man Boobs" Gasol (of course the Lakers drafted Gasol not the Grizzlies, which I find odd wasn't corrected at some point before publication).


For instance, in the 2007 draft there had been a player his model really liked: Marc Gasol. Gasol was twenty-two years old, a seven-foot-one center playing in Europe. The scouts had found a photograph of him shirtless. He was pudgy and baby-faced and had these jiggly pecs. The Rockets staff had given Marc Gasol a nickname: Man Boobs. Man Boobs this and Man Boobs that. “That was my first draft in charge and I wasn’t so brave,” said Morey. He allowed the general ridicule of Marc Gasol’s body to drown out his model’s optimism about Gasol’s basketball future, and so instead of arguing with his staff, he watched the Mem­phis Grizzlies take Gasol with the 48th pick of the draft. The odds of getting an All-Star with the 48th pick in the draft were well below one in a hundred. The 48th pick of the draft basically never even yielded a useful NBA bench player, but already Marc Gasol was proving to be a giant exception. (Gasol became a two-time All-Star in 2012 and 2015 and, by Houston’s reckoning, the third-best pick made by the entire NBA over the past decade, after Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin.) The label they’d stuck on him clearly had affected how they valued him: names mattered. “I made a new rule right then,” said Morey. “I banned nicknames.”

[saltlover]

Definitely an interesting article.  Man Boobs was a cute anecdote, but there were a lot of things to take away.  Also, Michael Lewis is an amazing writer.

[celticsclay]

The nickname was Man Boobs

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/books/2016/12/how_daryl_morey_used_behavioral_economics_to_revolutionize_the_art_of_nba.html

The whole article is a fascinating read, below is the part about "Man Boobs" Gasol (of course the Lakers drafted Gasol not the Grizzlies, which I find odd wasn't corrected at some point before publication).


For instance, in the 2007 draft there had been a player his model really liked: Marc Gasol. Gasol was twenty-two years old, a seven-foot-one center playing in Europe. The scouts had found a photograph of him shirtless. He was pudgy and baby-faced and had these jiggly pecs. The Rockets staff had given Marc Gasol a nickname: Man Boobs. Man Boobs this and Man Boobs that. “That was my first draft in charge and I wasn’t so brave,” said Morey. He allowed the general ridicule of Marc Gasol’s body to drown out his model’s optimism about Gasol’s basketball future, and so instead of arguing with his staff, he watched the Mem­phis Grizzlies take Gasol with the 48th pick of the draft. The odds of getting an All-Star with the 48th pick in the draft were well below one in a hundred. The 48th pick of the draft basically never even yielded a useful NBA bench player, but already Marc Gasol was proving to be a giant exception. (Gasol became a two-time All-Star in 2012 and 2015 and, by Houston’s reckoning, the third-best pick made by the entire NBA over the past decade, after Kevin Durant and Blake Griffin.) The label they’d stuck on him clearly had affected how they valued him: names mattered. “I made a new rule right then,” said Morey. “I banned nicknames.”

Nice article and read Moranis thanks for sharing.

[Bucketgetter]

How were Blake Griffin and Kevin Durant better picks than Gasol?? They went #1 and #2 and were no brainers