When it comes to using the eye test or advanced analytics to make important decisions for the Boston Celtics, Vice President of Basketball Operations Mike Zarren makes no bones about which side of that old debate he falls on — the one with the best information.
“The easy answer is you need to know how reliable your numbers are, just like you need to know how reliable your scouts are,” said Zarren in a recent interview with Heavy’s Steve Bulpett. “But really the question is, how reliable is any piece of information? People make mistakes when watching things, and people make mistakes when coding statistical analyses, too.”
“Every day you’re trying to get better and smarter about the decisions you’re making by looking at all the information you can get.”
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“We’re trying to take every piece of information we can get about every decision we make, and use it in the most reliable way,” he added. “Some of those things are numbers, and some aren’t.
“For example, a scout goes and watches a guy in a college game and gives him a rating. If you do something with that collection of ratings from all of your scouts, is that a statistical analysis or not?”
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