Tuesday, June 10, 2014
Luck in the draft
There's two types of luck. One in which no one participating has any knowledge of the subject matter, and so, making selections is "pure luck". A non-sports fan choosing the winner between Kings and Rangers would be pure luck.
Another is in which EVERYONE participating has the same maximum knowledge, and so with no differentiating skill among the participants, any selection is again "luck". If say Larry Bird and Reggie Miller are the best free throw shooters from the 3-point line, and after 1000 attempts, they both hit 70%, then choosing between one or the other is going to be luck.
Pizza looks into the draft and basically sees no evidence that a team has skill in picking players RELATIVE TO THE OTHER 29 TEAMS. It's luck, but only after every team has refined their process to their maximum. If one team decides to abandon scouts altogether, then we WOULD see evidence of skill.
Anyway, I liked his approach. What's interesting is that seeing results where the extreme teams have 50% more (or half as much) picks pan out relative to the average team is still not enough to say whether there is skill involved (beyond the skill that all teams have). Basically, we'd have to observe a team having overwhelming success, in order for us to believe they have even a small level of skill.
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