Annotated Bibliography
Attali, Yigal. “Perceived Hotness Affects Behavior of Basketball Players and Coaches.” Psychological Science, vol. 24, no. 7, 2013, pp. 1151–1156.
This source follows up on literature that has been done on the “hot hand,” one of the most common misconceptions when studying basketball. It was useful for providing the angle of coaching decisions into the study of the hot hand, particularly how recency bias in a small sample size can affect in-game substitutions.
Berri, David J., et al. “From College to the Pros: Predicting the NBA Amateur Player Draft.” Journal of Productivity Analysis, vol. 35, no. 1, 2011, pp. 25–35. JSTOR.
This source examines the factors that correlate to a high draft position and the factors that indicate future performance in the NBA and found that the two attributes were not the same, showing a disconnect amongst NBA decision-makers. For my purposes, this source was useful for validating my observation that score-only players are susceptible to failure in the NBA.
“Brandon Clarke.” NBAthlete.com, 19 June 2019.
A detailed athletic profile of Brandon Clarke based on raw data from the NBA Draft Combine. NBAthlete’s data was used to illustrate the functional athleticism Brandon Clarke possessed that indicated higher upside than one may have initially suspected.
Chiari, Mike. “Andre Drummond Trade Rumors: Knicks' Julius Randle, Frank Ntilikina Targeted.” Bleacher Report, Bleacher Report, 11 Jan. 2020.
The contents of this article were not used. Rather, the headline itself illustrated the importance of the old business saying, “Know what you own.” The Knicks’ rumored interest in Andre Drummond pointed to an archaic disconnect on how to build a successful team within the Knicks organization.
Epley, Nicholas, and Thomas Gilovich. “Putting Adjustment Back in the Anchoring and Adjustment Heuristic: Differential Processing of Self-Generated and Experimenter-Provided Anchors.” Psychological Science, vol. 12, no. 5, 2001, pp. 391–396. JSTOR.
This source is a foundational piece of literature on the anchoring and adjustment heuristic. It was useful for getting some insight into human behavior and the extent to which we can believe our own anchors despite a possible lack of expertise. Anchoring and adjustment did not make the final thesis, but its close link with confirmation bias gives it a prevalent place among cognitive biases that affect NBA decision-makers.
Franks, Alexander, et al. “Characterizing The Spatial Structure Of Defensive Skill In Professional Basketball.” The Annals of Applied Statistics, vol. 9, no. 1, 2015, pp. 94–121.
This source explains how spatial tracking data allows for a more in-depth analysis of defensive impact in the NBA. It also offered an explanation for why defense is undervalued by evaluators. This source would have been invaluable if this paper contained a more detailed section on defensive impact in the NBA.
Gilovich, Thomas, et al. “The Hot Hand in Basketball: On the Misperception of Random Sequences.” Cognitive Psychology, vol. 17, no. 3, 1985, pp. 295–314., doi:10.1016/0010-0285(85)90010-6.
This source is one of the original studies on how fans, coaches, and players perceive the hot hand in basketball. It was especially useful for gaining insight into how humans perceive randomness, how they perceive chance sequences, such as a series of coin flips, and how these cognitive phenomena can be related to studying basketball.
Hargreaves, Rupert. “Warren Buffett 1986 Letter: Being Greedy When Others Are Fearful.” GuruFocus.com, 13 Mar. 2020.
Hargreaves was mainly used for the Buffett quote he centered his article around. However, Hargreaves also provided an important idea about the intrinsic value of stocks when bought at a reasonable valuation. In this way, stocks can be compared to draft prospects, and Buffett’s contrarian dogma can be applied to navigating the NBA Draft.
Kahneman, Daniel, and Shane Frederick. “Representativeness Revisited: Attribute Substitution in Intuitive Judgment.” Heuristics and Biases, 2002, pp. 49–81., doi:10.1017/cbo9780511808098.004.
This source provides background on the nature of heuristics and biases, how different attributes are weighed, and the downfalls of quick intuition as a mechanism for decision making. It was useful for discussing many cognitive principles that can be related to draft decision making. Attribute weighting is especially important, as there are many variables to consider when evaluating draft prospects.
Kubatko, Justin, et al. “A Starting Point for Analyzing Basketball Statistics.” Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, vol. 3, no. 3, Sept. 2007, doi:10.2202/1559-0410.1070.
An instrumental piece of writing for the paper, this source was co-written by four analytics pioneers who outline the basic framework for how to analyze basketball using statistics. Kubatko et al. help clarify not only the logic of the different statistics presented, but also how their statistics inform winning basketball.
Leonard, Nancy H., et al. “A Multi-Level Model of Group Cognitive Style in Strategic Decision Making.” Journal of Managerial Issues, vol. 17, no. 1, 2005, pp. 119–138. JSTOR.
This source was valuable in examining the notion of groupthink, one of the more common biases I encounter in my own draft evaluation. While not cited in my thesis, gaining a base knowledge of some of the theories behind why groupthink exists was helpful for branching off, doing some self-reflection on groupthink, and understanding why analytics teams can largely be ignored if a team’s general manager is not analytics-focused.
Lewis, Michael. “The No-Stats All-Star.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Feb. 2009.
Michael Lewis, the author of Moneyball, wrote this fascinating piece about Daryl Morey and how he uncovered the subtle genius of Shane Battier and his use of data to scheme against individual defensive matchups. Many ideas from this paper showcase themselves in Lewis’ article.
Medina, Mark. “Rockets GM Daryl Morey Happy with Roster after Trade: 'We Feel Very Comfortable We Can Beat the Lakers.” USA Today, Gannett Satellite Information Network, 7 Feb. 2020.
Mark Medina’s interview with Daryl Morey following his recent trade for Robert Covington provided a critical insight into the philosophy of Morey, the first basketball contrarian to reach the prominent heights of an executive role on an NBA team. Morey’s quote about the key to building a championship franchise was useful to corroborate the sentiments of this paper.
Nasiry, Javad, and Ioana Popescu. “Dynamic Pricing with Loss-Averse Consumers and Peak-End Anchoring.” Operations Research, vol. 59, no. 6, 2011, pp. 1361–1368. JSTOR.
Another source about anchoring bias, Nasiry and Popescu describe the phenomenon of price anchoring and how people’s perception of the degree of the expensiveness of a good is based on the lowest price and the most recent price. It was especially useful for giving another example of simplification with regard to memory, something which is important when evaluating draft prospects.
Oliver, Dean. Basketball on Paper: Rules and Tools for Performance Analysis. Potomac Books, Inc., 2011.
This book has been dubbed the “basketball analytics Bible” by some. Oliver is perhaps the most influential analytics pioneer, and his “four factors” are now bordering on mainstream basketball coverage. He was a basketball contrarian unlike any other, and his insights into the game of basketball are essential to learning about unbiased interpretation and problem solving--two central ideas to this paper.
Park, JaeHong, et al. “Information Valuation and Confirmation Bias in Virtual Communities: Evidence from Stock Message Boards.” Information Systems Research, vol. 24, no. 4, 2013, pp. 1050–1067
This source examines how confirmation bias affects the way amateur and professional investors make decisions. This source was particularly useful for background knowledge about confirmation bias and for providing examples of confirmation bias related to the NBA Draft such as gerrymandered searches for information.
Pelton, Kevin. “Chat with Kevin Pelton.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures.
Kevin Pelton’s definition of a star--high efficiency plus high usage--originated in this open forum chat with fans. This source was simply used for Pelton’s definition and how it can provide a useful framework for looking at the ideal star player.
Peters, Rob. “Winning Takes Talent, To Repeat Takes Character.” Medium, Medium, 3 Dec. 2018.
Peters provided a source for the John Wooden quote in the paper’s conclusion. Wooden spoke of the deliberate choice of winning inculcated in a culture. It encapsulates well the need for a streamlined cognitive process when making a series of difficult decisions.
“Philadelphia 76ers at Toronto Raptors Play-By-Play, May 12, 2019.” Basketball-Reference, Sports Reference, 12 May 2019.
This source provided an exact play-by-play synopsis of the Eastern Conference Finals Game 7 described in the paper’s introduction.
Pomeroy, Ken. “Shooting Percentage and Height: The Kenpom.com Blog.” The KenPom Blog, KenPom, 30 May 2006.
Ken Pomeroy is a main proprietor of college basketball analytics. In this article, he talks about some statistics that can match or even exceed the predictive power of three-point percentage for projecting shooting to the NBA. The factors Pomeroy mentions that are factored into most shooting evaluations are volume of threes attempted and free throw percentage. Proficiency in difficult two-point shots is also cited, which was a primary indicator of Kawhi Leonard’s future shooting proficiency.
Rafferty, Scott. “Back to School: What Scouts Were Saying about Kawhi Leonard Coming into the NBA” NBA.com Canada | The Official Site of the NBA, NBA CA, 26 Aug. 2019.
Scott Rafferty brought to light some of the concerns NBA scouts had about Kawhi Leonard entering the draft, the jump shot being chief among them. This source helped to get into the headspace of NBA scouts and get perspective on Kawhi Leonard’s college play without hindsight bias.
Roese, Neal J., and Kathleen D. Vohs. “Hindsight Bias.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, vol. 7, no. 5, 2012, pp. 411–426. JSTOR.
This source explains hindsight bias and its various derivatives such as myopia and overconfidence. Hindsight bias enables people to believe that they knew something all along, and hinders their ability to learn from experience. Initially, this paper was going to have a personal section devoted to cognitive biases that affect personal evaluation tendencies. Had that been included, this source would be prevalent.
Rubin, Ben. “Draft Notes: Twenty Rules For The 2019 Draft.” The Stepien, 20 June 2019.
Here, Rubin details his personal draft philosophy and layered in pre-draft thoughts about the 2019 class. This piece brought to light a fundamental idea about treating the draft like a marketplace. To quote Rubin, one can think of the draft as “not a series of players to be picked, but a series of ‘plays’ to be made.”
Schwenk, Charles R. “Cognitive Simplification Processes in Strategic Decision-Making.” Strategic Management Journal, vol. 5, no. 2, 1984, pp. 111–128. JSTOR.
This source examines bias of all kinds and how they can bleed into decision making. It more specifically gives examples of some of the human cognitive tendencies that result in the simplification of decision making. Many of the principles discussed in this source are underlying reasons for the misconceptions people have when watching basketball and evaluating draft prospects that are discussed in this paper.
Shea, Stephen M., and Christopher E. Baker. Basketball Analytics: Objective and Efficient Strategies for Understanding How Teams Win. Advanced Metrics, 2013.
This source is similar to Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper in that it discusses analytics and proposes some proprietary metrics. The difference is that Shea focuses on player evaluation in addition to team evaluation. He also examines the notion of building through the draft, the topic of his that was prevalent in the paper.
Shepard, Jon M., and Linda S. Hartenian. “Egoistic and Ethical Orientations of University Students toward Work-Related Decisions.” Journal of Business Ethics, vol. 10, no. 4, 1991, pp. 303–310. JSTOR.
This source was an attempt to corroborate this paper’s theory of egoistic behavior in coaches shining through in draft evaluation. While it provided a couple of valuable insights, the source was not extensively useful for research purposes.
Simmons, Bill. “Let's Go to the Tape.” ESPN, ESPN Internet Ventures.
Bill Simmons provided some background into the Portland Trail Blazers’ decision to select center Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan in the 1984 Draft. The background was used to highlight the pitfalls of drafting for need over taking the best player available, especially at the top of the draft where teams should be looking for stars.
Sykes, Michael D. “Jayson Tatum Is Shooting 3-Pointers Better than Any Rookie Ever Has.” SBNation.com, SBNation.com, 5 Dec. 2017.
Sykes talks about Jayson Tatum’s unexpected immediate success as a shooter in the NBA. He cited college free throw percentage as a positive indicator for Tatum ala Ken Pomeroy. Sykes also details the skepticism on the part of ESPN’s Mike Schmitz as to whether Tatum would shoot NBA threes at a high level.
Tredgold, Gordon. “26 Quotes That Will Inspire You to Succeed.” Inc.com, Inc., 19 Sept. 2016.
This source was simply a vehicle for citing Albert Einstein’s insightful quote on simplicity at the end of Section II.
Trout, J. D. “Paternalism and Cognitive Bias.” Law and Philosophy, vol. 24, no. 4, 2005, pp. 393–434. JSTOR.
This source also covers a wide range of biases that relate to decision making. This was another source that served the purpose of providing necessary background information on each bias. The paper ended up drawing from Trout’s words on defining the term heuristic and his explanation of the functional use of heuristics.
Wiseman, Brandon. Personal interview. 29 November 2019.
The personal interview conducted with Brandon Wiseman, basketball operations intern at the Washington Wizards, exposed the draft as a market inefficiency within the NBA. Team analytics initiatives such as scheme fit and lineup optimization are becoming rock solid for all thirty teams, yet teams are constantly missing out on the best players available in the draft. Wiseman gave incredible insight into how to navigate the draft with smokescreens and red herrings to distract other teams from the organization’s true intentions.
Zagoria, Adam. “Knicks Impressed by 'Tremendous Upside' in Kevin Knox.” SNY, 21 June 2018.
This source was used for Knicks’ general manager at the time Scott Perry’s pre-draft opinion on Kevin Knox and how his over-simplification of the concept of upside led to overdrafting him. Knox is an important case study into the dangers of drafting a prospect with enticing physical tools without accompanying skill or instincts.
Image Bibliography
Cover Page: https://www.nba.com/pelicans/news/did-you-know-new-orleans-owns-four-picks-2020-nba-draft
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https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/kevin-knox-1.html
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http://nbasense.com/draft-pick-trade-value/4/jacob-goldstein-4
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https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/anthony-davis-5.html
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https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/players/zion-williamson-1.html