Loren Lee Chen is the former author Pure Point and and a contributer for Stacheketball. You can follow his ramblings via Twitter. He was an official representative of Hardwood Paroxysm, along with Rob and Jared, at the Sloan Sports Conference at MIT on Saturday. Enjoy. -MM
When Matt first asked me to write about the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in January, I was flabbergasted to say the least. My first reaction was something to the effect of, “Yes, yes, yes!” I mean, how often do you get a chance to be in the same room as Daryl Morey, Bill Simmons, Mark Cuban, Adam Silver, John Hollinger, and literally hundreds of the most prominent faces in the sports world. As I kept thinking about it though, I started to get a little apprehensive.
As you undoubtedly know, Matt Moore has built a veritable army here at HP. Why then, was he coming to me for this? I don’t have the innate writing prowess of Rob Mahoney, the comedic stylings of Jared Wade, or the statistical knowledge of Tom Haberstroh or Jon Nichols. So, what do I have to offer?
Let’s take a step back for a second. If I’m lucky, you used to read my now defunct blog, Pure Point, have seen me contribute to Stacheketball, or follow me on Twitter, but more likely than not, most of you have never heard of me before. However, if you’re on this site right now, chances are that we’re a lot alike in that we like to consume as much basketball information as possible. That’s the perspective I think I can bring to this discussion; I’m the everyman, I’m you.
Stepping into the conference center, I was immediately overwhelmed. In a sea of 1000 attendees, trying to match faces to avatars and scouring name tags for familiar names was a daunting task. I would have killed to be standing behind Sebastian Pruiti in the coffee line, to have bumped into Zach Harper in the hallway. As chance would have it, fortune did happen to smile upon me, in the form of Gian Casimiro of KnickBlog, who happened to take the seat directly next to me during the opening remarks. We talked basketball a bit, discussed how ridiculous the conference was, and generally just chummed it up. But when the first panel rolled around, we went our separate ways, and I was alone again. That is until a 6’3″, athletic-looking guy with a blonde crew-cut confidently strolled up and took the seat next to me.
Do you know the feeling you get when you see someone famous in real life? It’s like, “You know, that kinda of looks like… No, it couldn’t be…” I had that feeling, and then the man, possibly noticing my lingering stare, turned to me and non-chalantly said, “Hi, I’m Steve.” Steve, as in Steve Kerr, 5-time NBA Champion, GM of the Phoenix Suns. Imagine that.
I introduced myself, and we got to talking.
The first thing I asked him, with a possible nod to Scott Schroeder in mind, was what he thought was the difference between the back-of-the-rotation guys, and those who are scraping away in the D-League, China, Europe, etc. According to him, there might be a talent discrepancy, but the main culprit is circumstance. When a rookie comes into the league with superstars ahead of him, naturally he’s going to struggle to get off the bench. If this keeps up for a couple years, he’s going to gain a reputation as someone who’s not good enough to play in the NBA. Steve seems to be a man of examples, and in this situation he looked at Darren Collison. When Chris Paul was healthy, Collison was a decent reserve, providing a few efficient minutes per game, but he wasn’t making the splash that the other point guards in the class– Tyreke Evans, Brandon Jennings, Steph Curry, Jonny Flynn, and even Ty Lawson– were. But now that he has been given the reins to the team, we know that Collison might be one of the best there is. If Chris Paul had never gotten injured, we might still think of him as nothing more than a serviceable back-up. This might seem like general knowledge to us commonfolk, but it’s refreshing to see that top GM’s consider it as well.
The panel started up, and my brief encounter with greatness was over. Still, the impression stayed with me for the rest of the conference. Finally, I felt like I belonged with these people.
The rest of the conference was business as usual, but one note in the final panel struck a note with me. Rob King, Editor-In-Chief of ESPN.com, was asked why athletes are gravitating towards Twitter and other social media outlets. His response, “People are inherently lonely and disconnected. People want to connect; they want to know that they matter.” That’s exactly how I felt. Being recognized by Jared Wade and Rob Mahoney, sharing a drink with Zach Lowe, Brian Robb, and Kevin Arnovitz, every one of the 19 new followers I got on Twitter throughout the day; these were all small confirmations that I mattered. Hopefully, you think I do too.
