Personal Stat Coaches

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/28/sports/basketball/eyes-on-stats-nba-players-hire-help-to-crunch-them.html?ref=basketball&_r=1



Eyes on Stats, Players Hire Help to Crunch Them
By SCOTT CACCIOLAMAY 27, 2014





Justin Zormelo, second from left, working with the prospect Rion Brown. “If my players lose, I take it personally,” Zormelo said.
Credit Max Reed for The New York Times



MIAMI — For many players, a professional entourage is as much a part of the N.B.A. lifestyle as yacht-size wristwatches.

Countless players employ trainers who travel on the road to conduct private workouts. Others have personal chefs who make sure that their diets remain steady, their omelets cooked just so. Some even have stylists who handpick the outfits they wear to postgame news conferences.

But it may be time to make room for one more member of the N.B.A. player’s ever-expanding staff: the personal statistician.

Justin Zormelo, a 30-year-old Georgetown graduate, is at the forefront of a growing industry, his services a must-have accessory for the playoffs. Zormelo, who spends hours every day hunkered over a laptop in his home office, has become the go-to source for players who want a private guide through the emerging world of advanced analytics.

Let others conduct wind sprints and weight-room sessions. Zormelo, who works for individual players and not their teams studies film, pores over metrics, and feeds his clients a mix of information and instruction that is as much informed by Excel spreadsheets as it is by coaches’ playbooks. He gives players data and advice on obscure points of the game — something many coaches may not appreciate — like their offensive production when they take two dribbles instead of four and their shooting percentages when coming off screens at the left elbow of the court.




A page from Zormelo’s notebook. He works for players, not their teams. Credit Max Reed for The New York Times


“I take a lot of time to figure out different formulas for efficiency,” said Zormelo, who has had more than 30 N.B.A. clients since starting a company called Best Ball Analytics in 2011. “I’m trying to stay a step ahead.”

Zormelo’s rise reflects a broader shift in the N.B.A. toward an embrace of “Moneyball”-style analytics — such as player efficiency ratings — that did not exist a generation ago. Intangibles like a player’s “killer instinct” or his “clutch performance” have given way to mathematical equations that quantify every aspect of the game.

Zormelo’s career took off three years ago when he began working for Kevin Durant, the league’s leading scorer and most valuable player. Zormelo spent last season living out of two suitcases in Oklahoma City as Durant’s full-time stats guru. He attended Thunder games with his iPad in tow, watched film with Durant at night and even slept on Durant’s couch. Zormelo ended their season together by presenting Durant with a five-page report full of pie charts and bar graphs.

This season, Zormelo worked with All-Stars like Paul George of the Indiana Pacers, John Wall of the Washington Wizards and Rajon Rondo of the Boston Celtics. At least three of his clients are still in the playoffs. When they require hands-on involvement, he heads to the airport.

Zormelo declined to say what he charges his clients, but said he was “definitely not rich by any means” and was still building his business.

“This is competitive for me,” Zormelo said. “If my players lose, I take it personally. Especially if they’re doing what I tell them to do.”

Last month, Zormelo was at his computer watching film of Wall’s effort against the Chicago Bulls in Game 1 of their first-round series. The Wizards won, but Wall shot 4 of 14 from the field. Zormelo highlighted an area of concern: Wall was leaving his feet too often before making passes. Zormelo wanted Wall to be more decisive.

“No more getting caught in the air,” Zormelo wrote in a text message to Wall. “They saw that, and they will stay at home when you drive and look for steals in Game 2.”

Zormelo reinforced the point by sending Wall an email with sequences of game footage. Wall responded via text: “I appreciate it a lot. I agree. I think I need to be more aggressive attacking the basket.”

Over the next four games, Wall averaged 19.5 points and 7 assists as the Wizards advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals.

While Zormelo does train players — before the recent N.B.A. draft combine, he worked out a handful of prospects like JaKarr Sampson of St. John’s at a University of Miami gym — his exact occupation is more difficult to define. In addition to studying film and crunching numbers, he also considers himself a mental coach. Above all, he works quickly.

“Before the game was even over, he had everything broken down,” Rondo said. “The text was already in my phone.”

Zormelo also sent Rondo an in-depth email that included a synopsis of what Rondo had done well, areas where he needed to improve and a scouting report for his next game. Rondo was asked if the Celtics were aware that he was seeking constant counsel from someone outside the organization.



Justin Zormelo, center, with his assistant Stanley Wakefield Jr., left, and the N.B.A. prospect JaKarr Sampson at a workout.
Credit Max Reed for The New York Times


“Not really,” he said. “But I’m just trying to get better. There’s nothing wrong with that.”

It can be a touchy subject. Zormelo continues to avoid widespread notice. Some of that has been by choice.

“Honestly, I’ve never talked to a coach about what I do,” he said. “They’re cordial. But I’m sure they don’t like it.”

Eric Musselman, a former coach of the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings, said most coaches would love to have total control over their teams. But they also recognize that their players have people close to them — agents, friends, publicists — who are filling their heads with other things.

“Ideally, you want to have all the basketball X’s and O’s coming from your coaching staff,” Musselman said. “But I also think coaches are open-minded enough to understand that things have changed.”

Players, of course, have become multimillion-dollar businesses unto themselves, and if one of the people they listen to is someone like Zormelo? It could be worse.

“You might be like, Hey, that guy’s not teaching what I’m teaching,” Musselman said. “But at least the player is working at his game instead of sitting on his couch watching cartoons.”

Dorell Wright, a forward with the Portland Trail Blazers, said that he appreciated Zormelo’s attention. “When I’m getting advice from my coaches, they’re letting me see things, but it’s more about the team,” he said. “When you get information from different people, it can only be a positive.”

Zormelo, whose own playing career ended in high school thanks to two broken ankles, was a student manager for the men’s basketball team at Georgetown, where he formed friendships with future N.B.A. players like Jeff Green and Roy Hibbert. After he graduated in 2006 with a degree in finance, gainful employment neither came quickly nor easily. He sold copiers before landing an internship with the Miami Heat, who put Zormelo to work in the video room.

“I tried to learn as much as I could from the coaching staff,” he said.

After a stint with the Bulls, Zormelo ventured out on his own. Ben Gordon, who joined the Detroit Pistons after playing for the Bulls, hired Zormelo as his “personal video coordinator.” It was then, Zormelo said, that he also began to develop more of a relationship with Durant.

During the 2011 work stoppage, Durant invited Zormelo to work with him in the gym. Zormelo said he was petrified by the idea. He had never trained anyone, let alone an N.B.A. star, and stayed up late studying YouTube videos of other trainers. Only then did he realize that he would not succeed if he tried to be like everybody else.

“I needed to do my own thing,” Zormelo said.

Before the start of the season, Durant and Zormelo agreed to take a break from their formal partnership, though they remain in touch. Durant consulted Zormelo when he was struggling against the Memphis Grizzlies in the first round of the playoffs.

“He just wanted to start enjoying the game again,” Zormelo said. “That’s the first thing he said to me this year: ‘I’m not looking at stats anymore.’ But I know he still looks, and I know he still cares about that stuff. It’s ingrained in him.”



bob
MY NOTE:  One could say that this is just "Metrics gone wild" and Red must be spinning like a top in his grave.  One could also say that this is no different than a player having a personal trainer and not just relying on BDoo for his workout regimen.  Stevens has a stat guru he brought from Butler.  If this guy provides individual player focus and produces positive results, then great.  If Durant used him and liked him that's kinda hard to argue with.  Maybe the Celtics should hire him to work for Pressey, Sully, Kelly and the rest of the young'uns. Feeding coach's kids and cerebral players like those 3 relevant tips would produce solid results, I have no doubt.


.

This seems like a guy taking advantage of a short-term window of opportunity that will be gone in a few years. The reason I say that is that SportVU tracks an unbelievable amount of data about player performance during games, and the only reason a personal statistician serves any purpose is because teams (and players) haven't figured out yet how to fully use and analyze all that data. Once they do, a guy taking notes on a pad of paper will be as passe as using a card catalog (a paper-based system from years gone by, for those who don't know) to access library information.

If Zormelo is gifted at this sort of analysis, he should look at marketing himself as a SportVu analyst for an NBA team so that he can base his analysis on SportVu stats instead of handwritten notes. My understanding is that SportVu tracks everything and that figuring out a player's productivity when shooting from a particular spot on the floor or when taking two vs. four dribbles -- the examples given in the article -- is precisely the type of information that SportVu makes easily accessible to NBA teams. SportVu is still new, and as with any newly available database of that size, teams are probably only scratching the surface with it. Once they figure out how to fully use it to their advantage, they'll take statistical analysis under their control, and they'll probably have a specific position for that, like they do with a video coordinator. Stevens seems like the right guy to blaze that trail.

My first thought was of Red. My second thought was where personalized consultation begins to intrude on coaches' domain. If a player thinks four dribbles are the right number in a given situation and a coach thinks the player is taking too long to initiate a play or a move, is there an arbitrator? Also, it's not my impression that every player has the capacity to digest, assimilate and refine this stuff to where it becomes instinctive.

I recall that, during the 1968-69 season, I kept a chart on every one of Sam Jones' home games in terms of his shooting percentages from various spots on the floor. One sees that sort of chart everywhere today, but I'd never seen one in those days. Heck, they had just changed basketballs from square to round back then.

As the team approached the playoffs, I proudly presented my findings to Sam. He quickly looked away and said, "I don't want to see it." Crestfallen, I asked why. "Because I don't want to be thinking out there," he replied. We're out there operating mainly on instinct, and too much thinking ruins your instincts."

I tried to backpedal with a little humor. "That's what I meant, Sam. I can't imagine why you'd ever want to see a bunch of junk like this," as I threw my year's worth of work toward a wastebasket. Of course, I missed the basket and had to endure the indignity of a putback.)

I looked up, expecting Sam to be laughing. He just looked at me! I had broken the cardinal rule: Unless he initiated the conversation, I seldom talked about basketball with Sam Jones.

Sam

Sam,

I can understand Sam Jones' point of view about wanting to react and instead use his instincts on offense. Do you think he would have reacted different if you had presented the same information about an opponent so that he could exploit it to his advantage defensively?

Outside,

Yes, I'm quite certain he would have reacted in the same manner because instincts governed every aspects of his game.  Not that basic intelligence about opponents would have been dismissed out of hand.  Something simple, like a tendency to drive right, would be something he could remind himself about before the game so he'd have it in the back of his mind.  But having to determine which of (I think it was) nine or 12 sections of the floor from which an opponent was a shooting threat on any given play would have gone way, way beyond the scope of Sam's approach to the game (and, as far as I can guess, the same was true of his teammates).

The mandates of defense were pretty simple in those days.  Stay low.  Watch his hips, not the ball.  Keep him from freeing his shooting hand.  Stay on the attack.  

Those kinds of things became instinctive.  The only complexity I ever associated with those teams involved the options I mentioned previously.  I still remain amazed that they could routinize those options into what I've always considered a collective instinct.

Perhaps today's players have ways of committing the complex into instinctive mode.  Sleep-learning?  Or perhaps they're relatively more comfortable thinking than operating instinctively.  On average, I wouldn't place their learning threshold above that of the older players.  But who news?

Sam

Sam,

Considering the defensive advantage that those Celtic teams had, I can see where they wouldn't have much use for additional information on tendencies to the extent you tracked.

Outside,

Red was tough, but he really simplified the game for those teams. Suckering other teams into a pace they couldn't maintain softened them up for the Celtics' defense. Nonetheless, the constant tempo found the Celtics giving up more than 100 PPG in multiple seasons.

Sam


Things change. I believe I may have been one of the first people to apply the old hockey +/- stat to basketball (specifically the Celtics) in the 1960s. Now I abhor that stat because it incorrectly imputes the results of five-man combinations onto individual players' stats.

It's interesting to reconcile the fact that those Celtics had a distinct defensive advantage over opponents despite giving up well over 100 PPG in some years. Testimony to the rapidity of the game and number of possessions in those days. It was all very much about the Celtics' offense, which drew other teams into a high-speed game in which they (opponents) were more likely to wither over time than to maintain the pace; so they became easier to defend as the game progressed.

Sam