I have about fifteen minutes before tipoff so I thought I’d write something to kill the time. Tipoff is at 6pm but I got here at 4pm hoping to get in some questions with Blake Griffin, Chris Paul, and DeAndre Jordan. As I made my way to the visitors’ lockerroom, I was told that none of those players speak pre-game. Wish I had stayed home and had dinner. I’ll try to get those guys again after the final buzzer, but it’s never the same. Certain questions aren’t really appropriate right after 48 minutes of battle.
I was live-tweeting the Kevin McHale presser just now, so I hope you caught that – there was some gold. He talked about Chris Paul, how the point guard is almost daydreaming on the court with his brilliance. He talked about the mind and the body, the fun in realization of that point when one consistently begins drawing double-teams. As we scattered, Clutchfans founder Dave Hardisty, in the spirit of this weekend’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, inquired of McHale’s thoughts on analytics. McHale was surprisingly candid, and quite frankly, his answers left me dumbfounded. You have to watch @clutchfans’ video because I can’t remember the exact quotes, but McHale said, regarding the conclusions analytics draws, such as the importance of rebounding/inside scoring, “I could have told you that.” It really makes one wonder. Is K-Mac using the data that’s being passed down? Most speculated that he was hired due to his receptivity to the numbers. (In fact, in my interview with Daryl Morey prior to the season, the general manager talked about that very open-mindedness from McHale.) But this interview would lead one to believe the stuff is going straight to the wastebin. If that’s the case, it would be quite the waste of resources – the Rockets have invested quite a bit of money into the program.