Forbes says Kevin McHale is the best general manager in all of pro sports. Billy King clocks in at number three. Yes, really.
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Best. GM. Ever.
06 Mar 2007 09:17 am
Comments (51)
One has to realize that the measure of effectiveness as analyzed by magazines like Forbes is not winning but making a profit. This is, of course, not the measure of effectiveness of the sports community which is, of course, winning. Thus, McHale has been a failure in the sports community as his team hasn't won anything.
However, one should consider the history of Jerry West, currently the general manager of the Memphis team in the NBA. When West was general manager of the Lakers, he was a big winner, acquiring players such as Jabbar, Worthy, Johnson, Bryant, and Shaq and winning multiple NBA championships. There, he was considered a genius. However, his achievements with the Memphis team have been modest indeed. The difference is that in LA, he had Jerry Buss' fat wallet and the cachet of playing in a high profile environment, which gave him an enormous advantage. In Memphis, he has no such advantages.
Whuh?!
While the Forbes list both fails the laugh test and has a deeply flawed methodology, I believe SLC misdiagnoses the problem. They actually don't seem to examine turning a profit; rather, they take two metrics: winning % under the current GM vs. winning % under the immediate predecessor, AND spending as compared to the league average. Both measures are normalized to 100, and then the winning % is double weighted, so it's two parts "wins vs. predecessor" and one part "money spent vs. league average".
"One has to realize that the measure of effectiveness as analyzed by magazines like Forbes is not winning but making a profit."
One has to realize that one would have to be quite a fool to make such an assertion without bothering to actually click the supplied link and check the Forbes methodology.
"Forbes says Kevin McHale is the best general manager in all of pro sports. Billy King clocks in at number three."
When did Dave Berri start writing for Forbes?
OK, I can understand the "winning % under the current GM vs. winning % under the immediate predecessor" metric. But can anyone explain the "spending as compared to the league average" metric? Why are you a good GM if you spend more? Shouldn't it be the opposite - you are a better GM if you spend LESS (so long as you maintain a good winning %age)?
Sorry I failed to explain fully; you are, by Forbes' lights, a better GM for spending less. The scores are normalized to 100 (and then the winning-score is doubled, so that 110 becomes 220, etc.), and the spending score is inversely proportional to the spending. So a score of 80 indicates that you spent 20% more than the league average.
When your results put McHale and Billy King in the top three, you know that methodology is flawed. This never should have gotten past an editor.
This never should have gotten past an editor.
No, it's really par for the course. High profile publications wouldn't be what they are if they didn't publish fatuous nonsense from individuals grossly unqualified to discuss the topic in question. (NB: I would be grossly unqualified to compile a statistically defensible list of the best anything anywhere, so it's not like I think *I* should've written the Forbes piece.)
High profile publications wouldn't be what they are if they didn't publish fatuous nonsense from individuals grossly unqualified to discuss the topic in question.
My gawd, is this true. It feels like this wasn't true in the past, that we've devolved to this point, but maybe Forbes, Time, etc., always sucked and I just wasn't paying attention or couldn't tell. It's depressing, though.
I think that McHale was the most visually unimpressive top-level pro basketball player ever. Underweight (210 lbs. or less at 6'10"), bad posture, homely, almost always tired and depressed-looking.
Couldn't find the perfect picture, but this is close: Kevin McHale
Trivia: like Bob Dylan, he came from Hibbing, MN.
Glen Sather at 12? What's the timeframe for spending? His profligacy was the primary reason the NHL was nearly plunged into insolvency before the '04 strike.
Clearly Forbes is doing some sort of April Fool's issue.
Any breathing human being who gets Garnett following years of horrible expansion team-related winning percentages is going to ace that first metric of increasing winning percentage. Of course a truly good GM would actually continue to improve on that if Forbes could be bothered to look at the next five to ten years.
Thanks, Quarterican. You can't get that from the linked ESPN.com story.
I think what Forbes is missing here is the concept of reversion to the mean. GMs like McHale can have a better winning %age than their predecessor simply because their predecessor was awful (or in the case of the Wolves, building an expansion team) and the team reverts to the mean through a high draft pick (like Garnett). Forbes ought to add an absolute winning %age component to the formula ratehr than just relying on a comparison to the predecessor.
And, of course lists like this are meant not to be accurate but rather to sell magazines and create buzz - which, judging by the comments here, has succeeded. The editor should be congratulated.
This seems to be a stupid exercise in that NBA GMs simply make fewer decisions than baseball or football GMs. McHale drafted KG - that's propped up the winning percentage for his entire career.
See, for me, the utter stupidity of this list is proven by the fact that Ozzie Newsome, GM of the Ravens, is ranked 89, just seven spots above Matt Millen, worst fucking GM ever.
Maybe I'm just a homer, but Newsome is widely and consistently regarded as one of the NFL's best GMs, whereas Millen has now managed to draft, at last count, 23 wide receivers in the first round. (Oh, and it's pretty clear that no one bothered to check Newsome's previous GM for that whole stupid weight thing -- the Ravens' GM before Newsome was, well, Newsome. He just didn't have the title. And he won them a Super Bowl.)
This factoring in of the predecessor is just awful. A brilliantly managed team like the Spurs is maligned by it because they've been consistently great for 15 years or more - but their team has turned ever entirely between their first championship (1999) and their third (2005) with Duncan being the only common player, all as the result of incredible front office management.
You’d think that people working at Forbes would know how to run a model. First, you decide what result you want, then you run the model. If the output doesn’t fit your desired result, jigger the model, and then rerun and rejigger until you get what you want. It’s really not that difficult.
Worrying about a magazine's Artificial Controversy?
[Bugs Bunny voice] -Suckers
The methodology also highly favors basketball and football over baseball. In baseball its really hard to win less than 1/3 of your games and really hard to win more than 2/3 of them. That happens all the time in basketball and football.
Wow. What a terrible methodology. So the GM of the laughingstock of the NBA in the 90s is a better GM than the guy who turned the Cleveland Browns into a Super Bowl champion?
Comparing winning percentages across different sports is stupid. Going 7-9 in football isn't all that terrible. Going 71-91 in baseball is a pretty lousy season.
AUTHOR: Bill Simmons
EMAIL: getmcgarry@yahoo.com
IP: 169.229.111.33
URL:
DATE: 03/06/2007 12:19:52 PM
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Well, its not a bad first pass for methodology, but it needs a lot of work. And you have to acknowledge that this sort of thing is going to have huge statistical errors. Forbes publishing authoritatively? Yeah, that's pretty awful. But it is par for the course.
What!?! Billy King is #3? I'm speechless.
"KA BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!"
My first thought upon reading this was that Dave Berri must be writing for Forbes. But my second thought was that Bill Simmons head was going to explode.
And I guess I was right.
Also, McHale was hands down the worst rapper in NBA history. Does anyone remember that 80s-era Converse ad with a rapping McHale, Bird, etc.? Best line was "The same holds true for Mark Aguirre. When I wear Weapons, I'm on fire."
If you expand to all sports, though, McHale was better than that backup QB for the Bears.
And I'm beginning to think we need a word for this type of behavior.
What do you call it when you make a publicity-seeking, counter-intuitive (and fundamentally absurd) assertion which you back up with a meaningless statistical model?
It's somewhat related to Pulling A Coulter, but with the fake authority of a spreadsheet.
i don't have anything to say on this topic that hasn't already been said, but given that john emerson has raised the hibbing banner, i should note that i've spent a little time in hibbing, and i swear to you, i don't recall seeing a single outdoor basketball court (now, to be fair, i didn't travel every square inch of the city, but still, i remember thinking "mchale developed all of his moves in the gym? he never played street ball?").
re quality of magazines, i think time and forbes (and the rest of the media) were always this bad, but it was harder to tell without the internet. that said, the mchale thing doesn't even pass the laugh test.
Even if there were outdoor courts in Hibbing, I don't think that would qualify as "street ball."
(I vaguely remember hearing once that Victoria, BC, where Steve Nash is from, also has no public courts. But maybe I'm misremembering.)
"I think that McHale was the most visually unimpressive top-level pro basketball player ever."
Wrong. That title belongs to the man sitting next to McHale in your photo, Larry Bird. But his greatness blinds us to it.
Wow. What a terrible methodology. So the GM of the laughingstock of the NBA in the 90s is a better GM than the guy who turned the Cleveland Browns into a Super Bowl champion?
Posted by: Max on March 6, 2007 12:18 PM
Ummm... yes. He's also a better GM than Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the Easter Bunny. Or is this an allusion to some kind of hoped-for Ravens Reconquista?
The absurdity of the methodology becomes apparent when you consider the case of someone like Brian Cashman of the Yankees. He comes in at 61 on the list, yet all he has done is win five American League pennants, three World Series, and finish first in the division every single year.
Think about it. Cashman became GM in 1998, after the Yankees had already begun their dynasty. They had a large payroll and, with Steinbrenner as the boss, were certain to continue having a large payroll.
No matter who the Yankees selected as GM, he would inevitably fall to the bottom half of the list. Any model that guarantees the Yankees GM will finish in the bottom half of the list - no matter who that person in is and no matter his success - cannot be a good model.
Petey--Its called doing the Easterbrook
"Petey--Its called doing the Easterbrook"
Related, but slightly different.
I don't read Easterbrook very often, but IIRC, he justifies absurd conclusions with absurd logic.
What the Forbes article and Dave Berri do are to justify absurd conclusions with the seeming authority of a meaningless spreadsheet. You can't even dispute the conclusion because there is no logic behind it - there is only the meaningless spreadsheet.
What I'm trying to describe is a perversion of the Malcolm Gladwell method of using a mathematical model to disprove conventional wisdom.
My sensibilities are offended by this article.
Hey, Matt.
I'm not the guy who keeps trying to wedge SABERmetric empirical analysis into the least empirical of our games. Somebody concocted a way to make Kevin (Joe Smith's Contract) McHale into a great GM and has the numbers to back it up? I'm not surprised. This is how the figure-filberts ruined baseball.
MQ:
McHale's swooping move on the post is engraved in my memory as well as Robert Parish's no-look turnaround. I remember him more than his counterpart, James Worthy.
Billy King was a great defender at Duke who couldn't hit a layup.
Petey,
What "absurd" conclusions of DBerri's are you referring to?
The one that said the Nuggets wouldn't be better off with Iverson? The one that says JKidd is having a phenomenal season? The one that Wizards are a team full of really good players but no great players and until they get someone incredible like Garnett will not be able to compete with the elite teams in the West?
These conclusions seem, if anything, intuitive.
"What "absurd" conclusions of DBerri's are you referring to?"
Well, to limit myself only to DBerri's writing in the past week, how 'bout the conclusion that Marcus Camby is the best center in the league?
Berri, much like the Forbes article, is guilty of faux-Gladwellism in that he assembles an arbitrarily determined spreadsheet, and uses its results to justify all kinds of conclusions that challenge conventional wisdom in patently absurd ways.
(And Berri is actually worse than the Forbes article in that he claims his arbitrary spreadsheet isn't arbitrary. The Forbes folks just lay out their methodology and back off.)
"I'm not the guy who keeps trying to wedge SABERmetric empirical analysis into the least empirical of our games. Somebody concocted a way to make Kevin (Joe Smith's Contract) McHale into a great GM and has the numbers to back it up? I'm not surprised. This is how the figure-filberts ruined baseball."
So you're pretty much saying that all statistical analysis is equally valid? This Forbes article, and Dave Berri, and Bill James -- they're all pointy-headed number-guys, so we can disregard them all? Whah?
Petey,
I agree that Berri is a moron, but if you want to prove that, you have to point to something he's said that's actually been proven wrong. You and I can both think Marcus Camby is nowhere near the best center in the league, it's just talk. I'm sure Berri has made some stupid predictions based on his stupid numbers. I'll go try to look some up now.
Petey seems to subscribe to the belief that models that don't track his intuitions must be either patently absurd, completely arbitrary, or empirically suspect. Petey, who frequently references TS% as the holy grail of offensive efficiency (with little explanation), however, is free to arbitrarily use stats to justify own his intuitions.
"Petey seems to subscribe to the belief that models that don't track his intuitions must be either patently absurd, completely arbitrary, or empirically suspect. Petey, who frequently references TS% as the holy grail of offensive efficiency"
Ugh. Someone ought to write a FAQ.
I think TS% is a useful metric in evaluating one facet of hoops - efficiency of scoring the basketball. But as with all hoops stats, it has great limitations. The current TS% league leader for 2006-07 is Erick Dampier. I don't think Damp is the Best Basketball Player In The League. Hoops stats have limitations.
Berri's spreadsheet really is utterly arbitrary. Because he adjusts for team wins, he can weight the stats any way he likes and still come up with results that align with team wins. At one point Berri ignored assists and blocks. Because he adjusts for team wins, his spreadsheet worked internally just as well as it does now that he does include assists and blocks.
Most hilariously, see here for an example of how Berri could weight a player's uniform number in his spreadsheet, making Ron Artest the player who Produces The Most Wins, and still have his spreadsheet work internally just as well as it does now.
Berri's choices are arbitrary. My opinion is that his model arbitrarily over-weights rebounds, but whether that opinion is correct is not a topic Berri will ever explore because he won't engage with the arbitrariness of his choices.
At the end of the day, all hoops models are arbitrary to a far greater degree than in a more discrete sport like baseball. The basketball stats guys I respect are far more honest about the limitation of models than a flim-flam artist like Berri.
Late, but #4 on the list fired Marty Schottenheimer after a 14-2 regular season, and replaced him with Norv Turner.
Forbes: the magazine for people who were born on third base, and think they hit a triple.
The absurdity of the methodology becomes apparent when you consider the case of someone like Brian Cashman of the Yankees.
Cashman is a terrible GM, IMO. The Yankees have gotten consistently worse since his arrival. They've gone from WS victories in 98, 99, and 00. To WS loses in 01 and 03. To Division series loses in 02, and 04-06.
Further, the 98-00 dynasty was largely the result of Yankee pitching. Cashman inherited Mariano Rivera, Andy Pettite, David Wells, and David Cone among others. He did trade for Clemens and El Duque, but since then, he's gone after the likes of Randy Johnson, Jeff Weaver, Jose Contreras, Kevin Brown, Esteban Loaiza, Carl Pavano, Jaret Wright, and Javier Vazquez.
Meanwhile the Yankee payroll has tripled from 65M in 98 to almost 200M in 06. For all the money he's spent, Cashman has added a collection of steroid abusers (Giambi, Sheffield)and choke artists (ARod)to the roster. The home-grown players like Rivera, Jeter, and Posada are getting older and slowing down. Bernie Williams is already done. My bet is that Cashman gets fired in the next two years after the Yankees fail to make the playoffs.
My point really wasn't that Cashman is a brilliant GM. My point was that the Yankees could have hired Billy Beane in 1998 and he really could not have fared much better under Forbes' methodology.
On the merits, Cashman is not as bad as you portray him. A lot of the fault with the payroll can be laid at the feet of Steinbrenner, as can several of the questionable trades and/or signings. For instance, Cashman was pursuing Vlad Guerrero when Stein went behind his back to get Sheffield. Stein was also responsible for the Randy Johnson trade (which turned out to be a wash anyway, since the only piece the Yankees lost was Vasquez). I'll grant you Pavano and Wright were horrible signings, and there have been other bad moves. But you have to judge a GM on the totality of his moves, not just his bad ones.
Cashman made a great move for Abreu last season. He has allowed the Yankees to develop new home grown talent like Cano, Wang, and Cabrera. He signed Matsui. The Arod trade was a good one - Soriano for Arod, plus Texas pays a good chunk of the salary.
And he has turned the Yankees farm system around, at the same time that the Yankees have been winning their division every season. From a farm system that was considered one of the worst just a few years ago, it is now considered one of the best and is stockpiled with young pitching talent - e.g. Hughes, Clippard, Sanchez, Chamberlain, Betances. All in all, Cashman is above average.
You obviously know more about the Yankees than I do, but it seems to me that Cashman just throws money at whatever "hot" free agent is on the market. He never finds the diamond in the rough or adds a role player or a locker room guy to bring the team together. I guess we'll see if the young talent develops. I think Cashman should be doing more with all the Yankees resources.
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Comments closed March 20, 2007.
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Heads in the Sand
How about that. John Ferguson from the Maple Leafs is so useless that he doesn't even make the list at all.
Posted by monkey.dave | March 6, 2007 9:23 AM