I do think guys are underestimating chance, otherwise you wouldn't be as strident as you are here about the level of skill involved. I don't think the GMs who liked Tim Couch, Ryan Leaf, Akili Smith, etc., are bad GMs. They were unlucky GMs. They all had scouting reports in front of them that more or less said the same thing about each. They made informed decisions to pick those guys. They didn't get any ROI on those picks. I don't think they're bad at their jobs because they picked eventual busts.

Take Jerry Angelo. He surrounded Urlacher with a core of players that catapulted the Bears to the Super Bowl. Briggs, Harris, Vasher, Tillman, Berrian, etc. Then he didn't have much to brag about in terms of draft picks up until the point he was let go. What changed? Did he get dumber at drafting over time?


Are you saying the Patriots skillfully let the other teams in the league have 150+ chances at Brady in the draft before nabbing him with a 6th round pick?

In terms of constructing teams, as I've made clear in this thread, I do think drafting is more than 50% luck/chance. So many variables at play, both in terms of the actual players and their intangibles, but the actual crop of players itself. The Bulls had the no 2 pick the year Durant could have entered the draft right out of HS, but he went to school for a year and the Bulls ended up with Tyrus Thomas at no 2 instead. The next year KD goes no 2 to OKC/Seattle. I know KD could have gone no 1 even if he entered the draft in 2006 instead of 2007, but again it's about the crop of players available and there's obviously no control over that. Total chance..

FF says I'm dumber than a box of rocks.

The thread was over at this point.

A skilled GM doesn't draft Bowie over Jordan, doesn't draft Joe Smith over KG, doesn't draft Kerry Kittles over Kobe, doesn't skip over Jimmy Butler, and so on. I think I get your point.

Every aspect of sports has more luck than most are willing to admit, especially when it comes to winning/championships.

It's clear: people who study this stuff says skill plays a minimal role in drafting players. Here's another older article:

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/4232 ... ut-chance/

Everybody "identifies" players. The reason SA got those players is because the teams ahead of them didn't draft them first. That's not skill.

This isn't a logical deduction. If a team identifies a player with a high draft pick it's because he has a high pick. If a team identifies a player with a lower draft pick it's because the other teams passed on him. You can't have it both ways.

There are certain guys that are good at identifying talent. Ainge is demonstrating that he is good at it also.

I'd be great at "identifying" talent too if I drafted Jordan because someone else took Bowie, the first guy on my list. Now I'm a genius with a rep for identifying talent. Funny how that works out.

The guy with skill would've drafted Jordan with the 2nd pick.

That is how that works.
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Interesting. So they have to know the future before making the pick.

Part of being a good GM is related to projection. So yeah they have to be able to project how good they believe that a guy will be. If not then they shouldn't be GMing

Why did virtually every GM have Bowie as the second pick? Seems like they should have known better. Obviously?

Yeah they should've. That's what they get paid to do.
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