Did anyone hear their interview with this guy? I heard it on the way in this morning. It was terrible. I left it on thinking it had to get better but this guy just droned on and on and didn't really say much of anything. I think Mulligan liked him because he said "uuhhhhh" about as much as he does.

I listened to the intro, and had to leave the car. Any good?

I heard it. I just finished Michael Lewis' book (The Undoing Project) that profiled the Israeli guys who founded modern behavioral economics. It is an amazing topic, and it explains a lot about free markets and flaws with rational expectations built into economic models.

Pro sports falls into many of the traps that behavioral economics helps explain.

I think that guy was nervous and having trouble explaining the science behind behavioral matters.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Can you give a few notes on the subjects or examples?

Much of what he said are things you've heard before:

More picks are better
You should trade down as much as possible
First round picks are as likely to be out of the league in five years as they are to have made a Pro Bowl.

I don't think that last one is a big deal. Just because a pick didn't make a Pro Bowl doesn't mean he's not a good or even a very good player.

I think he also said that teams shouldn't even start picking players until pick #45 because of the value/risk/reward involved.

Oh sure. There are lots of different situation brought up in the book via experiments. One key overriding theme is that people are risky with losses and conservative with gains. As such:

I offer you the chance of a coin flip. You can either win $1,000 if right or $0 if you are wrong. As an alternative, you can just get $500 right now with no risk. Nearly everyone takes the $500.

Now I tell you you can either pay me $0 if right or $1,000 if you are wrong. As an alternative, you can just pay me $500 with no coin flip. Nearly everyone chooses the risky coin flip.

That situation exactly explains how people "gamble" with stock investments. They tend to take winners off the table quickly for ego purposes to say they made money. But they roll the dice on losers and hang on way to long to avoid saying they made a bad stock pick. Ask Spiral (and me) about our investment in FTR.


They also provided a ton of great examples of how people poorly assess the odds of something happening. That applies to the football draft. People overestimate their ability to control a situation and properly assess the chances of success of a given player. In fact, there is a lot more luck to it than anyone would ever admit. Lewis' book had several pro sports examples. The scientists attributed that to GM and his staff having to sound really confident to the President and owner about their ability to make the right selection. They used college basketball players in the draft as examples in the book.

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Hawaii (fuck) You

Thanks

I don't know if that would work. Philly used to do this, and I don't think it worked. NE uses this, but they have God playing QB so the chances are spotlighted.

If it were me, it would be to try and draft the #1 or #2 guy at their respected position. Ex: Bears(I watch them and I am somewhat of a fan) have the ability at pretty much any #1 player at their position. I would call that an impact player. Now my Cowboys(100% fan of) do not have this luxury. They are picking in the 20's, and it is more of a crap shoot.

I agree, Cashman.