Bobcats GM Rich Cho comes at his job differently than the other 29 guys who have these gigs. Cho was an engineer for Boeing who left that to attend Pepperdine law school, then parlayed that into a job with the Sonics.
One of his big projects with the Bobcats has been create a comprehensive player data base that revolutionizes how the franchise can research players. At the heart of that database are changes in how the Bobcats evaluate their talent and scout other players. The Charlotte Observer as a fantastic look at it. It took six months, six figures and three full-time people to put the database together.
It’s going to be put to the test in the next few weeks as the Bobcats head into the first draft under Cho, followed by a free agency period where the team will try to rebuild a roster that was a historically bad 7-59 last season.
This scouting database was put in a secure online place and has more than 50,000 pages, reports the Observer.
You can instantly look up year-by-year statistics for Boston Celtics great Bill Russell … or any other player in NBA history. You can check the injury archive of a Slovenian playing in the Spanish league or whether a forward in the Development League was ever busted for drugs….
Cho’s system has all the basics you’d expect: Player contracts, statistics that can be used to compare Bobcats players’ development to others’, any potential bonuses that could complicate trade discussions.
That’s all handy, but thanks to a number of invaluable Web sites — Basketball-Reference, DraftExpress and more — you and I also can find that information. The Bobcats database makes it more convenient, but it’s not unheard of information.
What separates it is how Cho used this to change how the Bobcats do their scouting reports (all of which also is on the database).
(Cho) didn’t like the standard practice of rating a player’s shooting or dribbling 1 through 10, because one scout’s eight was another scout’s six. So he came up with a nine-level system with labels, descriptions and examples, for scouts to use as a guide. The rankings: Franchise, Core, Top starter, Starter, Key reserve, Reserve, Roster, Minor-league, No-Bobcat.
There are fewer than 10 current NBA players graded as “franchise.” As Cho described, “we’re talking about players who can change the caliber of a team.” At the other end, Cho describes a “No-Bobcat” as a player whose talent falls far short of NBA-caliber or who’s behavior is so egregious it can’t be tolerated.
Go read the entire story. This alone certainly will not change the fortunes of the Bobcats — it’s a tool, and in the end what really matters is your skill in using that tool. There were guys with a hammer and a chisel that created chairs 300 years ago that are works of art and still function today, there are guys today with laser cutting lines on power saws that create schlock. The tools alone are not enough.
But it’s a step. It’s building a foundation that can help make better decisions, and that’s where turning the Bobcats around starts.
