The Stan Van Gundy Show "First, I'd like to thank David Stern for allowing Stan [Van Gundy] to be here today."
-- John Buccigross, ESPN sportscaster "In coaching, you're trying to create a style of play and a culture. Every time you make an exception, you're breaking that down."
-- Stan Van Gundy, former head coach of the Orlando Magic and Miami Heat “In Miami, all the TV analysts -- I won’t say any names -- killed us because we didn’t have a midrange game. I felt like saying, ‘Thank God.’”
-- Van Gundy “The goal is to win, and we’re not playing video games here.”
-- Van Gundy “There’s no number out there that’ll solve all the problems.”
-- Van Gundy "Just like there's a need for physical rest, there's a need for mental rest."
-- Van Gundy In response to Van Gundy apologizing for talking too much: “Is this the first time you’ve talked a lot?”
-- R.C. Buford, San Antonio Spurs president Snarky remarks On drafting Royce White: "You were going to draft the same guy we did."
-- Daryl Morey, Houston Rockets general manager "Yeah, but we would have dealt with it differently."
-- Mark Cuban, Dallas Mavericks owner In response to Michael Lewis' naming him as one of the inspirations of "The Blind Side" “Never got an invite to the Oscars.”
-- Paraag Marathe, San Francisco 49ers COO On setting a path to success: “Be a nuisance until they hire you.”
-- Morey, on his path to success “Please don’t take that as a suggestion.”
-- Cuban On dealing with the front-office friction with the analytics movement: “You own a team; it’s a lot easier.”
-- Morey to Cuban On the "count the ringzzz" theory: “The more z’s, the lower the IQ”
-- Tom Haberstroh, ESPN NBA writer "In reality, bookmaking is easy. Some of the dumbest people I know are bookmakers."
-- Haralabos Voulgaris, professional gambler "In sports, there's a lot of correlation between stats and performance. In politics, a lot of it is bulls---."
-- Nate Silver, statistician, sabermetrician, psephologist, and FiveThirtyEight.com author Walked into the wrong place? "If you're looking at statistics alone and saying 'we're drafting this guy,' good luck. I hope you're in my division."
-- Brian Burke, former Toronto Maple Leafs senior adviser "When you're losing, the sports page only has value if you own a puppy or a parakeet."
-- Burke "If I overpay a player, it's not because there's a revolver to my head, it's because I'm an idiot."
-- Burke. "The worst thing that ever happened in sports was sports radio, and the internet is sports radio on steroids with lower IQs.”
-- Burke. "Statistics are like a lamppost to a drunk: useful for support but not for illumination.”
-- Burke Analytical analysis "It [analytics] has become mainstream because it works."
-- Morey “The way we had been talking about the game was inaccurate.”
-- Haberstroh "Are the league's best rebounders conceding shots to get in better rebounding positions? For some, yes."
-- Kirk Goldsberry, Harvard University visiting scholar "Ten years from now, we're going to look back and laugh at this study, but we have to start somewhere.”
-- Goldsberry "It's hard to be a decision-maker and be removed.”
-- Cuban “The models weren't built on a dataset like him [Jeremy Lin]."
-- Morey On choosing between Greg Oden and Kevin Durant as the 2007 first overall draft pick in retrospect: "Almost everyone would have taken Oden."
-- Morey "The No. 1 job for an NBA GM is not to win championships, but to keep their job.”
-- Cuban On if he were a sports owner: “If I bought an NBA team, the first day I’d trade for LeBron [James]. Then, the second day I’d trade for Kobe [Bryant]. And the third day, I’d do one of those Harlem Shuffle [Shake] videos.”
-- John Skipper, ESPN president Kicking a man when he’s down On the Los Angeles Lakers being the only team without a representative at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference: “From the Celtics' perspective, it’s not a bad thing the Lakers aren’t here.”
– Mike Zarren, Boston Celtics assistant general manager “If we can keep the Lakers out, that’s fine with us.”
-- Buford On Brian Burke recanting the difficulty of being a general manager and firing a coach: "Believe me, it's always a lot harder on the guy getting fired."
-- Stan Van Gundy Business of sports "When a company has a good year, you don't throw a parade. When a sports team wins, the whole city celebrates.”
-- Cuban "Sports front-office jobs are still more who you know than what you know."
-- Marathe "If sports leagues don't want government involved, they should stop putting their hand out."
-- Andrew Zimbalist, Smith College professor "If you're not at the table, you're on the menu."
-- Deepak Malhotra, Harvard Business School professor "There are teams that 'go for it' under this new CBA that make you wonder if they've read it."
-- Cuban A safer future "When you receive a concussion, if you get a concussion again, even if it's a tiny one -- it can have a severe impact."
-- John Brenkus, BASE Productions co-Founder "Surgery is a very good tool, but you don't treat the underlying disease process."
-- Dr. Peter Wehling, M.D., Ph.D., orthopedic and spine surgeon "We are doing whatever we can to capture data. We lock in medical staff to longer-term deals than players.”
-- Cuban Sloan Conference 2023 On how far people have delved into the potential of analytics: "We are nowhere yet."
-- Morey "There is a human element in sports that is not quantifiable. These players bleed for you, give you everything they have, and there's a bond there."
-- Bill Polian, ESPN NFL analyst "When visualizing data, it's not about how much can I put in but how much can I take out."
-- Joe Ward, The New York Times sports graphics editor “If you are not becoming a digital CMO (Chief Marketing Officer), you are becoming extinct.”
-- Tim McDermott, Philadelphia Eagles CMO “Even if God came down and said this model is correct
there is still randomness, and you can be wrong.”
-- Phil Birnbaum, By The Numbers editor
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