Hiring the Joker

Summary

Hiring The Joker If you ask basketball fans today who the most dominant basketball player in the world is, 99% of them would tell you it's Nikola Jokic (nicknamed “The Joker”). He is a machine. He is at the top of the league leaderboard for every important statistic: scoring, rebounds, and assists. He has won three MVP awards and an NBA championship. And he is 30 years old. But practically nobody expected this. Expert NBA scouts had this to say about Jokic on draft day: “Jokic's upside isn't too spectacular because he's a below-average athlete, so he'll have to focus on utilizing his skill set and operating as an efficient shooter and passer within a system.” Jokic grew up in Serbia and did not go to college. And, in case you’re not familiar, he looks like this: Jokic was the 41st pick in the 2014 NBA draft. His name was announced at the draft in the middle of a Taco Bell commercial. 40 players were selected ahead of the now greatest player in the world. Over half of the players selected before him are not even in the league anymore. To all of this I ask—how? How did all of the NBA scouts and reporters miss this? How did all of the experts, using all of the NBA data in the world, not see this coming? * * * The Jokic story, as crazy as it is, is not especially unique. Tom Brady, the now greatest and winningest quarterback in the history of the National Football League, was the 199th pick in the 2000 NFL draft. (There were 253 picks in total.) The converse is also the case. In the NFL, about 50% of first round picks are wasted on busts: players who fizzle out and only last a few years in the league.Drafting players is hard, as it is difficult to predict how people will evolve over time. And sometimes, people who don’t look like much up front end up being stars. But if you can make the right prediction, it’s extremely valuable: one great selection can transform a team and lead to years or decades of dominance. Teams know this, of course, so they spend millions of dolla...