First, the term "colorblind" is one of the more insidious expressions of political correctness. No one is colorblind. It is ludicrous to even suggest that we can instinctively disassociate the context of someones appearance, whether in judgement, prejudgement or simple observation. Even by its literal definition, colorblindness refers to the lack of an accepted perspective. (My blue may be your purple so whose blue is blue?) Stephen Colbert will occasionally mock this absurdity when he reminds his audience that he "doesn't see gender." Professional scouts are even less "colorblind." The most common practice in talent evaluation is drawing athletic comparisons between similar athletes, which is almost never done across racial lines. Although I am not suggesting scouts use a conscious bias, I will argue that someone like Jeremy Lin alluded comparisons, and thus attention, not because of his game, but because of his physiognomy. Without another Asian point guard to compare him to, he went largely unrecruited by Division 1 schools, despite leading a very visible program in Palo Alto, CA to a state championship.
Close your eyes and imagine Yao Ming as a 6'6" all-star point guard, instead of a 7'6" evolutionary anomaly, imported from a nation of one billion. Would this have changed the perception of Lin's game? With an obvious visual analogy, perhaps Lin is heavily recruited out of high school; maybe he chooses Duke, leaves after his junior year and becomes a lottery pick because a dozen teams are fighting over the chance to draft the next Yao Ming.
Perception becomes reality.
The average sports fan pays attention to scouting only as it pertains to the NFL and NBA drafts. Michael Lewis wrote a best selling book about the battle between old baseball orthodoxy and new world Sabermetrics. In Moneyball, the charming Oscar-nominated movie, Brad Pitt's portrayal of the A's general manager would lead you to believe Roy Hobbs was now running Oakland's front office. Make no mistake, Moneyball is a rigid numerical philosophy and Billy Beane is a statistical ideologue with a hair-trigger temper. We need to be more skeptical of the so-called "experts," particularly "draft experts." Not because they are incompetent or unqualified, but because their track record is about as reliable as yours or mine. I want to be clear, measuring the athletic merits of a pre-professional is an extremely difficult discipline. Overvaluing talent is as common as undervaluing potential and the experts are often wrong in both directions. Therefore, dogma must constantly be questioned. This was one area where I appreciate and recommend Moneyball. Beane and Paul DiPodesta challenged orthodoxy and succeeded by adding another dimension to the discussion but... (spoiler alert!) they ultimately lost, and the A's haven't been relevant in a decade. In my estimation, experts rely too heavily on methods like statistical analysis and game film, all of which are inherently wrought with subjective context.
Over the last few years, we've grown accustomed to the term "eyeball test," referring to 'what we see' as opposed to 'what we know.' This strikes me as counter-intuitive. Why do we put 'see' and 'know' on opposite corners of the evaluation meter? Since only a tiny percentage of professional athletes emerge as outliers amongst the elite, and an even tinier percentage of those outliers are accurately projected by the experts, professional sports (not to mention the Halls of Fame) is chock-full of overachievers; athletes that either defied their projections or were so underrated, they were never even given any. Once in a great while, an overachiever outlier like Jeremy Lin gives us all the opportunity to re-examine our belief structure.
As we know, our 'round-the-clock sports media suffers from a paralysis of analysis, but it is through this tortured process, this echo-chamber of consensus, perception becomes reality. The problem is, when it comes to evaluating talent, we place virtually 100% of our perception on player's current set of skills. What are his strengths? What are his weaknesses? Who does he remind us of? This method has grown increasingly superficial. But, there's an exception to the rule: In rare cases (think: Serge Ibaka or Jason Pierre Paul), we'll consider a learning curve when a player is astoundingly athletic but does not have the repetition of his peers. In this, we assume players with raw talent and underdeveloped skill will peak at some point in the future. To borrow a phrase from Wall Street traders, "it's like buying green bananas." Physiologically, this is a more reasonable approach. Instead of breaking down a player based on strengths, weaknesses and resemblance, we adjust his time horizon and then project his ability once his peaks. Years ago, a study in Men's Journal concluded that men can reach their athletic prime anywhere between the ages of 17 and 28. Professional athletes, of all races and nationalities, are no exception. Could it be possible that some, if not all, of the countless first round draft picks (in every sport) that quickly flame out in the pros, had already peaked athletically? And could it be possible that the athletes that flew under the radar (think: Kobe Bryant, Tom Brady, Mike Piazza) came into their athletic prime after their scouting reports were set in stone. With worldclass science and technology and information available to us, why do we keep deferring to Mel Kiper Jr. and Jay Bilas year after year? Setting skill-set aside, it seems prudent to at least try and measure when an athlete might hit his physical peak, as this may prove to be a more accurate barometer of his potential. In fairness to scouts, there is no logical or scientific explanation for Jeremy Lin. Clearly he can play, absolutely he was undervalued, but he does defy every natural and statistical law.
What was fascinating about the Tim Tebow phenomenon, despite the demographics of his fanbase, was that Tebow was marginalized in a way that is typically reserved for black quarterbacks. His style of play literally infuriated the football braintrust, and his win/loss record baffled experts to the point of exhaustion. Obviously his deficiencies are transparent in the "eyeball test," so perhaps it was simply a matter of circumstance and luck, but it cannot be argued that Tebow created a movement that expanded well beyond the Mile High City. Why? Speaking of Luck, Andrew would be lucky if he had a rookie season that compared to Cam Newton's.
Certainly, the NFL Combine, and all the traditional methods, have a valuable place in the process. What I am advocating for is less orthodoxy in evaluating talent and more skepticism in the corresponding analysis. The reality is that our perception is often inaccurate because we are overly dependent, if not utterly obsessed, with the accessible, digestible narrative created by those who we've empowered to tell us who will flourish and who will fail. Chuck Klosterman brilliantly made the observation that perhaps all of the recent passion and excitement surrounding Tim Tebow and Jeremy Lin, has less to do with their overt displays of religion or our infatuation with an underdog story, and much more to do with a refreshing departure from hard data. So much of our society is now controlled by specific statistical metrics, watching Tebow and Lin has allowed us to exhale and unconsciously tell all of the experts they were wrong.
@HebrewRational
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