HoopsHype.com Rumors

John Hollinger: Congrats to @Daryl Morey /bad news for rest of us in West. MT @Jonathan Feigen Rockets signed GM Daryl Morey to a 4-yr extension this week Twitter @johnhollinger

Houston Rockets, Memphis Grizzlies, Daryl Morey, Leslie Alexander, John Hollinger 

How does your approach to analytics as a team executive differ from your approach as a writer? John Hollinger: The biggest change is that I’m looking at everything through this more narrow lens of “how does this impact the Memphis Grizzlies?” That means I’m probably looking at certain players much more closely and all but ignoring some national stories that I’d be discussing nearly every day in my former gig (like one that rhymes with “Spakers,” for instance), and it means I’m paying a lot more attention to non-NBA stuff (college, Europe, etc.) because that’s the pipeline for incoming players. As a writer I had the luxury of waiting until those guys got to the league if I so chose. NBA.com

Memphis Grizzlies, Media, John Hollinger 

Memphis’s recent success should be taken with a grain of salt. Their current hot streak has come against mostly inferior competition. Their streak will be tested when they visit the Miami Heat on Friday night in a nationally televised game. Hollinger said that his feelings about the Grizzlies players had not changed after having joined the team, although he would not comment on the players he had traded. The one thing he would say was that Prince learned the Grizzlies playbook in “like five minutes.” “There’s no analytic for that; he was just plug and play,” he said. New York Times

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

Hollinger said that he has had little opportunity to work with the players who are currently on the team, because he showed up in the middle of the season and was initially focused on player transactions. “It was a little hard to jump in and start making demands or whatever,” he said. “So I think our approach has probably been a little cautious. There hasn’t been a lot of opportunity to implement deep analytic concepts at this point.” New York Times

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

Hollinger described the technology as a potential game-changer in the analytics arms race. Still, such a crushing amount of data is useless without sophisticated analytic techniques, he said, which makes him wary of its immediate utility. “It’s such a revolution that it presents its own challenges,” he said. “The biggest issue is the tsunami of data that they are going to unleash. There’s a lot of great information in there, somewhere, but the ability to process it — that’s the challenge.” New York Times

Memphis Grizzlies, Statistics, John Hollinger 

Henry Abbott sits down with John Hollinger to discuss the trade deadline and find out the real reason behind the Grizzlies trade with the Raptors ESPN.com

Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Trade, Rudy Gay, John Hollinger 

John Hollinger: Inside report from Grizzlies' practice court: @RobertPera got some serious game. #torched Twitter @johnhollinger

Memphis Grizzlies, Robert Pera, John Hollinger 

So when the officials fail to call a moving screen on Atlanta, or a Grizzlies shooter has his toe on the 3-point line, or Zach Randolph makes a strong defensive stand when he could’ve easily checked out, it feels a little different. These plays inform larger truths about the team, just as they did from press row. But as time progresses, every success or failure will be an expression of how well he’s doing the job. “I’ve been pretty calm so far,” Hollinger said. “But inevitably as we get further into this, it will probably get harder.” For Hollinger, watching League Pass and video of NBA basketball used to be an exploration for ideas, themes and patterns. These days, he surveys that landscape through a single lens -- the future of the Memphis Grizzlies. “I’m looking at players a little differently,” Hollinger said. “Any time I’m seeing a player, I’m thinking about how he would fit on our team.” ESPN.com

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

There is work to be done, of course. The Grizzlies wouldn't have beaten many teams the way they played Friday. It will help when they learn one another's tendencies, or at least one another's names. But for one night, there was happiness. Thanks to the Prince who may find a home in the city of kings. Or, as assistant GM John Hollinger put it: "We're not idiots yet." Memphis Commercial Appeal

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

The Grizzlies issued a statement on the trade late Wednesday, and embarrassingly had "general manager Chris Wallace" throw out the obligatory organizational quotes on the deal. Only, Wallace had nothing to do with the trade. Nothing. He isn't making calls to teams. He isn't consulted by the new regime. He's waiting until they agree on the terms of his inevitable parting. So, Pera and new CEO Jason Levien take an unpopular trade and assign it to Wallace in the news release. Yahoo! Sports

Memphis Grizzlies, Trade, Rudy Gay, Jason Levien, Chris Wallace, John Hollinger 

Levien is making these deals based largely on the recommendations of John Hollinger, a statistician who worked for a cable sports company. The San Antonio Spurs once used him as a consultant and regretfully took his advice to sign a free agent named Jackie Butler. It was such a disaster, the Spurs had to attach Luis Scola to a trade to get Butler out of town. Yahoo! Sports

Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Trade, Rudy Gay, Jason Levien, Chris Wallace, John Hollinger 

Bill Simmons: 2013's best sports moment: Automated Hollinger saying Human Hollinger's trade w/ Toronto made Toronto 6 wins worse. es.pn/TZ1pY4 Twitter @BillSimmons

Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Trade, Rudy Gay, John Hollinger 

Chad Ford: Interestingly, @John Hollinger's Draft Rater HATED Ed Davis in 2010. Had him ranked as 54th best prospect. insider.espn.go.com/nba/draft2010/… Twitter @chadfordinsider

Memphis Grizzlies, Toronto Raptors, Draft, Trade, Ed Davis, John Hollinger 

With more than three months on the job, Levien has begun to transform the Grizzlies with some unexpected additions to his front office staff, tapping long-time business associate Stu Lash to oversee player personnel and long-time sports reporter and advanced analytics guru John Hollinger, formerly from ESPN, as his vice president of basketball operations. "Both guys needed to be recruited a little bit," Levien told USA Today Sports. "I put my agent hat on, but I think both guys were excited." USA Today Sports

Memphis Grizzlies, Jason Levien, Chris Wallace, Robert Pera, John Hollinger 

Hiring Lash seemed almost inevitable, as he and Levien have a long history together. However, hiring Hollinger away from ESPN was something of a surprise. "I always read his stuff so I sort of knew him from reading his stuff and saying, 'This guy is smart and he writes really well,'" Levien said. "We spent time at the Sloan Conference together (an annual sports analytics conference held by MIT in Boston), and I liked him even more. "I leaned on John when I was an agent a few times to give me advice on how I can use analytics in promoting my clients through negotiation and even in the draft. I understood what he was looking at and what he saw and how that equated to what I was looking at and what I saw. And I said, 'This guy really gets it, he's really sharp.'" USA Today Sports

Memphis Grizzlies, Jason Levien, Chris Wallace, Robert Pera, John Hollinger, Stu Lash 

"If you look at the dynamic of our group, with Jason making the final decision," Lash says, "Chris brings a tremendous amount of experience and he's been here, he's done a great job with the foundation and the core of what this team is. John and myself, having different backgrounds and the transition early on was not very difficult. Chris was very open on how he got to this point with this team and it's been good." It's this kind of synergy of information that Levien envisioned when he brought together his front office. "We definitely have a plan and vision for what the future here looks like," Hollinger said. "I'm sure you want me to share all of it, but unfortunately I can't really disclose USA Today Sports

Memphis Grizzlies, Jason Levien, Chris Wallace, Robert Pera, John Hollinger, Stu Lash 

Now, the fans have gotten really into it. Potter says he’s “getting emails from people requesting stuff. ‘Oh, the Crystal Castles album! This xx song would be perfect!’” Not only that, but Potter also says that people have been sending him stats based on how the team has been performing based on what song has been playing — “Like, when you play the “Tron: Legacy” soundtrack, you’re shooting that percentage.” He later quips, “I’ll have to ask Hollinger what kind of stats he wants,” no doubt the final frontier in advanced stat analysis for the Grizzlies’ new VP of Basketball Operations. The Score

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger, Nathan Black, Crystal Castles, Jason Potter 

John Hollinger: Former trade machine maestro @billsimmons so rattled by Griz he's proposing cap-illegal trades. Twitter @johnhollinger

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

John Hollinger: Just realized I'm going to have start paying for Insider. #irony Twitter @johnhollinger

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger 

John Hollinger is seen as a stat man with no NBA real life experience. How excited or nervous should Memphis fans be? Henry Abbott: John has been working full-time in the NBA for almost all of his adult life, and his life has been real as far as I know! The NBA is — in reality — a very small group of people. If it were a town, it’d be a small one. John has been visiting those arenas with those people for a long time. John’s phone already has a lot of the same contacts in the address book that he’ll need in this job. While of course he’s tackling a very new kind of role, the territory of NBA decision-making is hardly alien to him. Importantly, his opinions have been out there in ways you can verify day after day after day. Possibly more than anyone else in the league we know what he thinks, and he has a big ol’ track record of that which goes way beyond the PER rankings. When you get in there and access that track record, it is not perfect — nobody’s is — but it rivals anything anybody else has going. For example, when he forecasts how many wins each team will have, his results are right there with Vegas. When he forecasts which draft picks will do well his results rival the collective wisdom of the league’s 30 front offices. 3 Shades Of Blue

Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger