So, this isn't such a groundbreaking statement, and the fact that Chad Ford (who is extremely intelligent) made it, well, that's not surprising either. But, here is something Ford said in the Sports Guy/Chad Ford Mock Draft today (http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/draft2008/columns/story?page=DraftDebate-080624)
Ford: Yeah, that guy. No offense to the Page 2 VP of Common Sense, but common sense is seriously overrated. Maybe it's all of the college classes I'm teaching, but I've noticed that time and time again the pick from the "gut" is just wrong. Most people let emotion and years of blinding worldviews get in the way of the more analytical choice.
I know we think our guts are right. But that's because of something called cognitive dissonance. Once we make a choice, we have to convince ourselves that it was the right choice. So we marshall all the evidence that supports our choice and ignore everything that doesn't -- which is why now you're waffling on the Durant over Oden pick.
I'm not saying that stats have all the answers. But Hollinger's system outperforms NBA GMs every year. And he predicted, correctly, that Adam Morrison would be a bust.
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Just a great description of everything smart people (ranging from Ken Tremendous at FJM.com to Bill James to Connie Mack) have been railing against for years - and even the description of cognitive dissonance didn't suck. Nerd/psych boner is at its full mediocre length.
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