The Rockets Use Atypical Criteria to Evalute Players
Jack Welch's "Differentiation Vitality Curve" says to praise the top twenty percent of your employees, watch the middle seventy percent of your employees, and ditch the bottom ten percent of your employees (Welch, 159). OK, I don't much like that, but I do understand what Welch is up to.
Let's just suppose, however, that you own a basketball team. You have a guard that can't (or doesn't) shoot, but, oh, can he guard. In fact, he is liable to go scoreless when he guards Kobe Bryant. Why is he on the floor? Because he holds Kobe - and folks like him - to their worst nights of their careers. So, he doesn't shoot much, but he guards spectacularly. Boos - or applause from the front office? There is only one answer - applause, big time. Guarding Kobe takes special analytical skills. The successful guard has to be where Kobe makes his best shots, forcing him into parts of the court where he makes the least number of shots over an evening.
We say pick your team very carefully. In this case, the front office picked Shane Battier for one reason - the teams he play on win (Lewis). Maybe some of their statistics aren't so hot. That may mean, however, that the player doesn't need changing. In fact, you may need a new record keeping system instead. In this case, the Houston Rockets didn't have money to hire a star as they already had two of them in Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. They needed somebody who was cheap and who got the job done. But what job? Battier, "can't dribble, he's slow, and hasn't got much body control (Lewis)." The job Battier does is guard the best play on the opposing team. He's a guard. He's defensive. He keeps the opponents stats down while the rest of his team focuses on scoring.
Now, in business we talk about offense a lot. It might be in order to consider your defense as well. While you're at it, it might be in order to consider the statistics you are using. Those two tactics worked for the Rockets.
Lewis, Michael. The No-Stats All-Star. New York Times. 15 February 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?pagewanted=3&hp
Welch, Jack with John A. Byrne. Jack. Straight From the Gut. Warner Business Books.