Grizzlies hire John Hollinger as VP of Basketball Operations

[mtamada]

Congrats to John; I'm assuming this is a full-time position which will require him to give up his ESPN column, so it's a loss for the public discourse about basketball statistics. He was the most visible of the proponents of advanced hoopstats, and is now one of the higher-ranking ones in terms of his front office position.

[Bobbofitos]

Good for him. On a personal level, that kinda sucks, since I really liked his PER Diems. No reason to subscribe to ESPN insider now...

[Mike G]

That's great, though. John H has always been much more of a basketball mind than most people who do statistics. A true fan, and also a great observer.

[schtevie]

I was going to say that John was merely going to be Aaron's puppet, but now I see that Aaron's gone to Philly. Gotta pay more attention...

[wilq]

Congratulations to John! Well deserved chance and suddenly Grizzlies' roster moves will have more scrutiny than ever ;-)

On the other side, that's a loss for the readers and I wonder, will ESPN still use PER without him?
Or will they make a switch to WARP because they already have two writers using that stat?

[Jon Nichols]

I love every part of this, except for one thing in the ESPN article:

Hollinger was recruited to the Grizzlies by new controlling owner Robert Pera and CEO/managing partner Jason Levien, who have made upgrading Memphis' analytics department one of their front-office priorities.

Why would anyone ever want to upgrade Aaron? Is that possible?

Not cool, Mr. Stein

[EvanZ]

Lakers should hire DeanO next.

[jsill]

Congratulations, John!

I wonder if the advanced stats pages on ESPN will always be known as "Hollinger Player Statistics" and "Hollinger Team Statistics". John has left ESPN, but maybe his brand will live on!

[DSMok1]

I love every part of this, except for one thing in the ESPN article:

Hollinger was recruited to the Grizzlies by new controlling owner Robert Pera and CEO/managing partner Jason Levien, who have made upgrading Memphis' analytics department one of their front-office priorities.

Why would anyone ever want to upgrade Aaron? Is that possible?

Not cool, Mr. Stein

Maybe it was supposed to be in addition to Aaron? And then Aaron left?

[mikez]

Lakers should hire DeanO next.

No.

-MZ

[talkingpractice]

His Farewell Diem, for anyone interested: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/page/PER ... ell-column

[DSMok1]

Lakers should hire DeanO next.

No.

-MZ