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原文標題:
Pistons leaving no game unwatched in hopes of uncovering the NBA's secrets
活塞為了發掘NBA的秘密一場比賽都不錯過


There will be 1,230 NBA games this season. The Detroit Pistons want to
watch every one.
今年球季會有1,230場比賽，活塞每一場都想要觀看。


The Pistons have four pro scouts, and that’s their job: Watch basketball.
A lot of basketball. Two or three games a day, all season. Last year,
they watched between 90-95% of NBA games, and for each one, they
evaluated every player in the game in several categories, and entered
their scouting reports into the team’s database. The Pistons want to
know everything relevant about every player in the league—and really,
about every NBA-quality player in the world.



It’s an enormous and unprecedented effort that could change how business
is done in the NBA.
這是可能改變NBA運作模式的前所未有且巨大的付出。


You know… if it works.
你知道嘛，如果它有用的話。


In the spring of 2014, Stan Van Gundy pulled out of the Golden State
Warriors’ coaching search to take full control of the Pistons. Outsiders
tend to look at these jobs simply as vehicles for winning games, and by
that standard, Van Gundy made a mistake. The Warriors have already won
a championship. Nobody knows if they would have won it with Van Gundy
coaching instead of Steve Kerr, but they would have had a great shot.
Just about everybody in the NBA agrees Van Gundy is a terrific coach.


But after a Pistons practice recently, Van Gundy insisted, “If I had it
to do over again, this is where I’d want to be.” He has a chance to do
something that very few coaches ever get to do: Build an organization
as he pleases. The Pistons’ owner, Tom Gores, has given him the budget
and authority to do it.



Van Gundy did not want control just for the sake of having it. He had
a vision. Van Gundy has been a coaching grinder his whole professional
life: watching film forever, preparing for every possible circumstance,
worrying about every detail. When he hired his friend, Jeff Bower,
to be the general manager in 2014, he told Bower he wanted to apply
that kind of mindset to the front office.



They went on a hiring spree, the likes of which the NBA has never seen.
In a year and change, the Pistons have gone from one of the league's
smallest front-office staffs to one of the largest.
他們以NBA前所未見的瘋狂程度招募人力。經歷了一年的變化，活塞的管理部門
人力從全聯盟數一數二小變成了數一數二大。


To understand the scope of what the Pistons are doing, go back a decade.
It’s really not that much time, when you think about it. The Spurs were
perennial contenders behind Tim Duncan, Gregg Popovich and Tony Parker.
LeBron James was trying to end Cleveland’s championship drought.
Again: Not a long time.
為了要了解活塞這改變的範圍有多大，讓我們回溯到10年前。當你仔細想想，
那並不是很長的一段時間。馬刺在波波、TD跟趴車的帶領下是長年的冠軍挑戰者。
LBJ試著要完結克里夫蘭的冠軍荒。再說一次：真的不是很長的一段時間。


The 2004 Pistons basically had five people in their front office:
a general manager (Joe Dumars), his three closest confidantes
(John Hammond, Scott Perry, George David), and an international scout
(Tony Ronzone).
2004年的活塞管理部門基本上有五個人：總經理老喬，他三個最親近的知己
(John Hammond, Scott Perry, George David)，以及一個國際球探
(Tony Ronzone)。


That was it. Five people.
就這樣。五個人。


The current Pistons have those four pro scouts. The 2004 Pistons didn’t
have any. If a player on another team became available at the trade
deadline, or was about to hit free agency, Dumars and his staff already
had an opinion on him. Sometimes they would watch some extra tape.



David and Perry would travel around the country seeing games, and
sometimes Dumars and Hammond would drop in on one.
David和Perry會走遍全國觀看比賽，有時候老喬跟Hammond會加入看一場。


They did have an advance scout, watching teams that were coming up on
the Pistons’ schedule. But an advance scout is really an extension of
the coaching staff. Advance scouts help with game strategy, not player
acquisition.


Now? The Pistons have Van Gundy, Bower, three assistant general managers,
a basketball-operations director, four pro scouts, six
college/international scouts, two analytics software engineers and a
director of strategic planning. That’s 18 people.
現在呢？活塞有大范、Bower、三個副總經理、一個籃球事務總監、四個職業球探、
六個大學/國際球探、兩個分析軟體工程師和一個策略計劃總監。這樣是18個人。


That’s just the front-office increase. Then there are the various
support people who have been added. Everywhere you look, you see more
people. The 2004 Pistons had one video coordinator. The 2015 Pistons
have three.


The construction of the 2004 Pistons seems primitive and downright
laughable now, until you remember: That team won the NBA championship.
2004年活塞的建構跟現在相比看似簡陋及十足可笑，直到你想起來一件事：
那支球隊贏了NBA總冠軍。


Dumars’s Pistons were not outliers. The other teams that won
championships in the aughts had similarly small front-office staffs.
Today, Pat Riley’s front office in Miami is less than half the size of
Detroit’s, and the Heat has been to five of the last 10 Finals.
As Van Gundy builds his team, there is no doubt that his model is
different. The Pistons have to show it is also better.
老喬的活塞不是異類。其他在21世紀前10年奪冠的球隊擁有的也是類似的小
管理部門的人力。今天油頭在邁阿密的管理部門大小是底特律的一半，而
熱火在上十次總冠軍賽中打進了五次。毫無疑問地，大范打造他球隊的模式
是不一樣的。活塞需要證明這模式同時是更好的模式。


When you document more than 1,000 games, the idea is not to find
some big championship secret. That’s not how this works. The goal
is to find a lot of smaller clues—to see what other teams don’t see
yet, and capitalize on it.
當你紀錄1000場以上的比賽，你的概念不是要找到什麼巨大的冠軍秘密。
事情不是這樣運作的。目標是要找到許多比較小的線索–看到其他球隊尚未
看到的東西並加以利用。


Now Bower can sit in his office and get an updated scouting report
on each player in the league, each week of the season, in a variety
of categories. One great or bad week can be an outlier, of course.
But evaluating players every week means the Pistons should know if
a player is rising or declining as it happens. A player may have an
A-minus reputation and A-plus endorsement portfolio, but if he plays
like a B player for a few weeks in a row, the Pistons want to know
about it.

但如果他連續幾個禮拜打得像一個B級球員，活塞會想要知道這件事。


Everybody wants the next LeBron or Duncan. Those players tend to be
easy to identify but hard to acquire—especially in a market like
Detroit, which can’t lure top free agents as easily some other cities.
The Pistons want to answer questions like this one that Bower poses:
“Why does a guy go to another team and all of a sudden stand out,
where he barely got an opportunity before?”

“為什麼一個之前幾乎沒有上場機會的傢伙會在轉隊之後突然之間大放異彩？”


The sheer complexity of running a sports team is often lost on
fans—especially in the NBA, where rosters are smaller than other
sports, and one or two players can have an outsized influence on a
team. NBA teams generally draft between one and three players each
summer. It seems fairly simple.



But teams must evaluate hundreds of players around the globe every
year. And teams don’t really know who will be available at the trade
deadline, so they need to be prepared for every possibility.
但球隊每年必須要評估全球幾百名球員。而且球隊們並不知道誰會在交易
截止日前成為可交易球員，所以他們必須要替每個可能性作好準備。


The Pistons believe their approach paid off last winter, when they
acquired point guard Reggie Jackson from Oklahoma City.
去年冬天，活塞在從奧克拉荷馬市得到了控球後衛Reggie Jackson之後相信
他們的做法得到了回報。


Jackson was Russell Westbrook’s backup, and that is how fans viewed
him: As a backup. They weren’t alone. Bower says in the league,
“there was a variety of opinion, I would imagine.” And Jackson’s
public grumbling about his role did not help his reputation—he wanted
to show he could be a starter before he hit free agency, but to some
he looked like a complainer who didn’t care about winning.
Jackosn當時是西河的替補，而這也是球迷怎麼看待他的：一個替補。
不只球迷。Bower說在聯盟中“我可以想像會有各種不同的意見。”而Jackson


The Pistons did not think Jackson would be available, but they
scouted him thoroughly, because they scout everyone thoroughly.
They loved what they saw of Jackson in his short stints as a starter,
when Westbrook was hurt. They thought he would play even better in
Van Gundy’s offense. And his age meant they could build around him.



When the Thunder indicated they were willing to deal Jackson,
the Pistons pounced, acquiring him in a three-team deal with Utah.
In two months with the Pistons, Jackson averaged 17.6 points and
9.2 assists, and the Pistons felt he had room to grow. The day
after the season ended, he turned 25. The Pistons signed him to
a five-year, $80-million contract this summer.



The Jackson contract seemed excessive to some. It’s easy to say
the Pistons overpaid him for two good months. But the Pistons saw
those two months up close, and they feel good about the investment.
Jackson的合約在某些人眼裡看似過多。人們可以輕易地說活塞因為兩個月
的好表現而多付了Jackson。但活塞仔細地評估了那兩個月，而他們對於
這個投資感覺很好。


“We liked his ability, but what we liked even more was a guy who
we thought would not change once he got the money,” Van Gundy said.
“This was a guy who was really driven to be as good as he could be.
Even what we saw at the end of last year, which was really good,
we thought he could go to a higher level, and would work really
hard to get to a higher level. That was why we were able to make
that bet.”
“我們喜歡他的能力，但我們更喜歡的是一個我們認為不會在拿到錢的當下
改變的傢伙。”大范說。“這是一個驅動自己不斷進步的傢伙。即使有了去年
結束前優異的表現，我們認為他能夠達到更高的水準，而他會努力地達到更
高的水準。這是為什麼我們能夠下這個賭注。”


To win, the Pistons need to win a lot of bets like that—starting
with the player-acquisition process. They are heavily into
analytics, but their decisions are not purely driven by analytics.
Bower points out that the pro scouts are basketball veterans.
The idea is to blend old-school and new-school views. If the scouts
and numbers don’t align, the Pistons want to know why.

活塞想要知道原因。


They apply the same philosophies to college and international
scouting that they use for pro scouting. Their scouting operation
is massive, and unimaginable just a decade ago. The NBA is swimming
in money, Gores is willing to spend it, and thanks to technology,
scouts can watch most of the relevant games that take place anywhere
in the world. As Bower says, “We are only limited by time.”
他們把用在職業偵勘的哲學也應用在大學和國際偵勘。他們的球探事務
規模很大—10年前根本無法想像。NBA在賺錢，Gore願意花錢，而拜科技所賜，
球探們可以觀看大部分在全球任何地方進行的相關比賽。就像Bower說的，
“我們的限制只有時間。”


The tricky part is taking this volume of information and molding
it into something useful. There is a risk in knowing so much:
You can lose sight of what is important. The Pistons are well
aware they are putting together a collection of people, not film
clips. The people must be able to work together. Bower says,
“Our target throughout the summer and all of last year was talent,
character and compatibility.”
棘手的部分是將這大量資訊塑造成有用的東西。知道太多有一個風險：
你會忽略掉重要的東西。活塞很清楚他們收集的是大量的人，而不是
大量的影片檔案。人們必須能夠一起工作。Bower說，“我們去年一整年
以及今年夏天的目標是天賦、個性以及相容性。”


The Pistons got a first-hand lesson in incompatibility last season.
Van Gundy’s first Pistons team had Andre Drummond, who will likely
get a maximum contract from the Pistons next summer; Josh Smith,
one of the NBA’s best forwards with Atlanta, and Greg Monroe,
who signed a three-year, $50-million contract with Milwaukee this
summer. That’s a lot of talent. Yet the Pistons started 5-23.
活塞在上個球季得到了〝非〞相關性的第一手教訓。大范的第一支活塞隊
包含預計會在明年夏天獲得一份頂級合約的裝猛；在亞特蘭大時是NBA
最佳前鋒之一的賈許；以及在今年夏天跟密爾瓦基簽下三年，五千萬合約
的夢羅。這是極大量的天賦。然而活塞開季5勝23敗。


“I’ll be honest: I was really disappointed that I couldn’t make
it work better at the beginning of last year,” Van Gundy said.
“I look at that, and it still bothers me. I think that we had
better players, certainly, than to be off to a 5-23 start.
As a coach, you have a hard time with the fact that you couldn’t
get it to work better.”



Last December, the Pistons waived Smith, who was an easy
(and sometimes deserving) target of frustrations. But he was
symptomatic of a larger problem: the pieces did not fit,
offensively or defensively. Smith was a better player in Atlanta
than in Detroit. Monroe is a highly skilled player and a good
teammate, but playing next to Drummond highlighted weaknesses
(slow feet, which give him trouble guarding smaller players,
a limited outside shot) instead of his strengths (post moves,
excellent hands).
去年12月活塞揮棄了賈許—他是挫折時最容易拿來攻擊的目標〈有時候
這些攻擊是他應得的〉。但他象徵了一個更大的問題：進攻上或防守
上各個環節不相容。賈許在亞特蘭大時是個比在底特律時更好的球員。



This year’s Pistons may have comparable overall talent to the
team that started 5-23, but they should be a much better team.
今年的活塞的天賦也許跟去年那支開季5勝23敗的球隊差不多，但他們
應該是個更加優秀的球隊。


So far, the Pistons are pleased with their real-world
application of Van Gundy’s vision. Drummond and guard
Kentavious Caldwell-Pope are holdovers from Dumars’s regime,
but most of the roster has turned over since last year.
They think forward Ersan Ilyasova will fit their culture well.
They love rookie forwardStanley Johnson of Arizona.

亞利桑那州的新人前鋒Stanley Johnson。


Johnson is an example of relationships and classic scouting.
Van Gundy worked with Arizona coach Sean Miller at Wisconsin
in the 1990s. He trusted Miller’s evaluation of Johnson’s
character and toughness. Van Gundy believes character rarely
changes once a player enters the league—some guys may mature
significantly, but most don’t. Johnson is the rare top-10 pick
who instantly improves a team’s culture.

韌性的評估。大范相信球員在進入聯盟後個性鮮少會改變—有些人也許

會大幅地成熟，但絕大多數不會。Johnson是少數能夠立即改善一個
球隊文化的前十順位選秀。


“There is just something about him,” Van Gundy said.
“He is a great, great competitor. Every guy in that draft,
you have to get better if you’re going to make an impact
in this league. What you’ve gotta bank on is their work
ethic and commitment to being great.”
“他就是有種特質，”大范說。“他是一個很棒，很棒的競爭者。
那個選秀中的每個人，你要在這個聯盟產生影響你就得要進步。
你得依賴的是他們的工作道德和對於拿出偉大表現的承諾。”


As Van Gundy went through the roster, from the young building
blocks to the veterans coming off the bench, he said,
“I love our guys.” The Pistons won their opener in Atlanta on
Tuesday and may be one of the surprise teams in the league.
But internally, they won’t be surprised. They have done their
homework.

驚訝。他們已經做足了功課。


(活塞在周三擊敗爵士，周五擊敗公牛，目前3-0)


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