In Baseball, Billy Beane and the Oakland A’s coined the term “moneyball” and now basketball might have its own unorthodox method.
The Milwaukee Bucks employ “Face Coder” Dan Hill to look at areas besides numbers or analytics, and instead bring science into the equation in an effort to gain an edge when bringing in players.
The Bucks started using Hill’s methods prior to the NBA draft when new owners Wes Edens and Mark Lasry purchased the team. Using the Facial Action Coding System (FACS), Hill reads players’ faces to identify happiness, surprise, contempt, disgust, sadness, anger and fear.
“We spend quite a bit of time evaluating the players as basketball players and analytically,” Bucks assistant GM David Morway said. “But the difficult piece of the puzzle is the psychological side of it, and not only psychological, character and personality issues, but also team chemistry issues.”
