I really don’t think the whole “analytics vs. eye test” debate is what people make it out to be anymore, I don’t think anyone is truly one or the other. At this point I think it’s much more about people who are willing to approach basketball with nuance and an actual thought process vs. people who aren’t. There are plenty of people who reject all-in-one metrics but are still great at using evidence to support their evaluations. Plenty of people who prioritize film and genuinely study the game rather than relying on highlights or narratives. And plenty of people who heavily value analytics who also watch film to understand what the numbers are capturing, or why those numbers are overrating/underrating a player. There are so many people on this app who genuinely love basketball and put a ton of effort into evaluating players, even if their processes look completely different. I have a ton of respect for that, and I think there’s a lot to learn from people who approach the game differently. What bothers me is how much of basketball discourse comes from people who don’t seem to have any real evaluation process at all. Their opinions are shaped by popular narratives, reputations, team success, or whatever the final result happened to be, without much consideration for everything that went into producing that result. There is SO much nuance to evaluating basketball players. Roles, responsibilities, teammates, schemes, matchups, scalability, the ways players create advantages and the ways they capitalize on them, how their strengths and weaknesses interact with the players around them. And that’s what makes dismissing an entire evaluation process so frustrating to me. Two people can watch the same player, look at the same evidence, and reach different conclusions for perfectly reasonable reasons. That’s not a problem. The problem is when people aren’t even interested in doing that work and instead let a narrative or a final result do all the evaluating for them. This goes for both sides too, it’s not meant to call out one group specifically. I don’t care if someone’s process looks completely different from mine. If they’re consistent, thoughtful, and willing to challenge their own conclusions, there’s probably something I can learn from them, or at least respect. Basketball is way too complex for these conversations to constantly get reduced to who won, who put up better numbers, or who passes someone’s personal eye test. I just wish more people were interested in understanding WHY things happen rather than using the final result to dictate the whole evaluation.