As I mentioned in the End of the Season Donkies, I was able to catch up with the GM of Pgastan FC for an interview to reflect on his championship. Enjoy!
Foul Master (FM): After being one of the NFA founding members and winning 2 of the first 4 titles including the very first, but suffering a few down years lately, how does it feel to be back on top?
Pgastan FC (PFC): It feels good, Johnny, thanks for asking.
FM: Johnny? I've actually never revealed my name on this blog.
PFC: Oh, you just seemed like a Johnny to me. Anyway, it feels great to be back on top with my 3rd title. Like you said, I was a huge force in the beginning of the league but then it seemed liked other foul clubs got better at player evaluation so my competition got harder.
FM: So what did you do to improve your player evaluation to get back on top?
PFC: Glad you asked, Johnny, it's actually a very interesting story. It was the 2015-2016 season and I wanna say it was like mid-December. My team had just bottomed out to 7th place out of the 8 Foul Clubs. I was like, "there's gotta be a better way to evaluate talent in the NFA." So, inspired by analytics in other sports, I decided to create my own database of the previous 2 years of stats. I was able to identified free agents that could immediately help my Foul Club and they did as I finished in 3rd place.
FM: Do you have a name for your method?
PFC: Yes, I call it Foulerball. I know, I know, it's suspiciously similar to Moneyball.
FM: Did you use Foulerball this season?
PFC: Yes, I have been using it for the last 3 seasons, but it took a few years for me to tweak my draft strategy in order to fully capitalize on the data.
FM: Do you know of any other Foul Clubs using analytics?
PFC: During this year's draft, Oww Ming's Flagrants, last year's champion, mentioned that he does Foulerball. It was him drafting a rookie that made me look into it on the spot during the draft. I went with Harry Giles initially but then dropped him for Jaren Jackson Jr. because he was getting more playing time. JJJ, was a top 5 fouler until his injury in March, definitely helped me to the title.
FM: Will you draft rookies going forward? Why did you never draft a rookie before?
PFC: Well, I'll answer the second part first. That's simply because the lack of data, but was able to find a little bit of info on college foul stats somewhere and took my chance. I will definitely look into rookies again and maybe even take a chance on one if the draft value is right.
FM: How would you grade your draft looking back on it?
PFC: Well, Foulerball led me to Patrick Beverely as an elite fouler and he goes on to be MVF this year, so that was amazing. I even whiffed on my 1st round pick, Julius Randle, who had an OK season but I was debating between Andre Drummond and him for that pick and went with Randle due to his previous season's performance. Though, if i draft Drummond, I am not sure I draft Blake Griffin as I like to diversify by not having too many foulers on the same NBA team. I probably could have challenged for NFA all-time score had I drafted Drummond along with Beverley.
FM: You finished 2nd in fouls, 3rd in foul outs, 1st in techies (by a lot), 3rd in ejections, and tied for 7th in flagrants. Are you satisfied with your team stats?
PFC: Yes I am, Johnny, I say, it aligned well with my draft strategy and Foulerball database. It's how I have chosen to evaluate Foulers.
FM: So since you started Foulerball, you have finished 3rd, 4th, 2nd, and 1st in the league, does this prove that analytics has a place in the NFA?
PFC: Oh yeah, I think it does. It really shows that talent evaluation can make a difference. It's going to depend on other Foul Clubs and if they want to hire the right staff to build analytics departments to compete with myself and Oww Ming. Though GG Foulin' seems to know his stuff anyway somehow, so he is a threat should he choose to stay in the league.
In Fact, I just finished updating my database to reflect this past season and already noticing a few things different, plus looking at different ways to evaluate Foulers.
FM: Different ways?
PFC: Well, Oww Ming alluded to evaluating foulers per 48 minutes while I focused on normalizing to the game. I have added minutes into my database just to give me another way of looking at talent.
FM: Your team kind of limped to the title though, any comments on that?
PFC: Well, when Jaren Jackson Jr. went down that was brutal for my foul club. DeAndre Jordan getting traded and not getting a ton of playing time hurt too. Also, a bench Flagrant 2 ejection from Marcus Smart in the 3rd to last week would have helped make the end less of a sweat had I started him that week. Luckily, my team was so good for the first 4.5 months that I was able to withstand a lull in the last 4 or so weeks.
FM: Anything else you want to add?
PFC: Not really, just glad Foulerball is finally getting the respect it deserves.
FM: Great, congratulations on your 3rd title!
PFC: Thanks, Johnny!
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