I don’t follow the NBA, but it’s hard to miss the story of Jeremy Lin, who captained Palo Alto High School to a CIF title in in 2005–2006, only to receive zero scholarship offers.
He then went to Harvard, which does not offer basketball scholarships, and set numerous records, only to go undrafted. He ended up with the Golden State Warriors, then the Houston Rockets, and then the New York Knicks — where he played only 55 minutes through the Knicks’ first 23 games.
Then he was given a chance and “came out of nowhere” to outperform just about everyone — he even outscored Kobe Bryant.
Jonah Lehrer notes that professional sports teams are terrible at picking talent, as a recent analysis performed by the economists Frank Kuzmits and Arthur Adams demonstrates:
[NFL] Combine measures examined in this study include 10-, 20-, and 40-yard dashes, bench press, vertical jump, broad jump, 20- and 60-yard shuttles, three-cone drill, and the Wonderlic Personnel Test. Performance criteria include 10 variables: draft order; 3 years each of salary received and games played; and position-specific data. Using correlation analysis, we find no consistent statistical relationship between combine tests and professional football performance, with the notable exception of sprint tests for running backs. From a practical standpoint, the results of the study should encourage NFL team personnel to reevaluate the usefulness of the combine’s physical tests and exercises as predictors of player performance. This study should encourage team personnel to consider the weighting and importance of various combine measures and the potential benefits of overhauling the combine process, with the goal of creating a more valid system for predicting player success.
Lehrer doesn’t mention, by the way, that Lin is Chinese in a very not-Chinese sport.
Prediction is predictably unpredictable. The NBA team I follow has had misses with certain draft hits and hits with certain draft misses. The Chinese had better luck with their selective breeding program.