In the world of professional sports, everyone has personal coaches and assistants. They have their own people that put them through workouts in the offseason or people who handle the endless media requests and responsibilities.
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We’ve all heard about players who have this kind of help. What I don’t think I’ve ever heard about, however, is a personal stats coach — but that’s just what Boston Celtics guard Rajon Rondo uses.
No, seriously, a personal stats coach. Check this out.
From MassLive.com via the New York Times
"According to the New York Times, those efforts led Rondo to hire a personal statistician. The Times’ Scott Cacciola described Justin Zormelo as far more than a statistical mind, actually. Zormelo helps Rondo and a few other NBA stars — including John Wall and in the past Kevin Durant — by combining statistical work, mental approaches and film studies to allow for more in-depth analysis than any simple number cruncher could put together."
With the analytical movement gaining steam in the NBA front offices, it appears players are trying to get in tune with it as well.
This is one of the stranger personal coaches I’ve ever heard of, but when you have all the money in the world and a hunger to keep getting better, you’ll do everything you can. I can see how these guys would get a bad rap for using this personal stats coach–especially when plenty of people already see NBA players as selfish–but I actually think this is pretty cool.
I think maybe I should hire a personal stats coach to tell me how I’m doing with my articles and tweets.