The Seed Report in Las Vegas
Update – Jul 16, 2026
Back from Vegas and almost alive. What a great trip and and a fantastic conference!!
Beginning tomorrow I will write up more on the conference and the NBA Summer League. The quick summary is that the conference was great. I didn’t get to see some of the stats people I wanted to because of their changes of plans, but we are trying to set up follow on time with those people. I’ll let you know how it goes. But if you are interested in a career in sports or just wanting to get a generalized lay of the land, the conference was more than worth it. Of course for basketball, that’s not until next year, but they have other sports programs and classes. Check it out.
One of the coolest things I got to do was to sit in the stands with prospects family members and discuss what I saw in the stats and on the court. These meet ups were completely random. But they were entertaining and I’m hoping educational for both parties. I know in learning about the family you learn a lot about the player. Ask any good agent/scout.
For any pro who doesn’t have playing for the Indiana Pacers on your bingo card, get another card. After listening to Chad Buchanan and diving into the Pacers a little, any time spent in that organization will only pay dividends.
One of the new pages I will be putting up here will be a place to share my personal recommendations of people. I met a few people I would hire in an instant. Getting on here may never help them, but I’m going to put them out there anyway and wish them well.
A special note for veterans: Their classes are now able to use the GI Bill to pay for them!! For anyone who’s ever dealt with the GI Bill, this is HUGE!! If I guess right, this could be the shortcut to the career path that we war horses need. We want to excel but we don’t necessarily want to have to wait to do it. Call us impatient, overly eager, or whatever, but that’s what you get when you get a vet. We just don’t know no better.
Also for anyone who I met and we spoke about getting together, please email your information again. In my travels, I find I am missing some business cards and contact information. I blame it on getting way too old. So hit me up.
PreConference Writeup
I’ll be in Las Vegas July 10-15, for the 2026 Basketball Career Conference, NBA Summer League, and the chance to learn from people who know this game at the highest levels.
The Seed Report is my independent college basketball intelligence project. It began with NCAA Tournament prediction and has grown into a broader effort to study team identity, player evaluation, draft value, and the transition from college production to the professional game.
I’m not coming to Vegas pretending I have all the answers.
I’m coming to learn, listen, compare notes, meet good basketball people, and pick the brains of anyone willing to talk hoops, scouting, analytics, player development, or the future of evaluation.
What I’m Working On
The Seed Report currently focuses on:
- NCAA Tournament forecasting
- Team identity and matchup risk
- College player evaluation
- Chief’s Big Boards
- Model-versus-consensus comparisons
- Draft value and player translation
- Identifying players or teams the public conversation may be missing
The project started with the bracket, but the bigger question now is broader:
What does the data see before the consensus catches up?
Why I’m Here
I’m here to learn from some of the best people in basketball.
That includes executives, scouts, analysts, coaches, agents, player-development people, media members, and anyone else who thinks seriously about how basketball decisions are made.
I’m especially interested in conversations about:
- How teams evaluate college players
- What data helps scouts and what data gets in the way
- Where college production translates well to the next level
- Where models tend to miss
- How independent analysis can become more useful to basketball decision-makers
A Soft Introduction
I’m The Chief — a retired Navy Chief and Gulf War veteran who somehow turned a long-running bracket obsession into a larger basketball modeling project.
Years ago, I lost a national bracket contest because I ignored my own data and picked my beloved Memphis Tigers with my heart.
That mistake became the unofficial motto of The Seed Report:
Data over heart. Science over seeding.
Let’s Talk Basketball
If we meet in Vegas, I’d love to talk.
Not a pitch. Not a hard sell. Just a real basketball conversation.
If something in The Seed Report is useful, interesting, wrong, promising, or worth challenging, I want to hear it.
That is why I’m here.
Player Evaluation Conversations
One area I am especially interested in discussing is player evaluation.
The Seed Report has a few player evaluation products. However we are working on trying to make them all better. We are developing a new framework and an early visual prototype built around the idea of a spider/radar profile.
The concept is to show a player’s statistical shape, then explore how that shape changes if certain traits improve or translate differently.
I would love to hear from scouts, analysts, coaches, player-development people, and basketball operations people about where this kind of tool could help, where it may be misleading, and what serious evaluators would want to see added.
This is exactly why I’m in Vegas: to learn, listen, compare notes, and improve the work.
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