I’m terrible at recognizing faces but really good at reading them. I couldn’t tell you, though, who was going to develop an excellent sky hook based on their smile or smirk and doubt anyone else can, but a couple of new NBA team owners believe facial-coding expertise is a vital part of franchise-building. From Kevin Randall in the New York Times:

“MILWAUKEE — When two financiers purchased the Milwaukee Bucks for $550 million last April, they promised to pour not only money and new management into the moribund franchise, but also the same kind of creative and critical thinking that had helped make them hedge fund billionaires.

It was not enough to increase the franchise’s sales force or beef up the team’s analytics department — the Bucks were looking for a more elusive edge. So in May, the team hired Dan Hill, a facial coding expert who reads the faces of college prospects and N.B.A. players to determine if they have the right emotional attributes to help the Bucks.

The approach may sound like palm reading to some, but the Bucks were so impressed with Hill’s work before the 2014 draft that they retained him to analyze their players and team chemistry throughout this season. 

With the tenets of ‘Moneyball’ now employed in the front offices of every major sport, perhaps it was inevitable that professional teams would turn to emotion metrics and neuroscience tools to try to gain an edge in evaluating players.”