President Obama on Friday spoke at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference in Boston under a confidentiality order, but yesterday the libertarian magazine Reason "released the full audio" from the Q&A session he had with Rockets GM Daryl Morey and Kraft Analytics CEO Jessica Gelman. Below are some excerpts from the session.
- Obama spoke at length about having a "range of opinions and diverse voices in his administration."
- Many of his answers had an "even-keeled tone." Obama said, "I did have a strong bias toward people who just wanted to get things right, get things done, as opposed to people obsessed with, 'I want to be right, I want to be prominent, I want to have my name in the headlines.'"
- On whether or not he could have made a D-I basketball team, Obama said, "If I had been really focused, dedicated, and obsessed, I probably could have been a benchwarmer on a mediocre Division I (college) team, like a walk-on kind of guy."
- Asked what he would change about the NBA if he were commissioner, Obama gave a "fairly forceful criticism of the way young athletes often play -- unpaid -- for a college team before they can turn professional." Obama said he would favor a "well-structured" minor league for college-aged basketball players, in a model similar to MLB's, so that the NCAA is "not serving as a farm system for the NBA with a bunch of kids who are unpaid but are under enormous financial pressure" (BOSTON GLOBE, 2/27).
