Dan Hill joined the Milwaukee in May to help the team determine if potential players would have the right emotional chemistry.
Team officials wanted to make a major adjustment when ownership changed ownership in April. Part of that was to recruit players who would be emotionally compatable.
Hill's field of expertise focuses on faces, which convey our true emotions and can determine what actions people want to take. Hill uses psychologist Paul Ekman’s Facial Action Coding System (FACS) to analyze 43 muscles.
“We spend quite a bit of time evaluating the players as basketball players and analytically,” Bucks assistant general manager David Morway told The New York Times. “But the difficult piece of the puzzle is the psychological side of it, and not only psychological, character and personality issues, but also team chemistry issues.”
Hill and Bucks psychologist Ramel Smith spent 10 hours watching videos of prospects and analyzing their faces before the 2014 NBA Draft. The Bucks had the No. 2 overall pick and three second-round selections.
Smith believes that within a short period of time, facial coding will benefit the team and other organizations take notice.
“I wanted [Hill] to be our secret weapon,” Smith said. “When daring enough to be creative, you have to be willing to be ridiculed. People laugh until they see results.”