Basketball Analytics - Oxymoron no more?

Jer

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Jul 17, 2005
278
Boston, MA
This is the closest breakdown I can find by shot type. It looks at FG% by Drives, Close Shots, Catch and Shoot, Pull Up Shots, and Total eFG%.
 
Shooting Efficiency (Pull Up Shots FG% & 2+ Pull Up shots/game)
 
Guys like Tobias Harris (ORL) and Jerryd Bayless (BOS) stand out because unlike most of the guys in that list, their eFG% is fairly low. So basically their other shots are pulling down their efficiency. If Tobias stopped taking catch-and-shoots, he'd suddenly be significantly more efficient.
 
On the flip side, a guy like Jeff Green is terrible at pull-up shots. If you want to win with him, you'd want make sure you avoid putting him in a situation where he needs to take them.
 
Applying this thought-process to the Celtics might mean we should be looking for guys with a great catch-and-shoot abilities to leverage Rondo's passing. Suddenly a guy like John Salmons is interesting, even though I didn't even know he existed until I started looking at these numbers.
 

Jer

New Member
Jul 17, 2005
278
Boston, MA
Sorry guys... gotta share one more thing.
 
The Data Flow Continues: NBA D-League Will Monitor Player Heart Rate, Speed, Distance Traveled, and More
 
The data would be awesome. I can definitely imagine finding correlations between game situation bio-metrics and performance. This could be a boon for coaches looking to optimize rotations.
 
I really don't care about the privacy issues. I'll let the interested parties sort that side out. Teams are already pretty invasive with medical testing, so I can't imagine it being a deal-breaker.
 
BTW - Zach Lowe is my favorite sports writer right now and it's not even close. The guy is a must read. I always learn something.
 

HomeRunBaker

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Jan 15, 2004
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bowiac said:
I'm heavily on the analytics side here, but Love is a unique case so far. Kevin Love isn't Carmelo Anthony, failing to go to the finals or something. He's yet to make the playoffs. He's lost at some truly epic rates. No player who has lost as much as Kevin Love (33% career W%) has ever won a title with their original team. Paul Pierce is currently first on that list, and he's way way ahead of Love. He's had some awful talent around him, but to some degree, no matter how bad the talent around him, a star should never be on a 65 loss team (2010-2011), or fail to make the playoffs for six years. He is completely unprecedented as near as I can tell. 
 
He's such a historic loser that even though I think the analytics usually tell most of the story, they really might not for him.
Oscar Robertson, in the prime of his career, failed to break the .500 mark in four consecutive seasons. One player has never been able to carry an NBA to win consistently......MJ, Kobe, KG (he needed Spre and Cassell). The closest anyone has come was LeBron in Cleveland with that awful supporting cast.

I don't know anyone who considers Love in the top tier (LeBron-Durant) anyway to where he should have these expectations although for Love to get into a conversation to be included in the tier below I do agree he's going to have to at least MAKE the post season.
 

bowiac

Caveat: I know nothing about what I speak
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Dec 18, 2003
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This isn't quite an advanced stat, but I wanted to call attention to the fact that the already super excellent Basketball-reference.com now provides shot location data.
 
This data was always available before, but it's now much more easily accessible.
 

Devizier

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Dallas was also able to squeeze value out of Antawn Jamison and Employee #8 in ways that other franchises could not.
 

wade boggs chicken dinner

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