Sunday, January 13, 2013
Basketball Analytics and the 2012-2013 Season
Just as professional baseball underwent a statistical revolution leading to new concepts advanced in the book and movie "Moneyball", so has basketball. Coaches who ignore quantitative information in teaching and strategy simply do not give their players and teams the best chance to win.
Perhaps the greatest innovator/pioneer in the field of basketball analytics is Dean Oliver. Oliver is the embodiment of the "Age of the Geek" philosophy.
His greatest contribution to the field comes from his "big four" of basketball success, the dominance of shooting percentage, offensive rebounding, turnovers, and free throws attempted. The former reflects both skill and shot quality, turnovers relate to both decision-making and execution, and offensive rebounding and free throws reflect attack aggressiveness. For example, one reason Dean Smith favored a more controlled offense was that pure transition basketball doesn't allow the defense to get back and foul!
Melrose has a chance to build on the past two victories as they approach the halfway mark of the season. In the past two games, the Lady Raiders shot 52 percent and 42 percent respectively. At the NBA level, the team with the higher shooting percentage wins a remarkable 79 percent of the games. Conversely, the next two factors, offensive rebounding and turnovers create severe risk for Melrose. In the last game, Melrose committed 32 turnovers and allowed 21 offensive rebounds. One cannot expect most opponents to have such low offensive efficiency as to make those statistics moot.
Basketball is a thinking person's game that requires both "deliberate practice" but a high level of commitment to "do the next right thing right." Melrose has the athletes who can succeed with a consistent process.
Perhaps the greatest innovator/pioneer in the field of basketball analytics is Dean Oliver. Oliver is the embodiment of the "Age of the Geek" philosophy.
His greatest contribution to the field comes from his "big four" of basketball success, the dominance of shooting percentage, offensive rebounding, turnovers, and free throws attempted. The former reflects both skill and shot quality, turnovers relate to both decision-making and execution, and offensive rebounding and free throws reflect attack aggressiveness. For example, one reason Dean Smith favored a more controlled offense was that pure transition basketball doesn't allow the defense to get back and foul!
Melrose has a chance to build on the past two victories as they approach the halfway mark of the season. In the past two games, the Lady Raiders shot 52 percent and 42 percent respectively. At the NBA level, the team with the higher shooting percentage wins a remarkable 79 percent of the games. Conversely, the next two factors, offensive rebounding and turnovers create severe risk for Melrose. In the last game, Melrose committed 32 turnovers and allowed 21 offensive rebounds. One cannot expect most opponents to have such low offensive efficiency as to make those statistics moot.
Basketball is a thinking person's game that requires both "deliberate practice" but a high level of commitment to "do the next right thing right." Melrose has the athletes who can succeed with a consistent process.
// posted by Ron Sen, MD, FCCP @ 11:16 AM 
