Basketball Statistics Blog

Basketball Statistician's Digest:
What do we even mean by basketball "advanced stats"?

From Bullets Forever
Download source here: ' Basketball Advanced Stats? The Culture of Secrecy '

"... Interest in and use of advanced stats has made a great deal of progress in both NBA fandom and in NBA organizations over the last decade. It is, however, hard to pin down where the two intersect. This is mostly because there is a culture of secrecy surrounding organizations' use of statistics.

Teams have funded development of new data and of new ways of looking at old data, but, rather than publicizing what they find, they have (understandably) sought competitive advantage by keeping their findings private and proprietary. They are essentially trade secrets..."

"... I think, at this point, "advanced stats" can mean a lot of things to different people.*** Most basically, it seems to refer to anything other than the traditional box score stats. I think of this broad range as generally falling within several major categories on the current basketball landscape:

(1) stats that are themselves byproducts of or new ways of looking at conventional, box score numbers (let's call these "composites" and "situational stats");
(2) player "stats" that require the collection and presentation of game data beyond that previously collected ("expanded stats");
(3) stats that are based on the team outcomes of what happens on the floor while individual or groups of players are on the floor ("the plus/minus family"); and
(4) a catch-all of the murky universe of other observational stats ("designer stats"). ..."

"... Related to the composites are "situational stats," which are perhaps still the things you're most likely to encounter in an NBA game broadcast.

These can get silly fast, as they are the basketball equivalent of the good old baseball "batting average in day game late inning situations after striking out earlier in the game" obscurisms. I don't mean to dismiss them entirely.

It can undoubtedly be interesting to know how players really fare on meaningful, game ending possessions, and you can find other examples like that. I have my doubts about whether front offices are using this group, but one never knows about coaches. ..."

"... Expanded stats: Calling these "advanced stats" is in some sense a reach, as many coaches have for a long time tracked their players' performance in areas beyond the box score.
These can be things as basic as tracking "hustle plays," or "hockey assists," etc. They also might include things like "rotations made/missed" or "FG attempts defensed," or any other player-specific action that you can think to keep tally of. ..."

"... I'm probably throwing far too many things into this bucket and maybe I'll need to revisit and create more categories, but, for today's purposes, I'm using this to capture every other application of quantification or statistical analysis that doesn't fit in the above categories.

Everything from Flip's tracking of the outcomes of individual pages from his playbook, to Mark Cuban's charting of the refs, to studies of whether the "hot hand" really exists, can all go here.

Basically, if there is a question you can think to ask about player or team performance or game outcomes, there are ways you can (at least try to) frame it in terms answerable by observation and statistical analysis. This has probably been the biggest breakthrough of numbers into the NBA. ..."

"... Curiously, in baseball it seems the other way around--that advanced (different from situational) stats have been embraced by front offices (in picking players) more than managerial offices (in modifying strategy). Given the difficulties in overhauling NBA rosters compared with MLB rosters, thanks to the small drafts, shallow player pools, and salary cap, it is not surprising that an NBA coach might find more immediate use for creative stats on a day-to-day basis than would an NBA GM. ..."

Read more articles in Bullets Forever.

To read Today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish, click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here: ' El juego de enfrentamiento: un supervisor en la eficiencia del jugador de baloncesto ' por Lic. Emilio Félix Merlo Mezo, Lic. Leonardo Quesada Borrego y Lic. Raudel Balaguer Reyes

You must be logged in to read or post a comment. Register

tags:  basketball  ~  statistician's digest   ~  basketball analysis  ~  Bullets Forever
visit:  eBA Portal  ~  eBA Forums  ~  eBA Encyclopedia  ~  eBA Clinics