Basketball Statistics Blog

Friday Press Clippings:
MLB "Stat Guru" Phil Birnbaum Explains
Why "Advanced Basketball Statistics" Don't Work

From 20 Second Timeout
By David Friedman
Download source here: ' MLB "Stat Guru" Phil Birnbaum Explains Why "Advanced Basketball Statistics" Don't Work ' by David Friedman

"... Phil Birnbaum is a "stat guru" who primarily focuses on baseball, a sport whose discrete, one on one encounters between pitchers and batters lends itself much more readily to accurate statistical analysis than a free flowing five on five sport like basketball. Birnbaum has taken a look at "advanced basketball statistics" and he is not impressed by what he found: ..."

"... I don't think the stats work well enough to be useful. ..."

"... the raw box score numbers themselves are very subjective (I have mainly focused on assists but the same could be said for blocked shots, steals and, to some degree, even rebounds, depending on how the official scorekeepers define tips, etc.). ... "

"... Birnbaum notes that minutes played "is probably the closest representation you can get to what the coach thinks of a player's skill," so this is an indication that--contrary to the constant bleating by "stat gurus" like Dave Berri and their media sycophants like Henry Abbott--NBA coaches actually do have some idea about what they are doing. ..."

"... 'But, just picking up a box score or looking up standard player stats online, and trying [to figure out] from that which players are how much better than others (the approach that 'Wins Produced' and other stats take)...well, I don't think you're ever going to be able to make that work.' ..."

Read more articles in 20 Second Timeout.

To read today's 'Press Clippings' in Spanish, click this week above on the 'Español' tab or afterwards click here: ' El Caso de las Estadísticas por Minuto en Baloncesto ' by Martínez, J. A. and Martínez, L..

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