There have been exactly a dozen NBA trades made this season, from small to significant. Some teams wanted to clear up money, some teams wanted to continue rebuilding, while others took bold steps in ensuring present and future success on the court. But in our society of instant gratification and unceasing competition, we almost have an unquenchable thirst for deciding winners and losers. [Read more…]
Pablo Prigioni: The Knicks and NBA’s Best Kept Secret
36-year-old rookie? Seasoned novice? Veteran newcomer? Pablo Prigioni is the personification of the word “oxymoron.” [Read more…]
Trying to Quantify the Most Improved Player Award
Of all the awards given out in pro sports, the NBA’s Most Improved Player is perhaps the most arbitrary. (We won’t include hockey’s Lady Byng Trophy for sportsmanship.) There’s no single stat that indicates how much a player has improved from one season to the next. And why has that player improved? Is it just from increased playing time, or are there other factors involved? There’s just a whole mess of gray area involved. [Read more…]
Five Biggest Impact Players in West Playoff Race
There are less than a dozen games left in the NBA regular season, and the most dramatic race still going on is a five-team scrum in the Western Conference for three playoff spots. Those five clubs – the Warriors, Rockets, Lakers, Jazz and Mavericks – are separated by five games in the standings. [Read more…]
A Statistical Look Inside This Year’s Sweet 16
It was an exciting and historic first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament over the weekend, with the blue bloods of college basketball reaching the second week of the tourney along with surprise teams including LaSalle, Wichita State and No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast. But what did it really take for the teams to win two, and in LaSalle’s case, three, games last week? [Read more…]
How The Memphis Grizzlies Improved After Trading Rudy Gay
Trading a star core player from a contending team is not usually a popular move with a team’s fan base, but we’ve seen two such moves this season improve a pair of Western Conference contenders. The Oklahoma City Thunder have actually benefited from dealing James Harden to Houston, and the Memphis Grizzlies are 16-6 since trading forward Rudy Gay to Toronto in a three-team, six-player deal on Jan. 30, the latest victory coming on Marc Gasol’s tip-in at the end of
Is LeBron James Having Greatest Win-Streak Performance Ever?
LeBron James scored 27 points, dished out eight assists and grabbed seven rebounds in Miami’s win over Philadelphia on Wednesday in the Heat’s historic 20th consecutive win. Only three other teams have won at least 20 straight in a single season (the Washington Capitols, who played basketball in the 40’s, won 20 straight spanning two seasons). Two other teams won 19 straight, and all six clubs that won at least 19 in a row had historically great players on their respective
Geltzeiler: Who needs Offensive Rebounds (Not Celtics and Spurs)
Fresh off my maiden voyage to the M.I.T. Sloan Sports Analytic Conference in Boston, I have been spending more time dissecting advanced stats. One of the important principles in using advanced stats to draw conclusions is to also know which stats don’t paint a complete picture. I have found that looking at some of these team stats can tell us a lot on why good teams are good and why certain teams overachieve and conversely underachieve. The San Antonio Spurs currently have the
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