In possession models and analytics such as RAPM, the ability to count free throws is crucial. Any miscalculation in computing free throws can result in an unintended dire consequence. In the case of a possession, a team’s possession may be calculated with bias and therefore comparing two teams using per possession stats becomes a flawed…
In an effort to understand shooting efficiency, terms such as points-per-possession, effective field goal percentage, and true shooting percentage have come about as methods to quantify scoring efficiency. In fact, during my coaching days in Baltimore City (2013 – 2016), I developed a metric called points responsible for (PRF) that focused on distributing points to…
A common question about identifying player tendencies on offense is to ask “how likely is this player to receive the ball during a possession?” This methodology can be aided by the quantity touches. However, a player can touch the ball with what I like to term as an empty touch. These are touches that have…
The calculation for Offensive Rating, another fruitful Dean Oliver metric, is simple: compute the number of points produced when a player is in the game per 100 possessions that the player is in the game. The computation is performed at a “per possession” rate and scaled out to 100. The challenge lies at being restricted…
Consider, for a moment, being a General Manager for an NBA team that is faced with determining the number of years for a player contract. The problem seems simple: a team requires a certain skill set that a player possesses and they would like to know for how long a player would be able to…
While I’m on a flight between Albuquerque to Oakland, let’s take a quick glance at another advanced analytic: Game Score. Game score is a metric that was developed by John Hollinger (one of the Godfathers of basketball analytics) to quickly give a rough estimate of a player’s contribution to a game. If a player scores…
In 2004, Dean Oliver expanded upon his “Four Factors” philosophy from his 2002 book, Basketball on Paper, in an attempt to identify how four important strategies relate to success in basketball. These strategies are nothing new, as these were drilled into my head from coaches dating back to the early 90’s. The novelty of understanding…
With the highest return for a field goal attempt per possession being a three point field goal, teams have caught on that three point field goals are the optimal way to go on offense provided they have consistently accurate shooters from that range. This qualifier has been the difficult part of the three point equation.…
Here is an update on how safe an NBA lead is for the 2016-17 NBA Season. Last season, we found that the Bill James’ bound was violated twice in the 2015-16 NBA season. This year, the bound was violated one time: January 4th, 2017 by the Miami Heat against the Sacramento Kings. The same Sacramento…
Over the 2016-17 NBA regular season there were a total of 18950 steals. This amounted to roughly 15.4 steals per game; effectively 7.7 steals per team per game. Over the 236,547 possessions in the NBA last season, this amounted to 8.0111% of all possessions ending in a steal. Think about that for a second. Roughly…
Squared Statistics: Understanding Basketball Analytics 