All NBA and/or basketball fans should be reading ESPN's MIT coverage

Pro Sports 2 replies 265 views
Fly4Fun's avatar
Fly4Fun
Posts: 7,730
Mar 8, 2010 10:08am
The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference just happened... and once again there is some interesting information out there.

Here is a basic article that has links to the interesting/important subjects touched on at the conference.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14093/key-moments-at-mit

I've gone through a few so far... the blocked shots one is interesting as all not all blocks are created equal. Blocked lay-ups are more meaningful because of the expected value of the shot to begin with. And on a closing note it points out that Tim Duncan has the most valuable blocks overall... while the least are surprisingly Dwight Howard's.
Fly4Fun's avatar
Fly4Fun
Posts: 7,730
Mar 8, 2010 10:24am
This is another interesting topic that is especially relevant to the Lakers and Kobe Bryant right now...

Remember how well the Lakers were playing without Kobe those games he was resting. They not only beat some good teams... they CRUSHED good teams.

Now that Kobe is back? Not so much. Now I'm not saying Kobe is bad... but he needs to take less shots.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/14038/the-price-of-anarchy
SQ_Crazies's avatar
SQ_Crazies
Posts: 7,977
Mar 8, 2010 1:34pm
About the blocked shot thing, if you want to go that far, shouldn't it matter who you're blocking as well? If you block a 3 from a guy shooting 48% from 3, isn't it more valuable than a guy shooting 34% from 3?

This is why I don't pay attention to these things, it's just over analyzing for a fan. They only people who care about stuff like this are front office gyms, specifically GM's. Because they're paid to over analyze players so they know what they're getting.