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Metrics for GSW vs. OKC Game 6 Second Half

Continuing with the live metrics employed yesterday, here is an analysis of the second half of the Warriors-Thunder Game 6.  Here is a plot of the various time series of relevant statistical variables:  One can see from this plot for example, the exact point in time when OKC loses control of the game.  Further, here […]

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Basketball Data Analytics Data Science Mathematics NBA NBA Playoffs Sports Statistics Toronto

Live Metrics for NBA Games

Yesterday for the first time, I took the playoff game between Cleveland and Toronto as an opportunity to test out a script I wrote in R that keeps track of key statistics during a game in real time (well, every 30 seconds). Based on previous work, it is evident that championship-calibre teams are the ones […]

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Basketball Data Analytics Data Science Mathematics NBA NBA Finals NBA Playoffs Statistics

Basketball Paper Update

A few weeks ago, I published a paper that used data science / machine learning to detect commonalities between NBA playoff teams. I have now updated and extended it to detect commonalities between NBA championship teams using artificial neural networks, which is a field of deep learning. The paper can be accessed by clicking on the […]

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Basketball Chicago Bulls Data Analytics Data Science Mathematics NBA NBA Playoffs Sports Statistics

New Paper on Machine Learning and Basketball

A new and formal paper of mine describing how one can use machine learn methodologies to help determine which NBA teams will make the playoffs is now online:  arXiv link SSRN link Have a look!   

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Analyzing Stephen Curry’s Play

As a long-time Golden State Warriors fan (go Tim Hardaway and Chris Mullin!), I have been watching the Warriors this season with great interest.  Stephen Curry has been getting a lot of attention. It is somewhat of a foregone conclusion that he will be the MVP this season, but, I am not completely convinced, in […]

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Stephen Curry and Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf?

As usual, Phil Jackson made another interesting tweet today: Never seen anything like SCurry? Remind you of Chris Jackson/ Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, who had a short but brilliant run in NBA? — Phil Jackson (@PhilJackson11) February 28, 2016 And, as usual received many criticisms from “Experts”, who just looked at the raw numbers from each players, and […]

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Basketball Chicago Bulls Data Analytics Data Science Mathematics NBA NBA Playoffs Sports Statistics

What Do NBA Playoff Teams Have in Common?

I’ve been interested for some time on figuring out an analytical way to determine what characterizes an NBA team as a playoff team. Looking at the previous six seasons, I pulled together almost 65 different statistics that characterize how a team plays, and then performed a classification tree analysis. I found the following result:    […]

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Basketball Chicago Bulls Data Analytics Data Science education Mathematics NBA NBA Finals NBA Playoffs Sports Statistics Toronto

The Three-Point Shot Delusion

The vast majority of NBA analysts claim today that the NBA has changed. It has become more fast-paced, and there is a significantly greater emphasis on teams attempting more three point shots. The evidence for this is the repeated recital of the fact that over the last number of years, the average three-point attempt rate […]

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Ranking NBA Players

The 2015-2016 NBA season is dawning upon us, and as usual, ESPN has been doing their usual #NBArank, where they are ranking players based on the following non-rigorous methodology: We asked, “Which player will be better in 2015-16?” To decide, voters had to consider both the quality and quantity of each player’s contributions to his […]

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Basketball Chicago Bulls Data Analytics Data Science Mathematics NBA NBA Finals NBA Playoffs Science Sports Statistics

The “Evolution” of the 3-Point Shot in The NBA

The purpose of this post is to determine whether basketball teams who choose to employ an offensive strategy that involves predominantly shooting three point shots is stable and optimal. We employ a game-theoretical approach using techniques from dynamical systems theory to show that taking more three point shots to a point where an offensive strategy […]