Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to address
Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to address
I'll throw some out, but will let any who wants first crack to have an open slate.
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
I could wait longer, but then again, nothing to see isn't inspiring. Here are a few fast, brainstorm possibilities to pick thru and perhaps improve:
Are basketball operation analysts with comparable education and yrs of experience as business side analysts paid comparably? Access to performance bonuses? If not, are you comfortable with the supply argument or pay you dues argument?
APM and variations have been around 10 plus years. It made it to ESPN last year. Without revealing your own teams disposition toward it (unless you want to) do you think it is a part of most teams databases and decisionmaking or not? Do you think its usage is growing, stagnant or declining?
How many minutes does it take for you to subjectively feel you understand if a lineup is good, bad or in-between? How many of the 300-600 lineups teams typically use in a season is that? What is your goal for learning about lineups from the regular season in prep for playoffs?
What topics do you wish Sloan addressed on this panel or elsewhere in the conference that it hasn't yet or hasn't yet to your satisfaction?
Do you seek out analytic innovation from other basketball leagues that aren't strong direct competitors? Other sports? Is use of top corporate business consultants common or rare?
Do you idea mine the media / internet analytic sphere a) casually, b) regularly, or c) not at all (being way ahead of most to all public work)?
What % of time to basketball analysts spend on running analysis vs. evaluating and building upon the results? What do you consider a wise (if only rough and approximate) balance?
Are enforcement issues regarding proprietary and confidential information rare to non- existent to date or occasional and growing as analysts switch teams?
Do any analysts use agents or are allowed to use agents? Is that day coming?
For analysis intended for playoff purposes do you give heavy added weight to past playoff performance and / or regular season performance against top teams or are disinclined to heightened their weight relative to rest of game data?
Broadbrush do you think analysis of defensive performance should be more heavily team or individual data based and focused?
The biggest and / or most common public fallacy about analytics and how it is used and not used is...?
Do you think the use of analytics has played a major, small or no role in reported decline in home court advantage?
Who do you think overall has been the greater beneficiary of analytics- GMs, coaches or owners? Is it largely based on user receptivity / effort or organizational design and control?
Are basketball operation analysts with comparable education and yrs of experience as business side analysts paid comparably? Access to performance bonuses? If not, are you comfortable with the supply argument or pay you dues argument?
APM and variations have been around 10 plus years. It made it to ESPN last year. Without revealing your own teams disposition toward it (unless you want to) do you think it is a part of most teams databases and decisionmaking or not? Do you think its usage is growing, stagnant or declining?
How many minutes does it take for you to subjectively feel you understand if a lineup is good, bad or in-between? How many of the 300-600 lineups teams typically use in a season is that? What is your goal for learning about lineups from the regular season in prep for playoffs?
What topics do you wish Sloan addressed on this panel or elsewhere in the conference that it hasn't yet or hasn't yet to your satisfaction?
Do you seek out analytic innovation from other basketball leagues that aren't strong direct competitors? Other sports? Is use of top corporate business consultants common or rare?
Do you idea mine the media / internet analytic sphere a) casually, b) regularly, or c) not at all (being way ahead of most to all public work)?
What % of time to basketball analysts spend on running analysis vs. evaluating and building upon the results? What do you consider a wise (if only rough and approximate) balance?
Are enforcement issues regarding proprietary and confidential information rare to non- existent to date or occasional and growing as analysts switch teams?
Do any analysts use agents or are allowed to use agents? Is that day coming?
For analysis intended for playoff purposes do you give heavy added weight to past playoff performance and / or regular season performance against top teams or are disinclined to heightened their weight relative to rest of game data?
Broadbrush do you think analysis of defensive performance should be more heavily team or individual data based and focused?
The biggest and / or most common public fallacy about analytics and how it is used and not used is...?
Do you think the use of analytics has played a major, small or no role in reported decline in home court advantage?
Who do you think overall has been the greater beneficiary of analytics- GMs, coaches or owners? Is it largely based on user receptivity / effort or organizational design and control?
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
Even if the panel doesn't want to take tough questions or reveal much, they could do some good mentioning some of those public sphere basketball writers with an analytics interest who are worthy of being mentioned and discussed. A Sloan mention of something they believed had value to public and / or them might also be worth something in these cases to the writers. Surely there are good and readable examples if analytics that could be highlighted to put a face on "analytics" that is more positive and representative than the examples used to try to belittle analytic work.
-
ampersand5
- Posts: 262
- Joined: Sun Nov 23, 2014 6:18 pm
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
1) do you think other teams in the NBA are doing what you're doing
2) because teams cannot get public feedback, do you think its possible/probable that some nba teams are conducting analysis on flawed methodology
2) because teams cannot get public feedback, do you think its possible/probable that some nba teams are conducting analysis on flawed methodology
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
The panel is subtitled "Push the Pace", a nod to Mike d'Antoni's supposed innovations/offensive philosophy, so we know that this will be a topic. I do not consider myself an expert on what d'Antoni advocates, but I have no confidence that his ideas are rigorously grounded. Scratch that. I am reasonably sure they are not. I have read his disavowal of the "Seven Seconds or Less" label (what is, of course, empirical nonsense as a label) saying instead his philosophy is to get one good shot. And that, ain't optimal. As a related question, were I moderator, I would ask him how he has confidence that his ideas are correct and that supposed success wasn't simply dependent on personnel (e.g. Steve Nash).
This said, were I to be the moderator, I would relabel the subtitle: "Plus/Minus Statistics: Past, Present, and Future".
It so happens (as noted several times previously) that on the panel sit two protagonists involved in the greatest analytic-based triumph of a personnel move in NBA history: the Celtics getting Kevin Garnett in 2007. And this only occurred because Mike d'Antoni (and Steve Kerr) apparently thought that A'mare Stoudemire wasn't worth giving up. (To confirm, Pablo Torre could confer with his colleague, Marc Stein, who so reported contemporaneously: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2954127).
And such a line of inquiry could lead directly to the particular role of plus/minus in evaluating defensive performance.
And then to broaden matters, Masai Ujiri's very successful career is owed in significant measure to an appreciation of the value of plus/minus statistics (and, of course, to the ineptitude of the Knicks front office).
Shane Battier too could perhaps offer some interesting insights on the +/- topic. Don't know about Sue Bird.
This said, I expect not a potentially discordant word will be uttered, by moderator or panelists (except perhaps to tut tut and diminish the potential of analytics) because addressing analytical issues in a substantive matter has never been the focus (and seldom a feature) of the Sloan Panel. But one can hope...
This said, were I to be the moderator, I would relabel the subtitle: "Plus/Minus Statistics: Past, Present, and Future".
It so happens (as noted several times previously) that on the panel sit two protagonists involved in the greatest analytic-based triumph of a personnel move in NBA history: the Celtics getting Kevin Garnett in 2007. And this only occurred because Mike d'Antoni (and Steve Kerr) apparently thought that A'mare Stoudemire wasn't worth giving up. (To confirm, Pablo Torre could confer with his colleague, Marc Stein, who so reported contemporaneously: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=2954127).
And such a line of inquiry could lead directly to the particular role of plus/minus in evaluating defensive performance.
And then to broaden matters, Masai Ujiri's very successful career is owed in significant measure to an appreciation of the value of plus/minus statistics (and, of course, to the ineptitude of the Knicks front office).
Shane Battier too could perhaps offer some interesting insights on the +/- topic. Don't know about Sue Bird.
This said, I expect not a potentially discordant word will be uttered, by moderator or panelists (except perhaps to tut tut and diminish the potential of analytics) because addressing analytical issues in a substantive matter has never been the focus (and seldom a feature) of the Sloan Panel. But one can hope...
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
in evaluating defensive performance...
fyi nba.com sportsvu player tracking data has defensive 2pt and 3pt FG%s allowed for players, for this season and last:
- go to nba.com...
- under "Stats" click on SportsVu Player Tracking...
- on the grey bar click Player Stats dropdown click on Player Index...
- click on a player, say tony allen...
- below his name click on "Stats Profile"...
- on the grey bar far right, in the Tracking dropdown click on "defense dashboard"...
and you'll see defensive FG%s allowed for 2s and 3s attempted. if you click on the "gear" at the far R on the blue bar, you can change the Per Game stats to Totals...
so for example this season so far it shows tony allen is allowing just 40.1% on 2s and 29.1% on 3s, but jose calderon is allowing 56.5% on 2s and 49.6% on 3s...
fyi nba.com sportsvu player tracking data has defensive 2pt and 3pt FG%s allowed for players, for this season and last:
- go to nba.com...
- under "Stats" click on SportsVu Player Tracking...
- on the grey bar click Player Stats dropdown click on Player Index...
- click on a player, say tony allen...
- below his name click on "Stats Profile"...
- on the grey bar far right, in the Tracking dropdown click on "defense dashboard"...
and you'll see defensive FG%s allowed for 2s and 3s attempted. if you click on the "gear" at the far R on the blue bar, you can change the Per Game stats to Totals...
so for example this season so far it shows tony allen is allowing just 40.1% on 2s and 29.1% on 3s, but jose calderon is allowing 56.5% on 2s and 49.6% on 3s...
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
Numerous commentators, analytic skeptics, opponents and bystanders, have said "you can't measure heart."
Research can measure performance in many many ways at end of shot clock, end of game, when behind, when on road, when short-handed, when on a losing streak, when need to win to maintain or get on playoff pace, when in playoffs for many of these things, and in NCAA tournament, high school championships and international tournaments, against top teams, top players, when coming back from injury, and back to backs, when their shot isn't falling, when there is team turmoil, when sick, late in season when doing well or not, when playing with a jerk / loser, when playing for an inconsistent or poor coach, etc.
What else would you use to determine heart (other than the "eye test")? Do you call that analytics? That is not important itself. Regardless of what you call it, did you do it? Are you going to pretend that you "don't need to"? If so, you might be anti-work as well as anti-analytics.
Research can measure performance in many many ways at end of shot clock, end of game, when behind, when on road, when short-handed, when on a losing streak, when need to win to maintain or get on playoff pace, when in playoffs for many of these things, and in NCAA tournament, high school championships and international tournaments, against top teams, top players, when coming back from injury, and back to backs, when their shot isn't falling, when there is team turmoil, when sick, late in season when doing well or not, when playing with a jerk / loser, when playing for an inconsistent or poor coach, etc.
What else would you use to determine heart (other than the "eye test")? Do you call that analytics? That is not important itself. Regardless of what you call it, did you do it? Are you going to pretend that you "don't need to"? If so, you might be anti-work as well as anti-analytics.
Re: Qs / topics you'd like Sloan BB analytics panel to addre
It's likely that SportsVU data can be used to detect sensitive information, for example if a player is hiding some kind of injury. How do you think that sort of information and analysis should be handled?
Almost everything in the traditional box score has to do with play on the ball. What kind of analysis and tracking would you like to see on players who doing things away from the ball?
Just like salary, minutes on the floor are a scarce resource that every player wants. Do you think that that will ever be a part of formal negotiations?
Are coaches and players interested in economic analytics like revenue or ticket sales at all?
How do NBA teams manage the principal-agency conflicts of players, coaches, and GMs?
When you're not sure about something having to do with an NBA game (a shooting technique, a lineup, a player or whatever) how do you test whether it's a good idea, and have the analytics you've seen been presented in a way that aligns with the way you test things?
If someone could use a computer to make all the players on the court look the same, do you think you'd evaluate their abilities differently?
Almost everything in the traditional box score has to do with play on the ball. What kind of analysis and tracking would you like to see on players who doing things away from the ball?
Just like salary, minutes on the floor are a scarce resource that every player wants. Do you think that that will ever be a part of formal negotiations?
Are coaches and players interested in economic analytics like revenue or ticket sales at all?
How do NBA teams manage the principal-agency conflicts of players, coaches, and GMs?
When you're not sure about something having to do with an NBA game (a shooting technique, a lineup, a player or whatever) how do you test whether it's a good idea, and have the analytics you've seen been presented in a way that aligns with the way you test things?
If someone could use a computer to make all the players on the court look the same, do you think you'd evaluate their abilities differently?