Li_Duke
03-07-2013, 10:54 AM
I attended SSAC 2013 or Dorkapalooza as it is sometimes called. Some notes that may be of interest.
Glancing at the attendance sheet:
1. There were several owners/presidents/GMs present: Mark Cuban, Daryl Morey, Kevin Pritchard, RC Buford, Neil Olshey, and some others. In fact, all but 1 of the NBA teams sent a representative. The lone exception were the Lakers. Their rivals all seemed quite happy about that fact.
2. While there were Duke undergrads, Fuqua students, Chronicle reporters in attendance, none appeared to be affiliated with the basketball program.
3. Reggie Love was supposedly present under the affiliation of White House/Wharton (company/school).
Basketball research:
1. Using optical tracking data, a NYU-poly professor attempted to categorize half court plays based on acceleration and deceleration of players (eg. 1 player accelerating dramatically = isolation, 2 players accelerating dramatically = 2 man game).
2. Some econ students did a paper on the price of risk (shooting more 3s) in the NBA (examined by point differential and time left in game). One interesting finding was that trailing teams displays an overall boost in efficiency (kind of like an old school NBA Jam video game effect) as the leading team tends to become overly risk adverse. The data also looked at Kobe's shooting by point differential and time left in game which implied that perhaps instead of the Lakers losing more when Kobe shoots, Kobe just shoots a lot when the Lakers are losing because he really really hates to lose. The authors suggested that perhaps Kobe should do more shooting before they start losing.
3. Using optical tracking data, a geography professor examined how well opposing players shot in the paint vs an interior defender. This was proposed as perhaps a better stats than blocks. Some players forced low opposing fg% without providing many blocks. Others provided blocks but opposing players still scored effectively in the paint (Ibaka). And for some, both the new stat and the conventional block stats agreed (ie. pre-Lakers Dwight Howard and Larry Sanders). The worst interior defender was David Lee; the professor showed some hilarious video clips of Lee's "Golden Gate" defense. He implied that perhaps Lee (and Love) sacrificed defense to get in better rebounding position - as that is where the monetary incentive lies.
4. Using optical tracking data, some MIT students examined the trade-off behind getting back on defense vs crashing the offensive boards. They confirmed that getting back on D was the better strategy, but that perhaps teams have gone too far in doing this.
J.J. Redick was mentioned in back-to-back panels I attended. The first was a panel on sports gambling -- supposedly Redick being the most prominent player traded at the trade deadline led to increased betting interest on the Bucks. The second was a panel on basketball analytics featuring Stan Van Gundy (fascinating to listen to, definitely deserves a TV gig), Pritchard, Buford, and a Celtics analytics guy. Stan Van Gundy was criticizing analytics of defense and mentioned that the analytics show that Redick was a terrible one-on-one defender. Paraphrasing Van Gundy, he said "Of course, he's a terrible 1 on 1, I could have told you that the first time I saw him. He's short, and he's laterally slow. But you could still build a top notch defense with Redick. Because what the stats don't tell you is that he does not mess up an assignment. He won't gamble; he'll be in the spots you tell him to be in; and he'll execute your defensive plan. And there is value in that. Sure players can rise right over him for a jumper. But perhaps the defensive plan is to allow that guy to take the 2-point jumper rather than take 3s or go to the rim. Defensive metrics is useless at telling you how good a player is because it often doesn't tell you what defensive plan the coach has. And too often, it penalizes the guy trying to make up for his teammates mistakes. Daryl (Morey) mentioned that a player can miss assignments but still be a net asset because he'll steal the ball, go down the court, drain a 3, and that's a 4-5 point swing. But what he failed to realize is that when you have such a player that misses assignments and you play him, then you mess with your defensive culture. Suppose Dwight and that player attempt to defend a pick-and-roll. If Dwight hedges, but the other guy doesn't pick up Dwight's guy and Dwight's guy scores, the next time, Dwight might decide he shouldn't hedge and that changes your whole defensive culture."
Paraphrasing Van Gundy on developing players by giving them more playing time. "I do not think giving players more playing time necessarily helps develop them. If a player just does not get it on defense, you want him to sit on the bench until he does get it. Players absolutely do develop sitting on the bench. That might take 3 years. But look at Washington, they gave playing time to Blatche and McGee. You're telling them you're going to play them regardless of their defense because you want to develop them? That's suppose to give them incentive to improve their defense?"
Paraphrasing Van Gundy on 2 for 1. "I understand the math. But whether to do it depends entirely on your personnel. I didn't favor it because I didn't want them going up and throwing up any shot they wanted. I'm preaching shot selection, but if I say "ok, in this particular situation, you can ignore what I said", that changes the culture I'm trying to instill. You're basically teaching them that sometimes a bad shot is ok."
Glancing at the attendance sheet:
1. There were several owners/presidents/GMs present: Mark Cuban, Daryl Morey, Kevin Pritchard, RC Buford, Neil Olshey, and some others. In fact, all but 1 of the NBA teams sent a representative. The lone exception were the Lakers. Their rivals all seemed quite happy about that fact.
2. While there were Duke undergrads, Fuqua students, Chronicle reporters in attendance, none appeared to be affiliated with the basketball program.
3. Reggie Love was supposedly present under the affiliation of White House/Wharton (company/school).
Basketball research:
1. Using optical tracking data, a NYU-poly professor attempted to categorize half court plays based on acceleration and deceleration of players (eg. 1 player accelerating dramatically = isolation, 2 players accelerating dramatically = 2 man game).
2. Some econ students did a paper on the price of risk (shooting more 3s) in the NBA (examined by point differential and time left in game). One interesting finding was that trailing teams displays an overall boost in efficiency (kind of like an old school NBA Jam video game effect) as the leading team tends to become overly risk adverse. The data also looked at Kobe's shooting by point differential and time left in game which implied that perhaps instead of the Lakers losing more when Kobe shoots, Kobe just shoots a lot when the Lakers are losing because he really really hates to lose. The authors suggested that perhaps Kobe should do more shooting before they start losing.
3. Using optical tracking data, a geography professor examined how well opposing players shot in the paint vs an interior defender. This was proposed as perhaps a better stats than blocks. Some players forced low opposing fg% without providing many blocks. Others provided blocks but opposing players still scored effectively in the paint (Ibaka). And for some, both the new stat and the conventional block stats agreed (ie. pre-Lakers Dwight Howard and Larry Sanders). The worst interior defender was David Lee; the professor showed some hilarious video clips of Lee's "Golden Gate" defense. He implied that perhaps Lee (and Love) sacrificed defense to get in better rebounding position - as that is where the monetary incentive lies.
4. Using optical tracking data, some MIT students examined the trade-off behind getting back on defense vs crashing the offensive boards. They confirmed that getting back on D was the better strategy, but that perhaps teams have gone too far in doing this.
J.J. Redick was mentioned in back-to-back panels I attended. The first was a panel on sports gambling -- supposedly Redick being the most prominent player traded at the trade deadline led to increased betting interest on the Bucks. The second was a panel on basketball analytics featuring Stan Van Gundy (fascinating to listen to, definitely deserves a TV gig), Pritchard, Buford, and a Celtics analytics guy. Stan Van Gundy was criticizing analytics of defense and mentioned that the analytics show that Redick was a terrible one-on-one defender. Paraphrasing Van Gundy, he said "Of course, he's a terrible 1 on 1, I could have told you that the first time I saw him. He's short, and he's laterally slow. But you could still build a top notch defense with Redick. Because what the stats don't tell you is that he does not mess up an assignment. He won't gamble; he'll be in the spots you tell him to be in; and he'll execute your defensive plan. And there is value in that. Sure players can rise right over him for a jumper. But perhaps the defensive plan is to allow that guy to take the 2-point jumper rather than take 3s or go to the rim. Defensive metrics is useless at telling you how good a player is because it often doesn't tell you what defensive plan the coach has. And too often, it penalizes the guy trying to make up for his teammates mistakes. Daryl (Morey) mentioned that a player can miss assignments but still be a net asset because he'll steal the ball, go down the court, drain a 3, and that's a 4-5 point swing. But what he failed to realize is that when you have such a player that misses assignments and you play him, then you mess with your defensive culture. Suppose Dwight and that player attempt to defend a pick-and-roll. If Dwight hedges, but the other guy doesn't pick up Dwight's guy and Dwight's guy scores, the next time, Dwight might decide he shouldn't hedge and that changes your whole defensive culture."
Paraphrasing Van Gundy on developing players by giving them more playing time. "I do not think giving players more playing time necessarily helps develop them. If a player just does not get it on defense, you want him to sit on the bench until he does get it. Players absolutely do develop sitting on the bench. That might take 3 years. But look at Washington, they gave playing time to Blatche and McGee. You're telling them you're going to play them regardless of their defense because you want to develop them? That's suppose to give them incentive to improve their defense?"
Paraphrasing Van Gundy on 2 for 1. "I understand the math. But whether to do it depends entirely on your personnel. I didn't favor it because I didn't want them going up and throwing up any shot they wanted. I'm preaching shot selection, but if I say "ok, in this particular situation, you can ignore what I said", that changes the culture I'm trying to instill. You're basically teaching them that sometimes a bad shot is ok."