Henry Abbott interviews Dean Oliver. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/13972/the-state-of-basketball-analysis [rquoter] Saturday marks the 2010 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, which is also commonly referred to as (thank you, Bill Simmons) Geekapalooza. This conference, now in its fourth year, is a funny thing. On the one hand, it's a curio. Most of the NBA is not here, and some meaningful parts of the NBA is convinced that noting that happens here really matters. On the other hand, it's undeniably the epicenter of some very smart NBA thinking, and it's no wonder this year's conference has moved to a bigger venue and is still very very very sold out. I have talked to more than a few agents and executives who never bothered to come in the past, but after hearing about it, were determined not to miss it this time around. If you're here, it feels like this conference matters. But does it? To help us understand the import and role of advanced statistics in today's NBA, I turned to Dean Oliver, who is one of the field's founders. He wrote one of the field's core books, "Basketball on Paper," and is the Denver Nuggets' director of quantitative analysis. ... [/rquoter]
Hmm...taking basketball to a more intellectual level eh? . The truth for the matter is, most athletes in the NBA do not take their profession to "another level" as they say, that is, using more of the brains than the brawn. It's nice to have these conference in existence but I would be drained right away if I ever attended it :grin:
Actually many of the discussions are on a basketball level. They're online for viewing if you want to watch. Or last year's was anyway. Here's the site for this year's conference : http://sloansportsconference.com/2010/ I almost went for the heck of it, but decided I didn't want to be in the northeast that bad, especially when there's a chance they'll have some of the stuff online later.
If you get a chance, try to get the basketball analytics panel to answer this question: "How valuable are beefy players, and at what position you prefer them -- up top or down low?"
From Rich Thornett twitter: # Dean Oliver: LeBron James is not subject to context. #ssac 2 minutes ago via Seesmic # Dean Oliver: There are players who are more subject to context and others less so. In the latter case, you want to study that context. #ssac 2 minutes ago via Seesmic # Dean Oliver (on communicating the value of analytics to coaches): You're not going to get coach to speak math. #ssac 17 minutes ago via Seesmic # Mark Cuban: Stats are heavily influencing his team's lineups. And choosing a coach. #ssac 18 minutes ago via Seesmic # Dean Oliver: Individuals see a basketball game better than the numbers, but the numbers see all the games. #ssac 31 minutes ago via Seesmic # Dean Oliver: There are 8 NBA teams that have analytics integrated in their decision making. (BOS DEN DAL POR HOU OKC CLE ORL). #ssac 34 minutes ago via Seesmic # @bill_beal Not a lot of insight, but he had some good one-liners. 35 minutes ago via Seesmic in reply to bill_beal # @StarStSports I'm ruthlessly guarding the last available seat in the basketball analytics session right now. But happy to meet up after. about 1 hours ago via Seesmic in reply to StarStSports # The @SloanSportsConf has been PHENOMENAL thus far. Best $200 ever. Next up: Basketball Analytics. This is my Super Bowl. #ssac about 1 hours ago via Seesmic # Mark Cuban: "In 15 years, personalized medicine will be the biggest topic in all sports." @PatientsLikeMe needs to get on this. #ssac about 1 hours ago via Seesmic # Does @dmorey believe in clutch performance? "We don't make any decisions based on that." Nice dodge. #ssac about 1 hours ago via Seesmic # Cuban: Every team has morons. We try to hide morons so we can dump them on other teams. We play this big game of protect the moron. #ssac about 2 hours ago via Seesmic # Mark Cuban: There is an official in the NBA who refuses to call offensive 3 second violations. We know this. We use it. #ssac about 2 hours ago via Seesmic # Mark Cuban: In basketball, the [offensive] coach yells out the play, and the defense still doesn't know how to respond. #ssac about 2 hours ago via Seesmic
I've noticed there are some people (here) that believe that statistical analysis is meaningless for basketball. I read TrueHoop's interview of Dean Oliver a few days ago, and felt it was worth passing along to those who haven't seen it...
