APBRmetrics

7SecondsorLess · Joined: 15 Feb 2009 Posts: 5

I just wanted to take a moment to introduce myself. I come over from a sabermetric background in baseball; I thought I really wanted to work in a baseball front office when I "grow up" before I realized that my real passion is basketball. I'll always enjoy baseball and be a fan but I realized that, for me, that was just sifting through numbers; I could hardly even stand watching a full baseball game. Basketball, I find every game I watch exhilarating, and I'm trying to get into the numbers as much as possible as well. I served as Assistant GM of a college summer ball baseball team and now am trying to get my feet wet in basketball.

So, here's my question to you all: I want to learn literally everything you all would be kind enough to throw at me. I've been reading for the last couple of months more about coaching and management theory first because I'm very interested in that side as well. I've read "Wooden," "The Education of a Coach" (about Bill Belichick), "Leading from the Heart" (about Coach K), and ":07 or Less" (where I get my name). I'm about to read "Basketball on Paper" which I understand was the foundation for a lot that goes on here.

So, what I'm asking for is...is there any chance you all might be willing to post the most influential articles or studies you've read? The ones that taught you how to get started in this all, formed the basis for how you view basketball today, provided the most evidence about something that's done incorrectly (or correctly) in player evaluation in front offices today, etc. I read the Wikipedia page on APBRmetrics and enjoyed it--but it doesn't seem the best way to provide introductory knowledge into the field. It has a great big list of names that can't be comprehended yet by a beginner, and does a nice job citing stats and pages to find those stats but doesn't do much linking to the beginning, or the questions answered in studies, if you know what I mean.

For example, Baseball Prospectus has this great page: http://baseballprospectus.com/library/. You can go in and read their most influential, thought-changing pieces on very specific topics, like basestealing, or Defense Independent Pitching Statistics, or bunting...I discovered Basketball Prospectus recently and tried getting into that but unfortunately found there was nothing like that. I just had to keep hitting "last week" until I came to the beginning and didn't really want to read ever post ever made there, especially since a great deal of them are time-specific.

I recently read Michael Lewis' great piece in the NYT about Daryl Morey and have been reading a lot about what he does. What I'm looking for is a glossary of sorts that can explain a good deal of where he gets his info. I.e., why does he think fouling is so bad? How does he find Shane Battier's effect on Kobe Bryant? If he says the box score is horrible, why do you guys like stats like PER, where there's no good measure of defense and the rebounding numbers included are greatly flawed? As a Wizards fan and someone who's had to watch the atrociousness of the squad this year, how do you sift through +/- numbers and determine which very good players are just stuck on awful teams and thus have their numbers killed (i.e. Caron Butler), and which players are really responsible for their own poor +/-? How do you think Morey found that a guy like Battier was so underrated in the first place?

I don't mean to come in here and tear everything you're doing down; I really don't. I imagine after reading "Basketball on Paper" a good deal of what I ask will be explained. I just wanted to respectfully ask if there's any way to get an introductory basketball guide on the web, or if there is already one where I can find it. In baseball, my primary influence was "The Book on the Book" by Bill Felber, who basically asked every question possible about the game and then did a great deal of research to either support popular opinion or completely contradict it. He provided foundation both in the completely elementary topics (i.e. why OBP is better than BA) as well as some outlandish ones that he provided very compelling arguments for (i.e. using closers as early as the sixth inning, 0-2 take signs). Is there anything like that to get me started and also well along the way in basketball? Is it "Basketball on Paper"?

So, as a complete beginner to this site, hello to all. If you wouldn't mind posting who you are, if you're a person on the long Wiki list please do note it, if you have aspirations to work in basketball too please tell me...and I'd greatly appreciate you throwing as much as possible at me, but starting from the very beginning. What book influenced you most? What article? Who's the best analyst in the game now? What sites do you read most regularly?

I imagine a great deal of you share my passion for learning. I'll come out and say that I'm not a very good math person at all...but like to think that I have a creative mind that can figure out the right questions to ask and try to learn to either figure out them myself or lean on people I trust who have much more gifted math brains than I do. I hope to find a few people on this site who love debating as much as I do. I'm looking to learn a ton on here, have fun, and talk about the game I love with some great people. I'm confident I've come to the right place.

Thanks in advance for anything you're willing to share/ if any effort to get a library of the best articles or things to read might be made. Either way, I'm very grateful and I apologize if it's too presumptuous of me to come in and ask for people to introduce me to everything in my first post. Look forward to speaking with you all.

Ryan J. Parker · Joined: 23 Mar 2007 Posts: 708 Location: Raleigh, NC

Read Basketball on Paper and sift through all of Ed's old posts. Come back to us when you're done. Cool

That really is the best place to start. Reading the various articles on 82games.com and at Count the Basket would be a good idea, too. I think that's a great place to start for now. The other suggesting is that when you find areas of interest, search the forum to see what's been said about it in the past.
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I am a basketball geek.

cherokee_ACB · Joined: 22 Mar 2006 Posts: 157

The paper "A Starting Point for Analyzing Basketball Statistics" is another good place to start, if you can have access to it
http://www.bepress.com/jqas/vol3/iss3/1/

Kevin Pelton · Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 1:30 am Post subject:

I would suggest this intro of mine as more explanatory than the Wikipedia page:
http://www.wnba.com/storm/news/stats101.html

Ed **Küpfer** · Joined: 30 Dec 2004 Posts: 785 Location: Toronto

Also, this hoops stats intro is bookmarkworthy.
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ed