APBRmetrics

[SGreenwell]

So, Joe Sheehan, an author for Baseball Prospectus and one of its co-founders, dropped this tantalizing little hint in a chat the other day:

[94by50]

A "Basketball Prospectus" might be better as a collaboration between multiple authors. I enjoy JH's work very much, both his past work in print and his current chat/blog/column responsibilities on ESPN. The community has more to offer than just one person's work, however, no matter how good it is.

But even if someone were only re-printing Hollinger's work, that's still far better than nothing.

[davis21wylie2121]

This would be exciting news if they do it right. But who's going to write it? SGreenwell is right when he says that pretty much everybody who's anybody in the world of basketball stats (except Dave Berri) is a presence here. That said, I assume no one who currently works for an NBA team is going to write a preview book on top of that, and we know Dan Rosenbaum is busy serving our government at the moment. So Hollinger, then? It'd be great to have the Forecast in hard-copy form again, that's for sure, but I don't know if his ESPN deal would allow his stuff to be reprinted in book form for another publisher. Personally, I'd like to see a BP-style book where multiple authors collaborate; Football Outsiders has done a great job taking the BP model and applying it to football, so why not basketball? I guess we'll just have to see how things play out. At any rate, I'm excited about the prospect of a hard-copy stat-based annual this fall, after a year without one.

On a related note, I don't think the Wily Mo Pena/Shareef comparison is even close to being apt. With the exception of this past season, Abdur-Rahim has been a pretty efficient player his entire career, all while using 22-27% of possessions when he was on the floor... Seems like a pretty decent player to build around; it's not his fault his teammates were awful. Wily Mo is an all-or-nothing hitter who plays no defense and has never even been a starter. Personally, I don't see the similarity.

[Kevin Pelton]

Looks like Sheehan was a little misleading. Basketball, yes, NBA no. Check out Nate Silver's chat on Wednesday:

[davis21wylie2121]

That actually might be even cooler. Ken is nothing less than the man.

[SGreenwell]

Thanks for pointing that out, Kevin. BP does so many chats that I lose track of them at times

The product definitely sounds interesting, and I'm also a fan of Pomeroy. Looks like I'll be spending yet more money on their books.

[HoopStudies]

This will be another good landmark for the group. Ken's book on top of at least 5 others, several people employed by teams in the US and overseas (even a GM!), a few people writing, basketball-reference.com going strong, the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports providing an academic outlet for quality work.

John Hollinger and I worked together at About.com (called the Mining Company back then) in 1996/1997 time frame, me writing pro hoops and him on college. Kevin Pelton, Roland Beech, and Ed Kupfer started showing up at the old Yahoo site about 5 years ago. (It might have been longer for Kevin -- I think he was 12 when he started posting. ) Ken started putting his work out 3-4 years ago. Dan, Justin, and several others showed up at about the same time.

It is taking a while, but it's good to see so many people that have posted here -- and most of whom I have personally met -- get public respect for their work. I'm sure that there are more among the posters and lurkers here. The field is young, open, and challenging. I hope to see more of the good ideas show up here and turn into maybe another book or two. Even those who don't have it turn into a book or a job -- there are so many people here who provide good insight on concepts or collect data or organize websites or suggest off the wall questions. This is a good group that should take pride in Ken's book coming out.
_________________
Dean Oliver
Author, Basketball on Paper
http://www.basketballonpaper.com

[Statman]

BTW - if anyone in this forum is at all involved with any aspect of this development - I'd love for you to email me. College basketball player ratings has kinda been a passion of mine for years, and when I can find the time I'm working on better ways to try to improve this type of statistical analysis. I'd love to possibly get involved if possible.

I'm sure more than a few old timers (Mike G, DeanO, etc) here can remember me as danthestatman on the old board - when I think I posted some of my feelings of college performance relating to future NBA performance (among other things).

I did email Nate Silver of BP - but we all know that form emails from big sites often can get lost in the shuffle a bit.
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www.goodstats.net

[John Hollinger]

Ah, the Mining Company ... I had just about purged all memories of that from my brain, and then this happens. Hard to believe it was over a decade ago.

[Kevin Pelton]

[vegaswatch]

In case anyone missed this...

http://www.baseballprospectus.com/unfiltered/?p=521

[Kevin Pelton]

So ... BasketballProspectus.com has now launched. It turns out there will be an NBA component, and that at least part of that component will be ... me.

Just for the record if you're wondering based on my earlier post, I wasn't trying to lead anyone astray earlier. I knew as much (or as little) as everyone else when the site was first announced, before the BP guys contacted me. I'm actually a little surprised - and very excited - that the NBA is getting as much play as it appears from the launch article.

[Mountain]

Congratulations. They made a fine choice.
Look forward to the NBA coverage.