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"Muthuball": How To Build an NBA Championship Team
First time accepted submitter Quillem writes "Muthu Alagappan, a 5'9" biomechanical engineering undergraduate at Stanford, made a presentation at this year's MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference which might well do to basketball what Moneyball did to baseball. His contribution revolves around a topographical analysis of NBA games which contends that there are really 13 positions in basketball — not just five. Besides a rather patronising — but informative — read in Gentlemen's Quarterly, there are earlier stories over at Wired and NYT blogs. Muthu's talk and slides are also available."
Throw them a muthaball.
It's basketball. Really, does anybody with a working brain really give a screw about this game? I guess it's marginally more interesting than soccer, but compared to games suitable for men to play...not so much.
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
a 5'9" biomechanical engineering undergraduate
I, for one, welcome our new 5'9" cyborg overlords.
Jail the fucking banksters
Jail the fucking oath breakers
Outlaw delegates, the electoral college, and ALL fucking electronics in our elections
Roll back all the fucking unconstitutional EO's.
Jail that mother fucker OBAMA
Come on slashdot what the fuck SPORTS?!
The statistics currently being tracked is more offense focused. Bad Boys of Detroit, the Bulls, and the Spurs had solid defense that helped them win but not necessarily show up in statistics unless you do a game-to-game analysis of the opponent's average offense performance vs performance against a specific team.
Other than that, it's a pretty interesting thought/analysis... Just incomplete... but I'm sure someone can do a much more complete PhD thesis on this and get funded by some NBA team :-P
I have this video at 100% volume and my OS volume slider at max (past "100%"), and I can barely hear him.
Only on Slashdot do people get modded up for trolling about sports. Conversely, only sports trolls get modded up on Slashdot.
Bravo
How is the GQ article "patronising" - because the opening summary says, "A Stanford undergrad's new super-nerd study"? That's the only thing I see that could be remotely considered patronizing. And frankly, this *is* a "super-nerd" study - how is a statistical analysis of NBA players NOT super nerdy?
Can we change the Slashdot motto to "butthurt editorializing for nerds," instead of "news for nerds?" The "news" part implies a factual focus, and the summaries are increasingly flamebait of the first order.
Emulating a brad pit movie in order to advance the profitability of a stupid game that already rakes in tens of millions per team.
Great work, humanity will place you among the legends
I thought there were only penalties...
Imagine, a 5'9" oneno teaching all the short guys how to beat the tall guys. One of the short guys tells his friend, Jemima's baby tall brother Jenkins, all about it. Jenkins, who is 6'7" know knows all the shit the 5'9" oneno knew, and beats him big time.
Thank you so much for your sharing.I get a lot information about what Moneyball did to baseball.
Thank you so much for your sharing.I get a lot information about what Moneyball did to baseball.
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As Ethan "Bubblegum" Tate will have already remarked someday, whilst pondering the time dilation effects of Basketball wherein time passes progressively slower as less time is left "on the clock":
I thought you knew that algebra was all razzamatazz
rewriting history since 2109
What the hell does his height have to do with anything?
:His contribution revolves around a topographical analysis
You mean topological.
News for niggers, stuff that matters
Duh, 5 players on a team (X2) and 3 officials do add up to 13.
God: When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
...for pointing out a common error that makes the speaker sound stupid. Is it just me or does anyone else get that "fingernails on a chalkboard" sensation every time you hear a speaker blithely say words that clearly mean the *exact opposite* of what was intended?
You should all hand over your geek cards at the front desk, if you ever were in position of one.
You have a geek making a presentation about an idea on how to bring together an optimum team of items depending on their statistical profiles, and you argue about how interesting basketball/baseball is? I have never witnessed people miss the point all at once that badly ever before in my life...
Here, I will boil it down for you:
1. Gather statistical data on the items of which you want to build a new group of.
2. Do some data-mining and graphing to figure out how these items cluster. Do not predefine clusters, but let them surface themselves.
3. Depending on a free, non-mapped variable (e.g. cost) make an optimum choice of individuals from each group. Alternatively, base your choice on a given pattern that you want to match or counter-act (e.g. the opposing team).
4. Profit!
5. Gather new data and update your graphs to keep up with times.
How about starting to come up with ideas on how to apply this concept to physics, medicine, engineering and economics? Jeez...
His contribution revolves around a topographical analysis of NBA games
I'd imagine a topographical analysis of NBA games would be rather boring; basketball courts are just flat, level surfaces, after all.
I can confirm that this DOESN'T stop the rape but is useful for a diversion to prevent one. Just like a bucket of KFC or a watermelon.
There's at least one company, Virtual Gold, doing data mining in basketball and their product, Advanced Scout, has been in use since the 90s. Here is a paper on it. I don't think the analysis is the same as this one, but Moneyball style stuff is not new to the NBA.
There was also this article in the NYTimes by Michael Lewis that discussed some aspects of this kind of analysis, e.g. " Battier learns a lot from studying the data on the superstars he is usually assigned to guard. For instance, the numbers show him that Allen Iverson is one of the most efficient scorers in the N.B.A. when he goes to his right; when he goes to his left he kills his team. The Golden State Warriors forward Stephen Jackson is an even stranger case. “Steve Jackson,” Battier says, “is statistically better going to his right, but he loves to go to his left — and goes to his left almost twice as often.”"
Spot-on insightfulness should be rewarded.
Put a couple of young super stars on the same team, hype them up in the media - David Stern will make sure the referees will make sure they'll win
i play basketball on a rec league team and sometimes like to analyze our stats. does anyone know if there's a way to access these tools publicly? it would be interesting to see what kind of player we each are and then see how to complement our existing team. we know that we have some imbalances, but it would be cool to see if the tool picks out the same issues that we understand more intuitively.
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I believe baseball and basketball differ greatly if relation to how statistics can be applied. Basketball success is much more reliant on a greater number of teammates being "up for the game", and performing physically and mentally at a high level for longer periods. Baseball IS statistics and situational probability. As far as communicating data, this guy gets it done: http://www.ted.com/talks/hans_rosling_shows_the_best_stats_you_ve_ever_seen.html