Hawks Behind In Statistical Revolution
by The Human Highlight Blog on Mar 12, 2010 3:30 PM EST
53 comments
The advanced statistical community has come on like gangbusters in recent years. The adoption of metrics beyond the standard per game limits and the basic counting stats that accompany them are being replaced in NBA front offices, to some degree, by advanced metrics that any fan can have access to in places such as some of the sites linked on the left of our own site (which doesn't include the fantastic Hoopdata.com).
The reason so many teams are casting a non-threatened eye towards some of this data? Well, according to The Wall Street Journal (by way of Pro Basketball Talk) it's because, well, it's working.
Shockingly, having that information available is helping the stat-savvy teams win a whole bunch of basketball games. From David Biderman of the Wall Street Journal:
According to interviews with every team, The Wall Street Journal found that half the league's teams this season have at least one of these statisticians who helps make in-game, draft-day and trade-deadline decisions. Many of these teams are among the NBA's best. The list accounts for all six division leaders, including the Orlando Magic and Dallas Mavericks, who have a data analyst traveling with the team. These 15 teams that have invested heavily in statistics have combined to win 59.3% of their games this season. The 15 teams without such analysts have won 40.7% of their games, and only three--the Phoenix Suns, Utah Jazz and Atlanta Hawks--are on pace to make the postseason.
As it states, the Hawks are one of half the teams in the league that don't invest in statistics in the way that all (6) division leaders do. What isn't discussed is the rate of improvement that can be attributed to this type of shift in paradigm. Would go a long way to understanding whether there is a direct relationship or is it merely spurious?
At any rate, as the field begins to migrate to this mind-set, and the majority of them are winners, does it make we as Hawks fans a little more nervous about our ability to maintain the level of success or go beyond if other teams are making (in theory) wiser decisions based on something the team knows less about than they do?
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What's with the doom and gloom lately?
This has become the Chicken Little site. If I was on the outside looking in, I’d never be able to guess the Hawks are currently sitting in 3rd place atop the Eastern Conference. Sooooo many teams would KILL to be in our position right now. I used to come to this site for pick me ups. Now, I’m scared to log on. Next you’ll be telling me that Santa Claus ain’t real.
Bet it hit the rim!
No, it's the opposite really
There is a growing trend towards statistics dominating the basketball conversation. The fact that the Hawks are behind has meant little to the team’s fortunes (they are currently in good shape for a second straight 1st round home court advantage).
There are many who don’t give a flip about stats, save for the wins and losses—-So the question is as the NBA grows more toward this mindset, are Hawks fans concerned that their team is not involved?
I would expect there is a camp that is very much in the frame of mind of “they better get with it” and other who say “Scoreboard!”
And the poll will tell us, to some non-scientific degree, how many are in each camp.
Fun! :-)
by The Human Highlight Blog on Mar 12, 2010 4:55 PM EST up reply actions
I hate science
but gee basketball sure is fun.
The fact that the Hawks are behind has meant little to the team’s fortunes (they are currently in good shape for a second straight 1st round home court advantage). Exactly so why waste blog space. What works for one team may or may not work for another.
by DPhenomenal1 on Mar 12, 2010 5:18 PM EST up reply actions
I'm wit u dphenomenal
Boring! lol but its usually good to hear the stats sometimes. but now its time for Less flaws more “ah!”
IF YOU CANT ACCEPT LOSING, YOU CANT WIN.
by Hawksgirl on Mar 12, 2010 6:45 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
AGREE 100% with dstdeelite
PLEASE MORE POSITIVE ARTICLES AND COMMENTS. EVEN WHEN WE WIN THE TONE OF THE ARTICLES ARE VERY NEGATIVE>>>>
Why don't you all go back and read the articles from December if you're so in need of joy?
Back then the Hawks were a dominant team—they were 19-6 at one point. Since then, not so much: 22-17.
You think there should be a lot of happy happy joy joy over a team that is 22-17? Do you think that the maybe the tone would be different if the team started 22-17 and went on a 19-6 run??
Do you all realize that the Hawks basically did THE SAME THING last year—started off well (21-10), then played near .500 the rest of the way (26-25)??
WHY do you expect such joy over a team that is apparently good but not good enough to improve and a coach who cannot seem to learn from his starter-burnout mistakes??
You’re frustrating me so much I have to use TWO question marks. !!
I'm all for teams using stats
as long as I don’t have to hear about it. I don’t understand what PER means and +/- makes absolutely no sense to me. Outside of the basic stats like points, assists, turnovers, rebounds, blocks and steals I don’t really care. Some guy wrote an article using stats to illustrate how Shane Battier is a more valuable player than Kobe or something like that. That article alone was enough to make me not care about PER or +/-.
@cocoqt81
Why we should care: the main point of the Battier article
was to illustrate that all of those traditional stats are not only limited but actually DETRIMENTAL to the evaluation of players within a team concept. Essentially, a player under contract wants to accrue numbers in order to get a good deal/all-star status, etc. And every one of the traditional stats can be accrued in ways that are detrimental to the TEAM and actually can cause the team to lose if pursued hard enough.
I bet we can all name a player on the Hawks who is under the belief that traditional stats will result in better money.
Non-traditional stats, which are so new that teams are not wanting to share what they even are, supposedly attempt to do a better job of measuring individual performance as it relates to team success only.
And I have to say...
that not having this newer approach is not surprising because Woody coaches like a Geico caveman. Want a coach with some brains? Expect the new use of stats.
Not exactly the point.
Would we like to have some information that tells Joe Johnson he isn’t going to get paid to volume-shoot?
Sometimes
all you need to do is watch the games and actually acknowledge and accept what you’re seeing. I honestly think some teams make up their mind about what they’re going to pay a player no matter what the data tells them. The Wizards saw fit to give Gilbert Arenas a $100 million contract and they hadn’t even made it out of the first round. Sometimes it just comes down to making bad decisions and this league has been filled with bad GMing. It shouldn’t take statistical analysis to know Rashard Lewis doesn’t deserve a $120 million contract. Like I said, I’m all for stats, but then you consider that +/- has a lot to do with who you’re on the floor with. It’s just something that I will admit is over my head.
@cocoqt81
I think the point is that teams are spend a lot of money rather few many players
and have to sign the best ones to long-term contracts…and how do you ensure that you are getting players who will result in wins? The Rockets decided McGrady could take a hike because of this. Obviously he has some value—but “you are not welcome here”? Interesting. And which players can make your bench better than someone else’s bench while paying them the same amount of money?
The average game in the NBA is decided by something like seven or eight points…or three offensive possessions. Given the nature of the importance of spacing, match-ups, and chemistry, I find it unsurprising that micro-stats are in vogue for a sport that is decided by so small a percentage of its total possessions.
But what’s also interesting is that the game has such great back-and-forth rhythm that it can also look like those things could not possibly be managed.
“I think the point is that teams are spend a lot of money rather few many players”—OOF.
Let’s try again—I think the point is that teams are spending a lot of money only a few players.
I guess my point
is teams were building successful championship teams without all of these new stats. You need smart people making decisions and great players. That’s one thing that won’t change.
@cocoqt81
yeah.
It remains to be seen if any of this info will change anything—i.e., the last 25 years you’ve needed a Bird/Magic/Shaq/Kobe/MJ/LeBron type to win even ONE title. Except for that Pistons team. So can someone use this info to construct teams that win without having to have one of the 2 most dominant players in the era?
I guess we’ll see. My take is that the Hawks and the vast majority of teams stand little chance of getting “that” player, and nothing else has been shown to work (yet).
Having guys with statistical knowledge...
is exactly the edge that a team like the Hawks, who don’t spend as much in terms of players salaries as the top teams, will need over the next few years to stay competitive.
You don’t need stats to see that James or Wade are awesome, but stats are helpful to see why a rotation player like Ersan Ilyasova has been a good addition for the Bucks. (Just one example; don’t nitpick it). The Hawks absolutely need to maximize their money for future bench additions.
Bit it doesn't hurt to know that one "star" is worth more to a team than another "star"
if that value is inconsistent with points/rebounds/PER/etc.
Bingo.
Any edge the Hawks can get, since they are not willing to go well into the luxury tax zone for talent, is what is needed to get ahead.
Today, statistical analysis can help in the way that team who were ahead of the curve on foreign talent was (10) years ago—-eventually everyone got on board and there was no more edge, but for a span of time, if you mined the foreign leagues, you could really get an edge on the competition.
It didn’t mean you automatically punched your ticket to the finals, but it was just another cheap way to get an edge on everyone else.
by The Human Highlight Blog on Mar 13, 2010 11:49 AM EST up reply actions
Stats are a double-edged sword... beware!
What I would like to see is the payroll of the 15 teams that employ full-time statisticians versuses the payroll of the 15 teams that don’t. Since I can’t seem to find a list of all of the teams, I can’t look it up myself. I’m guessing that the ones with statisticians are much higher, which probably has more to do with the win discrepancy than anything else.
Sometimes statistics can be misleading and get in the way of good intuition. This article, and the statistics it provides, is a perfect indication of that.
Let's push this bird out of the nest.
by Yes I Am A Hawks Fan on Mar 13, 2010 3:45 AM EST reply actions
I think a lot of people posting about this do not understand that this is a serious business (CoCo exempted, because she raised an actual good point).
People get paid a lot, and they get released or fired a lot. Careers are horribly short. Serious people do ANYTHING THEY CAN to gain an advantage. Serious people ARE PAID to be innovative and dedicated to the goals of the careers—at almost any cost.
You lost? Don’t care why. Just win.
Your best player was hurt? So what?
You couldn’t get the job done because you had the flu? Too bad. Get some Tylenol and get over yourself.
Your kid was out of school so you couldn’t get it done? That’s fine. We’ll give you lots of time to spend with your kid, starting right now.
A different philosophy is one thing, but it had better be validated by results (CoCo’s point) or you’re out the freaking door, friends.
If you have good scouts...
what do the advanced stats add? You can watch games and see what guys bring to the table. If all you see is box scores, you will get straight numbers without an idea for how they’re compiled.
by Mr. Sanchez on Mar 13, 2010 10:34 AM EST up reply actions
That's not the way it works.
These stats people compile tendencies. For example, if you are guarding Joe Johnson, you might like to know that he shoots 52% from one spot on the floor and 38% from another, and that if he is overplayed to shoot from this position he is worse than if he is allowed to shoot from another. It’s true that any of us can watch Josh Smith and see that he cannot shoot with his right hand at all, or do much with his back to the basket…but there are more subtle tendencies that are harder to notice in the flow of the game.
Of course, scouts are still necessary. I don’t think anyone is suggesting stats people would replace actual watching.
-Right now the Hawks are guessing on where they may have mismatches or what defenses may be inclined to work against which lineups. I submit that that is a contributing factor to Woodson’s lack of responsive substituting. They are just watching and looking at very simple stats- like “Bibby doesn’t turn the ball over so he’s going to play.”
Uhh...sorry...
Right now the Hawks are guessing on where they may have mismatches or what defenses may be inclined to work against which lineups. I submit that that is a contributing factor to Woodson’s lack of responsive substituting. They are just watching and looking at very simple stats— like "Bibby doesn’t turn the ball over so he’s going to play."
Again, scouting....
things like ….
“if you are guarding Joe Johnson, you might like to know that he shoots 52% from one spot on the floor and 38% from another”
Keep a shot chart when watching film? Advanced stats is just a mathematical picture of what you see on the floor.
by Mr. Sanchez on Mar 13, 2010 12:14 PM EST up reply actions
Well, there's watching, and then there's analyzing and charting.
And it appears some teams find the latter more important than our Hawks do.
Well
Stats are cool, mainly because I have three fantasy teams, but mainly to find out what a team does right or wrong in the course of a game. Now if people never watched the game and just saw the stats at the end of a game, they still really couldn’t get a feel for the actual game or the players. But they can see partially what went right or wrong in the game. Watching stats live, the +/- shifts all the time with usually the winning team getting more plus players. But as far as evaluating players that come and go with stats, should only be a start of the evaluation and should not be the end all to the evaluation.
Atlanta will win a championship....someday
Oh, with regards to +/-
Andray Blatche had -11 one the lowest on the team, but anybody to watch the game know his game wasnt near negative.
Atlanta will win a championship....someday
not saying I don't like stats just saying they can bnety misleading regarding players if you havent seen them play and per and +/- bores me
I know THE hawks are in a slump but we all knew it would happen because this is the HAWKS people. I can’t help but promote positive thoughts bcause they have come a long way and have a good record. Not to mention they are maturing So I prefer to stand back and see how they handle each slide whether than dwell on the faults and yea I KNOW THE faults matter but sometimes all you can do is wait and Watcha and hope for the best regarding Atlanta
IF YOU CANT ACCEPT LOSING, YOU CANT WIN.
by Hawksgirl on Mar 13, 2010 12:11 PM EST via mobile reply actions
Well, I'm sure no wants to bore you.
What kind of basketball topics are non-boring, pray tell? I’m sure the PH crew will work on that for ya.
I just like watching the game and seeing a player or teams skills on display
I mean statistics like field goal % and ft% are all well and fine but just going into the rest is boring. I mean no one has to make a conversation convenient for me, I will listen and probably learn from it but it doesn’t interest me like watching a player or team
IF YOU CANT ACCEPT LOSING, YOU CANT WIN.
by Hawksgirl on Mar 13, 2010 12:56 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
You are welcome to your opinion.
But some us don’t find stats and analysis— and by extension strategy —boring in the least. In fact, I find many times I cannot sit through a whole game, mostly the “Hawks at Near-Worst Team in the League So We’ll Show Up and Win By 6” variety (playoffs and big games are a different story). But I find myself eagerly reading about ALL the games and wanting more info regarding trends, strategy, analysis.
I admit that’s me, but I also submit that some others are like me and that nothing on the earth can be universally described as “boring.” We probably see differently on other forms of entertainment too.
yea and I hate math as well so that contributes to my dislike of statistics as well
But I have learned quite a bit from reading yals take on stats and all and that contributes to my knowledge of basketball somemore. But this subject is something I will continue to learn more about but not take much interest in unless the moment calls for it
IF YOU CANT ACCEPT LOSING, YOU CANT WIN.
by Hawksgirl on Mar 13, 2010 3:14 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Tonight, it's Pistons at home in the HF!
Let’s beat ’em down, watch some fantastic blocks, steals, and dunks, and come in tomorrow to celebrate!
by The Human Highlight Blog on Mar 13, 2010 1:22 PM EST up reply actions
Yes please
Calling advanced statistical analysis boring and not worth the time is akin to old print media and mainstream journalists calling all bloggers nerds with no lives, no girlfriends, all living in their mother’s basements.
No matter how many scouts you employ, it is damn near impossible to watch every single player on every single possession in every single game. Statistics allow you to see things that your eyes miss. No one here has said that it’s the only thing ou needor that it’s going to replace watching the players play the game. Advanced statistical analysis simply adds another resource to the entire scouting process and not taking advantage of every available resource simply states that you aren’t willing to do everything within your means to win a championship.
Put another way, I could forage in the forest for food every day, but there is a grocery store that has many more options for me to choose from and a TV channel dedicated to cooking to help me choose what spices go with what foods. Why would I not take advantage of that?
Stop being afraid of change and embrace something new in your life.
"Big Ten can have this challenge. Duke loses, we all win..."
-Marcus Ginyard, G - UNC
whoa...what things would our eyes miss that stats get?
Stats aren’t scientific measurements on the human body while they play the game. Their just things that done on the court.
Atlanta will win a championship....someday
THIS...
there is no stat that didn’t have to be first recognized by a human eye to be logged into that statistical category.
Not entirely true
Can you watch a game and calculate every players TS%, PER, etc instantly? I don’t think so and there’s no way that you could do it for every single player in every single game. Yes, every stat is driven from something that is recorded, but there are some things that are not tracked in simple box scores that are needed for the advanced statistics.
The point is simply that no one can watch everything all the time and advanced statistics show a more complete picture of a player’s worth than what the basic per game stats can provide. As a fan, maybe that isn’t important as you watch the games, but it should always be important for the team you follow to use them to their advantage as it clearly relates to on-court success. As a fan, I believe they are important and should be used accordingly. To do otherwise is to accept failure.
"Big Ten can have this challenge. Duke loses, we all win..."
-Marcus Ginyard, G - UNC
Instantly?
I don’t know the formula. But in each of those advanced stats, a person had to log the original stat included in the algebraic formula used to compute it.
Stats are important. Mining data for potential data is as important as the skill level of the person doing the looking.
I don’t know how important it is to hire a professional statisiticion but I would assume any smart coach looks at a wide variety of available stats that are currently available on a wide variety of web sites. They certainly show trends over a period of time. Maybe we should require our coaching staff to take a Six Sigma class and become black belts as just one small part of their basketball background.
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