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New Site Features

Posted by Justin Kubatko on October 14, 2011

Unlike the NBA, the Basketball-Reference.com programming staff (that would be me) does not want to lock out its fans. In light of that, let me describe some new features that were added to the site this week:

  • You may have noticed that the player pages once again have similarity scores tables. Please read the description of the method for full details.
  • On the Player Season Finder, you can now filter your results based on whether or not the player was an All-Star game selection (single season queries) or the number of All-Star game selection for the player (combined season queries). There is also a more flexible way to filter by position. Previously, you only had four options: any, guard, forward, or center. Now, you can select any combination of these. For example, you can restrict your results to players who are listed as either a "G-F" or "F-G" in the database.
  • On the Player Game Finder, you can now search for cumulative totals. For example, you can search for the player with the most points scored in the first ten games of the 2010-11 season. You can also choose to combine regular season and playoff games in your search (previously you had to choose one or the other). There is also a new way to filter by position that is the same as the one described above.

I hope you enjoy these new features, and as always, please let us know if you find any bugs.

14 Responses to “New Site Features”

  1. Jason J Says:

    Fantastic features, Justin... I mean Kevin... I mean Justin.

    I especially love the combo position option and the ability to combine regular season and playoff in the game finder.

  2. Headi Says:

    great new features

    thumbs up!

  3. Mike G Says:

    Hey, the extra breakdown by position is great.
    Combining playoff and season games in the Game Finder is nice, though it only seems to produce whole seasons of games, and/or playoffs.

    If you could also toggle (1st thru Nth) playoff games, one could re-create playoff series stats: Like Dallas' first 6 playoff games would give us the totals for Mavs in round one last year.

    What about a similar option in the Season Finder?

    Oh, the link shown as Player Game Finder above is a File Not Found.

  4. Mike G Says:

    Wow, it's do-able! Far out!

    Any likelihood that Game Finder will be building back through seasons earlier than 1986 (1991 for playoffs) ?

  5. AYC Says:

    Great! But I noticed Lebron isn't counted as a F-G, which he clearly should be

  6. AYC Says:

    PS extending the "cumulative totals" option to the player season finder would be great too. Also, for the player comparison finder, it would be great if you didn't have to start from the beginning of a player's career.

  7. Battaile Fauber Says:

    Awesome, I love the similarity scores!

  8. huevonkiller Says:

    Justin, the Similarity Scores are messed up. You should not use Raw Win Shares because that favors earlier eras. A player is much more likely to foul out now compared to the 1960's.

    You should have used Win Shares per 48 and other types of stats as well. Further, throw in playoff stats too just for fun.

    I appreciate the hard work you have put into this site though. Thanks for the upgrades.

  9. Ricardo Says:

    Anyone else want to follow an old season in lieu of an extended lockout? I vote for 1977-78: Walton broke his foot and a lackluster team won the title. Let's use a season simulator and do it over.

    Back then, the season started on October 18th (!). Let's begin 1978 Take Two on the first Tuesday in November.

  10. Mike G Says:

    1978: The Bullets won the title with their 9th-best team of the decade.
    Kareem had the 6th-best WS/48 of the '70s (NBA), after 4 others by himself and one by Chet Walker. But he missed 20 games.
    Artis Gilmore probably should have been MVP, but he didn't even make the all-NBA teams. If (PER X Minutes) means anything, it's a travesty.

  11. Simon Says:

    According to the explanation of the similarity scores, it's supposed to show similarity of player's career arcs and not style of play. If that's the case, why only compare players to those that played the same position? To me that seems to artificially invite that idea that the similarity scores do have something to with how the players played as opposed to just the "quality and shape" of their careers and will only really serve to make people misunderstand what it's doing.

  12. Jason J Says:

    I agree w/ Simon. If the similarity score isn't tied to play style, I don't think it makes sense to tie it to positions either.

  13. NBAGuru Says:

    The best basketball site keeps getting better. One thing I would really like to see here - a way to search for undrafted players. With all the tools available to search among draft picks, it would be nice to have similar flexibility for the players who beat out the odds and made it despite being undrafted. For instance, I particularly would like to test my theory that Ben Wallace is the best undrafted player of all-time.

  14. Jeff J. Says:

    @9

    I'd rather bring back the BLAB league! :-)