Archive for the 'Layups' Category

Our friend Jon Nichols over at the Basketball Statistics.com blog has a neat study today on the correlations between college stats and NBA stats... For instance, NCAA & NBA blocks per minute have an R-squared of 0.93, meaning good shot-blockers in college tend to be good shot-blockers in the pros; meanwhile, there's only a 0.29 R² between a player's NCAA and NBA FTA/min, so players who draw a lot of fouls in college don't necessarily do the same in the pros. Obviously there's some selection bias in the study, but it's still a cool snapshot of what abilities players tend to retain as they make the leap to the pro level.

Ryan Parker has a lot of great ideas over at his blog Basketball Geek, and here's another terrific example: Referee Efficiency. No, he doesn't evaluate each and every call made by the zebras... He uses the adjusted +/- framework to evaluate the on-/off-court impact of each ref -- for instance, Derrick Stafford is associated with a league-leading increase in 7.8 points per 100 possessions he’s on the court. Unfortunately, there's no word yet on what Tim Donaghy's impact was...

If you don't know who Ed Weiland is, you should -- the guy puts together the best draft previews on the web (for people who like stats, at least). And in the most recent HoopsAnalyst post, Ed lets us know whose stock is rising and falling over the past few months.

Kevin Pelton of Basketball Prospectus makes the case that since the All-Star Game at least, nobody has been more dominant -- or more important to his team's fortunes -- than The Flash.

Last week, Zach Lowe of Celtics Hub broke down the offensive performance of the C's Big 3 in the 4th quarter of close games. The findings? First, Paul Pierce is even more adept at attacking and drawing fouls than usual at the end of tight contests (no surprise to anyone who's watched the Celtics over the years). Second, Ray Allen relies far more heavily on the 3-pointer late in close games than in any other situation. Finally, for better or for worse, KG's game stays exactly the same in clutch situations -- he's disciplined and doesn't force things, even if the situation perhaps demands it.

(Hat tip to TrueHoop.)

That's right. I'm just linking directly to his ratings page, because it's the "must-visit 200 times a day" site this time of year. I would imagine most of readers already know about KenPom, but if not... Use this page when making your picks. Use it early, use if often. You'll thank me later. Seriously.

TrueHoop's Henry Abbott made the trek to Boston two weekend ago to cover the annual Sloan Sports Analytics Conference ("Dorkapalooza," as Bill Simmons lovingly termed it), and here are some things he learned during the trip.

This past week, I collaborated with Eddy Rivera of the Orlando Magic blog Third Quarter Collapse for an extension of my earlier post about what Grant Hill's career would have looked like if it had not been decimated by ankle injuries. I found that the Magic would have been a 50-ish win team with a healthy Hill, and a pretty good threat to win the East in most seasons; compare that to where they are now with Dwight Howard (a 60-ish win team with a very good chance to do damage in the East), and it's possible that the Hill injury and T-Mac trades were actually the best things for the franchise in the long run.

These Sporcle quizzes are addictive... The newest one asks you to name the NBA's all-time leaders in blocked shots, which is a little misleading because the stat wasn't tracked until 1973-74 (thus precluding Bill Russell and Wilt Chamberlain from cracking the list), but it's a fun quiz nonetheless.

Can you name those select players who have won both an NCAA and an NBA championship in their playing careers? Sporcle can.