One of the most fascinating discussions that sports fans can have is comparing teams/players from different eras. This is a really tough comparison to make and obviously one will never know the ground truth, since the teams/players debated will never play against each other! So we can turn to the numbers to give us an… Read More 90’s Bulls or Contemporary Warriors: Comparing NBA Dynasties of Different Eras
The recent Supreme Court’s ruling that the federal ban on betting is unconstitutional has created a lot of discussion on the implications of this decision. Is betting bad? Is betting good? Are people going to be exploited by the bookmakers? All of these questions are legitimate questions and concernts and certainly deserve attention. However, from… Read More Investing – yes investing – in Sports Competitions
The NFL has clearly turned to a pass-first league during the past decade or so, and for a good reason. Passing is overall more efficient! Indeed using play-by-play data from the 2014-2016 NFL seasons and the Winston-Sagarin-Cabot model for expected points, a passing play adds on average 0.25 expected points, while a rushing play adds… Read More Skill Curves in the NFL: Unlocking the Interactions between Passing & Rushing
Metrics typically reported in sports media to help understand the performance of lineups include +/- and efficiency ratings. Overall they do a pretty good job in describing the performance of a lineup except for when they do not. For instance, during garbage times points scored/allowed can directly overvalue/undervalue the performance of a lineup. Of course,… Read More Lineups in Basketball and Win Probability Added
It is this time of the year again where the euroleague is ready to kick off its playoffs on the road to the final 4. We helped you get a sense of what to expect using a simple regression-based rating model. Note that the model is a vanilla regression model without all the bells and whistles… Read More Euroleague 2017-18: Playoff and Final-4 projections
If the regular season serves as an indicator for what we will see in the playofss, we are certainly in for a treat! With the playoffs for the Basketball Champions League right around the corner, we make our predictions – that will keep being updated as the playoffs progress. First we start with the final… Read More Basketball Champions League Predictions: Playoffs 2017-18
Evaluating lineups has traditionally been one of the tasks that “analytics” are commissioned with in basketball (and other sports with frequent substitutions). 5, 3 and 2 men lineups are typically analyzed, with the latter two offering a larger sample to work with. The metric that is typically utilized to evaluate the performance of a lineup… Read More Basketball Lineup Ratings: a Bayesian Adjustment Approach
