Intro to Advanced Stats

[Erick Blasco]

 

 

Advanced statistics is one area that baseball is lightyears ahead of basketball. Bill James was a baseball fan who popularized sabermetrics, the analysis of baseball through objective evidence, back in the 80’s through his tome-like Historical Abstracts. Sabermetrics is named after SABR, the Society for American Baseball Research.

 

Since then, more meaningful statistics—like OPS and WHIP—have entered the public consciousness and appear on basic player stats pages, Michael Lewis’s well-read “Moneyball” (which is being made into a movie starring Brad Pitt) has shown millions how some clubs use sabermetrics to their advantage, and two pitchers who combined for 31 wins and 0 saves can win the 2009 Cy Young Awards without ruffling many feathers.

 

In hoops, however, the basic stats still rule what are supposed to be in-depth discussions. Points, rebounds, and assists are the end-all, be-all for many fans and analysts of the game. It’s so bad, All-Defensive Teams are usually made up of a) whoever lead the league in blocks, b) whoever lead the league in steals, and c) household names who average over 20 PPG and are considered good defenders. Rarely does the phenomenal defensive talent who doesn’t fill up the stat sheet in some area make the First Team (Shane Battier still has only made two Second Team lists [Ed. Shameful]).

 

As much as I love the aesthetic beauty of the game that first attracted me to basketball, I try to find and use meaningful statistics whenever I have a real conversation about what makes a team or a player good or bad. The basic stats do paint a fuzzy picture of what’s happening, but it’s some more advanced stats that add the details we should be looking for.

 

 

http://www.emptythebench.com/2009/12/11/advanced-basketball-statistics-101/