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Friday, March 13, 2009
NBA, sports execs use tech, analytics to gain edge in player picks
By Brendan Lynch
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Quantitative analytics, well-documented as a talent selection tool in baseball, is emerging as a model for picking players in the National Basketball Association, and an annual MIT conference has become the de facto hub of the hoops stats universe.
Last week’s Sloan Sports Analytics Conference — organized three years ago by Sloan School of Management alum and Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey — brought together a jock-meets-nerd crowd from MIT, ESPN and the four major professional sports, with a large basketball turnout.
“For those of us in the basketball analytics community, this is the place to get to know each other,” said Kevin Pelton, a writer for BasketballProspectus.com, which takes an analytical approach to covering college and pro hoops.
Statistical analysis can help players find the spot on the floor from which they shoot the highest percentage — for example, statistics have found the corners to be the highest percentage spots to shoot three-pointers. It can also help coaches with their rotations, determining which combination of players works the best together.
But player production cannot be isolated in basketball as well as it can in baseball, so there aren’t dominant stats like on-base and slugging percentages as there are in baseball. Instead, Morey said that in basketball, as in business, a combination of several analytics tools can help reduce risk when committing big money to a player. “If you’re investing in a company, there’s not just one thing you look at,” he said.
Morey’s unique path to the NBA wound through MIT and work on behalf of U.S. spy agencies. He started the sports conference after he was hired by his Rockets and could no longer teach the sports analytics class at Sloan. Morey once worked for Mitre Corp. on National Security Agency and CIA video analytics projects. Having experience with analytics vendors such as VideoIQ Inc. helped when he needed technology to break down game footage in his hoops career, Morey said.
Speakers last week included Morey, Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, Boston Celtics assistant vice president Mike Zarren, ESPN columnist John Hollinger, and Denver Nuggets director of quantitative analysis Dean Oliver. They agreed that teams that employed analysts occupied the higher end of the standings. Cuban told the panel the least useful stats are the ones that show up in a box score.
Since NBA-wide standards have yet to develop, teams are tight-lipped about what they do. Hollinger told the panel some teams still try to keep their analytics activities a secret. Cuban added, “It is kind of embarrassing to be here at — what did we call it — Dorkapalooza?”
Often, players pegged as productive by analytics are ignored by scouts for being undersized. “Height is probably overvalued, but that’s changing,” Morey said.
A combination of traditional scouting and statistical models of college performance led Morey to draft Aaron Brooks, an undersized point guard, with the 26th overall pick in 2007, Morey said. The team has won 11 of 13 since Brooks became a starter, despite the loss of swingman Tracy McGrady to season-ending surgery.
Analytics also likely informed the Celtics’ free agent signing of James Posey, a good defender who spaces the floor well with his three-point shooting; and the drafting of Leon Powe, who projected well statistically as a college player but fell to the second round of the draft likely because scouts felt he was undersized for his position, Pelton said.
Morey said players like Brooks or Powe would probably be drafted earlier in the future as the rest of the league adopts analytics.
“We’ve got to continue to innovate,” he said. “The league is getting smarter.”
See also: Buzzient uses online buzz for teams, firms
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