Tracking the 2008 NBA Playoffs: What the Data Represents
In my post where I detail my data collection goals for the 2008 NBA playoffs, I spell out the sort of data that I’m tracking and adding to the play-by-play. This post will expand on that and describe exactly what you’ll see in the data. First, a quick reminder of the four types of events […]
Analytics is the End Game
Analytics, at the end of the day, is … going to be the end game. – MC Hammer The quote above is taken from this video, where MC Hammer lays it all out in the open about analytics. If you just replace the music references with those from the basketball world, then you end up […]
Data Pet Peeve #2: Offensive Rebounds & In-Air Shots
It didn’t take long for me to find my 2nd data pet peeve. This pet peeve is related to the first data pet peeve in that it involves rebounds and play-by-play ordering. This peeve is because offensive rebounds are credited after in-air shots. This makes me sad. An Example With 7:54 left in the 4th […]
Data Pet Peeve #1: Loose Ball Fouls & Rebounds
I’m always running into recurring issues with existing basketball data that cause me exercise my obsessive compulsiveness, so I’m going to start keeping track of those issues here. If they frustrate you just as much as they frustrate me then maybe someone will do something about it one day. Or not. First on the list […]
Tracking Data from the 2008 NBA Playoffs
After writing roughly 4,000 lines of perl code to get the existing play-by-play data into the format I want to work with, I’m finally ready to track data from the 2008 NBA playoffs. This data collection project (along with the motivation to perform this data collection on a larger scale for the regular season) has […]