(2) Miami Heat vs. (4) Boston Celtics
Injuries have decimated the east, as Howard, Rose and Bosh completely changed the dynamic, and now with Avery Bradley gone the Celtics lost one weapon they could use against the Heat. I know people are considering the Celtics because Bosh is such an important piece, but the Heat dispatched the Pacers, who are easily the better team than the Celtics as they were completely healthy. True, they needed LeBron and Wade playing at a high level, but with Pierce hampered and Bradley out the dynamic duo performing at an insane level is almost probable at this point. And no, Bosh's absence doesn't mean Garnett will dominate. Kevin's now a full-time center and would have been matched up Joel Anthony most of the game anyway.
I think it's easy to see the Heat winning, but the question is how many games. I'll make this short because there's already enough content out there about the series. It'll be five games for two reasons: 1) The Celtics needed 7 games to oust the 76ers who are not up to Miami's level or the Pacers and 2) Bosh is a (faint, but honestly few people know) possibility of coming back and contributing.
Prediction: Heat in 5.
Random prediction: Rondo and James coincide with a triple double in the same game although James outscores him by 25 or more.
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
2012 Western Conference Finals
(1) San Antonio Spurs versus (2) Oklahoma City Thunder
As weird as the playoffs have been, the west has been relatively predictable. The one-seed will play the two-seed for the rights to play in the finals, and that top seed is heavily favored. I don't know if everyone has caught on to how good these spurs are, however. The so-called NBA statnerds have noticed the dominating brilliance of the Spurs in the last 40 or so games. To illustrate I made the graph below. It shows a five-game rolling average, which means the average point differential of the past five games, over the entire season with some key points included. The 40 point loss to Portland, for instance, came when few of the rotation players were even on the court, and consequently their average took a dive.
Notice how great they've been in the latter half of the season. A 10-point differential is historic, and anything approaching 20 is unheard of. Suffice it to say I don't think these Spurs are going to have a problem. The weirdest part of all this is that the Spurs really took off when they acquired Diaw, a guy who played his way off arguably the worst team of all-time with his bad play. Diaw, however, is definitely a useful player, but more so on a good team: he refuses to shoot sometimes and instead will pass, which is great on a team who can actually shoot. He's also a surprisingly good defender and an upgrade over the short and unathletic Blair. Ginobili is actually an important piece, and when healthy he gives the Spurs an excellent weapon on a team that's already offensively great. Sorry Thunder. Work on your defense and try again next year. At least you're young.
Prediction: Spurs in 5.
Random prediction: One game will feature both teams over 120 points. Boring Spurs? Not so much.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Best Fans: Most of the Job Is Showing Up
Introduction
The court is a stage and all the world watches. Without fans the NBA would be nothing but a series of games whose reward was simple bragging rights, and unwatched the league would have little meaning. The fans are treasured, but which ones are the best? Is there one city that skies above the rest in supporting its team? The question is pertinent because every year there's a rumor about a certain organization pulling up its stakes and leaving, and one of the reasons cited is a "small-market" where there aren't enough fans to fill the stadium. There are, however, many different factors at play, and looking at the question from multiple angles one can have a better educated guess at which fanbase is the best.
Methodology
The primary determinant for best fanbase is how well the stadium is filled, or total attendance for a year divided by capacity. Obviously, there are various factors that cause attendance to sway, and as a result a nonlinear multivariate regression model was built using team data from the seasons 2000 to 2012. The basic form is a concave asymptotic function: Attendance/Capcity = 1 - C*exp(alpha1*x1 + alpha2*x2 ... ) where as shown in the final results the alpha coefficients are negative. Attendance is taken from basketball-reference.com and capacity from various websites for each stadium. Standing room only was ignored, as well as two seasons of the hybrid New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets -- those two weird seasons are the definition of an outlier -- and three from the Charlotte Hornets because its obscenely large stadium with a capacity of 24,000 plus skewed the results.
The first and most important independent variable is the win-loss record. The incarnation of this that worked the best was a two-year average of a win/loss ratio. This makes sense because doing well in the previous season will drive fans to the games while winning during the current season keeps them there. The ratio was also transformed by the exponent 7. The effect is that a jump from a win percentage of 20 to 30 barely affects attendance while going from 50 to 60 has a large effect.
Appearance in the playoffs the previous year was a significant dummy variable (dummy meaning it's either a 0 or a 1.) Having a high win percentage will cause a team to hit the playoffs and that's included in the model, but even then simply making the playoffs is significant; that's important finding. The effect is fairly sizable too as the dummy variable gives an 18% "boost" to the attendance equation holding everything else equal.
City population, which is actually based on the metropolitan statistical area, was statistically significant as well. The data come from the US and Canadian census, and every year between the census date is the government's estimate (2012 though was my own estimate using the previous growth rate for a simple linear extrapolation.) The population is divided by one million and then squared in the model. For Los Angeles, the population was cut in half and given to each team. New York's metro area includes the New Jersey Nets' home turf; consequently the metro area was broken down into New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NY and Nassau-Suffolk, NY for the Knicks, and Edison-New Brunswick, NJ and Newark-Union, NJ-PA for the Nets.
For time-rate of growth in the NBA, the years from 1999 was used. The years were then transformed by ln(Year). The ln(Year) effect is a slow growth rate. As the league gains more fans, the stadiums have been filling up more often.
Related to wins is a the simple rating system (SRS) from basketball-reference; it's basically the point differential from the current season adjusted for strength of schedule. Even though win percentage and point differentials are highly correlated, both were statistically significant when used together, suggesting that SRS is effective at knowing when a team is dominant or not and that fans do react positively.
The variables that were not significant when used in the regression model include but are not limited to: pace, offensive efficiency (used with win% it shows whether or not fans prefer offensive teams), stadium capacity (it can adjust for teams with large or small stadiums), previous season champions, dummy variable for current season MVP, and number of all-star starters.
Results
The final model is shown below with coefficients in the table. The regression was nonlinear in Minitab and not a simplified linear transformed model. The standard error was 0.0655 with 383 data points and the standard error/mean of the fits 0.0758; it's a pretty good fit though of course not perfect. If you're math averse don't worry because I'm just showing the results in case anyone wants to check or use them.
Attendance/stadium capacity = 1 - C*exp[ alpha1*(2-year Wins/Games)^7 + alpha2*( Playoffs previous season) + alpha3* (City pop./10^6)^2 + alpha4* Ln(Year-1999) + alpha5*SRS ]
Looking closer at population totals, it's amazing how small some metro areas like Salt Lake City are compared to ones like the New York metropolis. I'd also like to point out that a metropolitan statistical area is not a perfect population number for a team. For instance, some cities are sprawling and a larger portion will be further away from the stadium then in more compact cities. Stadiums (or stadia if you think using Latian plural forms makes you smarter) also aren't all ideally placed at the exact center of the city. The Warriors are in Oakland, though there's no real "center" to the metro Bay area, and the infamous Palace in Detroit is placed haphazardly.
With the model built, now the focus can be on who the best fanbase is in the league. The simplest way, and simple methods are usually the most fruitful, is to see which teams out-perform the model results. If, say, Portland truly has great fans, then the model should be consistently underrating its yearly attendance-capacity number. For the uninitiated, the actual result minus the predicted is known as the residual. Also, the standard error is used in the rankings to, well, standardize the results. A score of +/-1 means the residuals are on average a standard error from zero and comfortably different than average. A score of +/-2 is pretty significant, and +/-3 is almost assuredly an error or weird outlier.
The numbers on the left show that the best fanbase in the NBA according to this method is the Oklahoma City Thunder. Part is this is the expansion factor where the fans are excited for a new team and will fill the stadium even when the team was bad (and boy were they bad in Durant's first couple years.) They've also only had four seasons as the Thunder in Oklahoma; take it with a grain of salt. In fact, the last couple years with high win totals have come with smaller residuals but still positive. They are, however, a rabid fanbase with a small metro population.
Speaking of small populations, Salt Lake City is the smallest one with a 2011 estimated population of 1.146 million while New Orleans and Oklahoma City were next at 1.191 and 1.278 million, respectively. They are also in my view the "true" best fanbase because they've had strong numbers throughout an entire decade with major personnel changes and fluctuations in wins.
Toronto is surprisingly third, but this is mostly from the first half of the decade when the organization had that new team smell. The last couple years after Bosh they've had negative residuals, but they're still an international city capable of showing Americans how to support a team and in some cases Asian-American point guards.
The rest of the top ten is congruent with conventional wisdom with one exception I'll get to last. Bulls' fans are, well, Bulls' fans. Jordan left that city with a love of basketball. Seattle was known as a great basketball city, and they came out to support the team even though stadium financing and an evil owner decided to move the team to another great fanbase. Another Pacific Northwest city -- and the last one remaining in the "northwest" division -- Portland fans are also known for their love of their team, the Blazers. The Warriors, likewise, are die-hard fans even with terrible teams and a shaky organization; some will argue they deserve the crown of best fans over the Jazz. Although the love has waned in the past few years, Kings' fans are also great, and they're one of the many teams without a championship because of the Lakers' gluttony. Even with all the success and people, the purple and gold fans are fairly excellent. But the exception? The Clippers who even without the last couple years of Blake Griffin still have good results. I think this is the explanation: Los Angeles is known for its transplants, and the Lakers are hated in many different cities, meaning NBA fans who moved into the area are forced to become Clippers' fans (the Bill Simmons effect.)
Conversely, the worst fanbase strictly according to the method is the New Jersey Nets, who apparently lost interest when they heard the team was going to be moved -- though other relocated teams fared better. The Nets were also pretty terrible at filling the stadium even when they were having finals appearances. No doubt the weird location of the stadium didn't help, but they're so far from the second worst it's about more than that. Sure, having the Knicks next door didn't help, but it's not like they were perennial contenders and who wants to drive in New York traffic? Also note that I only gave them the population of parts of northern New Jersey instead of the entire metro area.
Hawks fans can rejoice because next year they'll be the worst fanbase unless the 76ers step up their game. The rest of the bottom-feeders aren't surprising -- Pistons, Timberwolves, and the Rockets. The Pacers don't seem to fit. The Malice at the Palace is one source for blame, but the fans weren't showing up a couple years prior to the incident. I'm a little surprised the Spurs and Knicks are ranked in the middle (seems too low), but it's not like the Spurs' fanbase immediately conjures the term "rabid and energetic" in your mind, and the Knicks are still reeling from the Isiah Thomas era as well as having to serve a population that's probably too big for one team (the Brooklyn Nets should fix that.)
Conclusion
Although it's not a perfect model, the regression shows an interesting and mostly logical list of the best fanbases. A regression model isn't perfect because it can only use the information you feed it, and variables are correlated rather than necessarily causative. There are a whole host of reasons why people attend basketball games, but it's safe to say using a few of the most important ones a decent and objective list can be made.Ranking teams in terms of who fills up their stadiums and adjusting for various factors, Oklahoma City has supported its team well in limited seasons, and Salt Lake City has embraced the Jazz over a longer time-frame. New Jersey won't notice the Nets leaving, as they barely filled up the stadium they had. The best fanbase argument, however, is far from over -- I'm providing some useful information to use -- and cheer as loud and as often as you want, but the bottom-line is that fans in the seats is what matters.
Appendix
The graph below shows the residuals graphed with respect to 2-year win averages. Basically, it's showing that the model fits it pretty well because there is not pattern of the residuals; they're (mostly) randomly scattered around the 0 residual line. There's a bit of a problem once you near a 80 win percentage, and as such I wouldn't trust one-year model results. Over a decade, however, you get to see seasons that differ.
The court is a stage and all the world watches. Without fans the NBA would be nothing but a series of games whose reward was simple bragging rights, and unwatched the league would have little meaning. The fans are treasured, but which ones are the best? Is there one city that skies above the rest in supporting its team? The question is pertinent because every year there's a rumor about a certain organization pulling up its stakes and leaving, and one of the reasons cited is a "small-market" where there aren't enough fans to fill the stadium. There are, however, many different factors at play, and looking at the question from multiple angles one can have a better educated guess at which fanbase is the best.
Methodology
The primary determinant for best fanbase is how well the stadium is filled, or total attendance for a year divided by capacity. Obviously, there are various factors that cause attendance to sway, and as a result a nonlinear multivariate regression model was built using team data from the seasons 2000 to 2012. The basic form is a concave asymptotic function: Attendance/Capcity = 1 - C*exp(alpha1*x1 + alpha2*x2 ... ) where as shown in the final results the alpha coefficients are negative. Attendance is taken from basketball-reference.com and capacity from various websites for each stadium. Standing room only was ignored, as well as two seasons of the hybrid New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets -- those two weird seasons are the definition of an outlier -- and three from the Charlotte Hornets because its obscenely large stadium with a capacity of 24,000 plus skewed the results.
The first and most important independent variable is the win-loss record. The incarnation of this that worked the best was a two-year average of a win/loss ratio. This makes sense because doing well in the previous season will drive fans to the games while winning during the current season keeps them there. The ratio was also transformed by the exponent 7. The effect is that a jump from a win percentage of 20 to 30 barely affects attendance while going from 50 to 60 has a large effect.
Appearance in the playoffs the previous year was a significant dummy variable (dummy meaning it's either a 0 or a 1.) Having a high win percentage will cause a team to hit the playoffs and that's included in the model, but even then simply making the playoffs is significant; that's important finding. The effect is fairly sizable too as the dummy variable gives an 18% "boost" to the attendance equation holding everything else equal.
City population, which is actually based on the metropolitan statistical area, was statistically significant as well. The data come from the US and Canadian census, and every year between the census date is the government's estimate (2012 though was my own estimate using the previous growth rate for a simple linear extrapolation.) The population is divided by one million and then squared in the model. For Los Angeles, the population was cut in half and given to each team. New York's metro area includes the New Jersey Nets' home turf; consequently the metro area was broken down into New York-White Plains-Wayne, NY-NY and Nassau-Suffolk, NY for the Knicks, and Edison-New Brunswick, NJ and Newark-Union, NJ-PA for the Nets.
For time-rate of growth in the NBA, the years from 1999 was used. The years were then transformed by ln(Year). The ln(Year) effect is a slow growth rate. As the league gains more fans, the stadiums have been filling up more often.
Related to wins is a the simple rating system (SRS) from basketball-reference; it's basically the point differential from the current season adjusted for strength of schedule. Even though win percentage and point differentials are highly correlated, both were statistically significant when used together, suggesting that SRS is effective at knowing when a team is dominant or not and that fans do react positively.
The variables that were not significant when used in the regression model include but are not limited to: pace, offensive efficiency (used with win% it shows whether or not fans prefer offensive teams), stadium capacity (it can adjust for teams with large or small stadiums), previous season champions, dummy variable for current season MVP, and number of all-star starters.
Results
The final model is shown below with coefficients in the table. The regression was nonlinear in Minitab and not a simplified linear transformed model. The standard error was 0.0655 with 383 data points and the standard error/mean of the fits 0.0758; it's a pretty good fit though of course not perfect. If you're math averse don't worry because I'm just showing the results in case anyone wants to check or use them.
Attendance/stadium capacity = 1 - C*exp[ alpha1*(2-year Wins/Games)^7 + alpha2*( Playoffs previous season) + alpha3* (City pop./10^6)^2 + alpha4* Ln(Year-1999) + alpha5*SRS ]
Variable
|
Coefficient
|
Standard error
|
p-value
|
Intercept
|
0.2392
|
0.01906
|
1.13E-30
|
(2-year Wins/Games)^7
|
-27.01
|
5.954
|
3.84E-06
|
Playoffs previous season
|
-0.1863
|
0.08250
|
1.22E-02
|
(City pop./10^6)^2
|
-0.008838
|
0.001544
|
1.07E-08
|
Ln(Year-1999)
|
-0.1608
|
0.03285
|
7.26E-07
|
SRS
|
-0.04804
|
0.009237
|
1.64E-07
|
What you can take from this is what's important: wins, wins and wins. The presence of an MVP or all-star starters on your team was not statistically significant in the final model. In other versions it was, but that's because of how correlated they are with wins. MVPs, famously, are handed out to "best players on the best team" rather than just best player, and even all-stars heavily come from high win-total teams. Of course, having those players will drive up your win percentage, so the lesson here is that don't rely on stars to fill seats; concentrate on winning. If you do, you'll pick up all-stars on the way to building a good team. However, if you instead pick up big name's who don't contribute to wins like, say, late-era Iverson, you'll find yourself with frustrated fans rather than stadiums filled to capacity.
Looking closer at population totals, it's amazing how small some metro areas like Salt Lake City are compared to ones like the New York metropolis. I'd also like to point out that a metropolitan statistical area is not a perfect population number for a team. For instance, some cities are sprawling and a larger portion will be further away from the stadium then in more compact cities. Stadiums (or stadia if you think using Latian plural forms makes you smarter) also aren't all ideally placed at the exact center of the city. The Warriors are in Oakland, though there's no real "center" to the metro Bay area, and the infamous Palace in Detroit is placed haphazardly.
With the model built, now the focus can be on who the best fanbase is in the league. The simplest way, and simple methods are usually the most fruitful, is to see which teams out-perform the model results. If, say, Portland truly has great fans, then the model should be consistently underrating its yearly attendance-capacity number. For the uninitiated, the actual result minus the predicted is known as the residual. Also, the standard error is used in the rankings to, well, standardize the results. A score of +/-1 means the residuals are on average a standard error from zero and comfortably different than average. A score of +/-2 is pretty significant, and +/-3 is almost assuredly an error or weird outlier.
Speaking of small populations, Salt Lake City is the smallest one with a 2011 estimated population of 1.146 million while New Orleans and Oklahoma City were next at 1.191 and 1.278 million, respectively. They are also in my view the "true" best fanbase because they've had strong numbers throughout an entire decade with major personnel changes and fluctuations in wins.
Toronto is surprisingly third, but this is mostly from the first half of the decade when the organization had that new team smell. The last couple years after Bosh they've had negative residuals, but they're still an international city capable of showing Americans how to support a team and in some cases Asian-American point guards.
The rest of the top ten is congruent with conventional wisdom with one exception I'll get to last. Bulls' fans are, well, Bulls' fans. Jordan left that city with a love of basketball. Seattle was known as a great basketball city, and they came out to support the team even though stadium financing and an evil owner decided to move the team to another great fanbase. Another Pacific Northwest city -- and the last one remaining in the "northwest" division -- Portland fans are also known for their love of their team, the Blazers. The Warriors, likewise, are die-hard fans even with terrible teams and a shaky organization; some will argue they deserve the crown of best fans over the Jazz. Although the love has waned in the past few years, Kings' fans are also great, and they're one of the many teams without a championship because of the Lakers' gluttony. Even with all the success and people, the purple and gold fans are fairly excellent. But the exception? The Clippers who even without the last couple years of Blake Griffin still have good results. I think this is the explanation: Los Angeles is known for its transplants, and the Lakers are hated in many different cities, meaning NBA fans who moved into the area are forced to become Clippers' fans (the Bill Simmons effect.)
Conversely, the worst fanbase strictly according to the method is the New Jersey Nets, who apparently lost interest when they heard the team was going to be moved -- though other relocated teams fared better. The Nets were also pretty terrible at filling the stadium even when they were having finals appearances. No doubt the weird location of the stadium didn't help, but they're so far from the second worst it's about more than that. Sure, having the Knicks next door didn't help, but it's not like they were perennial contenders and who wants to drive in New York traffic? Also note that I only gave them the population of parts of northern New Jersey instead of the entire metro area.
Hawks fans can rejoice because next year they'll be the worst fanbase unless the 76ers step up their game. The rest of the bottom-feeders aren't surprising -- Pistons, Timberwolves, and the Rockets. The Pacers don't seem to fit. The Malice at the Palace is one source for blame, but the fans weren't showing up a couple years prior to the incident. I'm a little surprised the Spurs and Knicks are ranked in the middle (seems too low), but it's not like the Spurs' fanbase immediately conjures the term "rabid and energetic" in your mind, and the Knicks are still reeling from the Isiah Thomas era as well as having to serve a population that's probably too big for one team (the Brooklyn Nets should fix that.)
Conclusion
Although it's not a perfect model, the regression shows an interesting and mostly logical list of the best fanbases. A regression model isn't perfect because it can only use the information you feed it, and variables are correlated rather than necessarily causative. There are a whole host of reasons why people attend basketball games, but it's safe to say using a few of the most important ones a decent and objective list can be made.Ranking teams in terms of who fills up their stadiums and adjusting for various factors, Oklahoma City has supported its team well in limited seasons, and Salt Lake City has embraced the Jazz over a longer time-frame. New Jersey won't notice the Nets leaving, as they barely filled up the stadium they had. The best fanbase argument, however, is far from over -- I'm providing some useful information to use -- and cheer as loud and as often as you want, but the bottom-line is that fans in the seats is what matters.
Appendix
The graph below shows the residuals graphed with respect to 2-year win averages. Basically, it's showing that the model fits it pretty well because there is not pattern of the residuals; they're (mostly) randomly scattered around the 0 residual line. There's a bit of a problem once you near a 80 win percentage, and as such I wouldn't trust one-year model results. Over a decade, however, you get to see seasons that differ.
Thursday, May 17, 2012
The Nature of the Rose: Explosive Players and Injuries
In another article I looked at which types of players had long careers and were able to play effectively into their late 30's. While total career minutes is an important factor, undoubtedly player type cannot be ignored. It's reasonable that athletic slashers have shorter careers than outside shooters, but it's unclear how true this is. What exactly causes these injuries?
One mechanism of stress on the body is torque, which occurs from twisting or rotating. Most of the mainstream media conflate torque with power. Strictly speaking, it's the tendency for an object to rotate about a central point, or pivot, when a force is applied perpendicular to said point. It's why doors swing open and closed and why wrenches are so effective. The reason for the confusion between power and torque is that typical vehicles are gas or diesel powered; the torque is caused by the engine. In a car the torque is the turning force from the engine, and the actual power you get depends on the torque and RPM (as well as some efficiency losses converting that to the wheels.)
What torque can cause is torsion, which is a kind of stress caused by rotation. Think of a tower being twisted not by bending but staying within its axis and turning -- the twisting causes stress, and the greatest stress occurs at the furthest point from the center of rotation. Ultimately all that matters though is the shearing force, which is force in opposite and parallel directions, that's made through various processes like torsion and compression.
That's enough about of that talk. What's it have to do with NBA players?
Recently the ACL injury to Derrick Rose has completely changed the playoff picture and marred the career of a bright young star. He has been struggling with injuries all year, and people naturally try to find the cause of both his season and the torn ACL. What doesn't cause those particular injuries are a heavy toll from minutes or, well, actually no one knows why it happens. The best athletes and the ones in shape seem to be the most susceptible. However, the tear itself usually occurs when the hips are rotated at the wrong time, and this causes torsion in the weakest section of the lower body: the knees. Planting your foot wrong is also a culprit as it puts your body in the wrong position, and any eccentricities in the body's alignment at high speed with these athletes can cause huge amounts of stress.
The players most susceptible to those injuries are the ones constantly cutting, side-stepping and zig-zagging a path to the rim; hesitation moves and quick stops can also do it. Driving straight at the rim, jumping normally with good balance and landing in the same trajectory doesn't cause the same problems. Rose is known for his explosive moves to the rim and avoiding the defense mid-air. On the particular play where his team's title chances vanished Rose took a big hop to his right, planted somewhat awkwardly and upon jumping again one could see his pain. That kind of dynamic motion at high speed leads to an ACL tear.
With the nature of the injury occurring like a dramatic twist in a movie, random and landscape changing, who the next victim will be is the obvious question. The player would be one who generates a high amount of torsion in the knee from twisting and turning, which usually happens on drives to the basket. The obvious stars who come to mind are Ginobili and Wade, and both are known for dealing with injuries constantly. Ginobili helped bring the Euro-step to America, and even in his mid-30's he's constantly changing directions with each step, putting high amounts of stress in not just his knees but his whole body. The famed Phoenix medical staff realizes that an injury in one location affects the whole body, and likewise Ginobili has had to suffer through multiple ailments everywhere. Wade darts and dodges as well but with even more power. One of his most famous moves is his dunk over Varejao, who falls over like a folding table, when Wade plants on one leg but switches directions and goes straight up to the rim. Other similar guys include Brandon Roy, known for his stutter steps and quick stops, and Chris Paul, who can still use his speed after knee injuries to dart around the defense.
Russell Westbrook is one who's inextricably linked to Rose because they're both young, athletic point guards who can score, but he's not as likely to suffer an ACL catastrophe. He's a straight-line driver, one who uses his speed to run directly to the rim. He's also never missed a basketball game since junior high, reportedly. Another man of steel is LeBron James, who uses his size, strength and speed to finish over opponents rather than cutting and dodging. Like Westbrook, he's also never undergone a serious injury. Vince Carter has been playing surprisingly well at an older age, but he's also one to make a beeline to the basket rather than side-stepping around. He does jump over the defense, but if you do so without putting torsion on your knees from twisting your body you can escape numerous injuries, unless you want to fake a few. There have been many comparisons to Ginobili, but James Homeless Beard Harden uses more straight-line drives. I would, however, take mental notes watching him, seeing how much he does zig-zag and how it affects his lower body.
Injuries are an area still mysterious to the NBA, and even something like total minutes in the season or career is not an accurate predictor of collapse. Derrick Rose won an MVP, got to the conference finals and then he followed it with an injury-plagued season ... and suffered an ACL injury that will likely prevent him from playing next season. One can't make too many logical leaps from just one incident, but it's important to figure out why these things happen. After all, an injured player is of no use, as all they do is it on the sidelines in nice suits like they're watching their own funeral.
One mechanism of stress on the body is torque, which occurs from twisting or rotating. Most of the mainstream media conflate torque with power. Strictly speaking, it's the tendency for an object to rotate about a central point, or pivot, when a force is applied perpendicular to said point. It's why doors swing open and closed and why wrenches are so effective. The reason for the confusion between power and torque is that typical vehicles are gas or diesel powered; the torque is caused by the engine. In a car the torque is the turning force from the engine, and the actual power you get depends on the torque and RPM (as well as some efficiency losses converting that to the wheels.)
 |
| This doughnut has undergone extreme torsion (Flickr) |
That's enough about of that talk. What's it have to do with NBA players?
Recently the ACL injury to Derrick Rose has completely changed the playoff picture and marred the career of a bright young star. He has been struggling with injuries all year, and people naturally try to find the cause of both his season and the torn ACL. What doesn't cause those particular injuries are a heavy toll from minutes or, well, actually no one knows why it happens. The best athletes and the ones in shape seem to be the most susceptible. However, the tear itself usually occurs when the hips are rotated at the wrong time, and this causes torsion in the weakest section of the lower body: the knees. Planting your foot wrong is also a culprit as it puts your body in the wrong position, and any eccentricities in the body's alignment at high speed with these athletes can cause huge amounts of stress.
The players most susceptible to those injuries are the ones constantly cutting, side-stepping and zig-zagging a path to the rim; hesitation moves and quick stops can also do it. Driving straight at the rim, jumping normally with good balance and landing in the same trajectory doesn't cause the same problems. Rose is known for his explosive moves to the rim and avoiding the defense mid-air. On the particular play where his team's title chances vanished Rose took a big hop to his right, planted somewhat awkwardly and upon jumping again one could see his pain. That kind of dynamic motion at high speed leads to an ACL tear.
Russell Westbrook is one who's inextricably linked to Rose because they're both young, athletic point guards who can score, but he's not as likely to suffer an ACL catastrophe. He's a straight-line driver, one who uses his speed to run directly to the rim. He's also never missed a basketball game since junior high, reportedly. Another man of steel is LeBron James, who uses his size, strength and speed to finish over opponents rather than cutting and dodging. Like Westbrook, he's also never undergone a serious injury. Vince Carter has been playing surprisingly well at an older age, but he's also one to make a beeline to the basket rather than side-stepping around. He does jump over the defense, but if you do so without putting torsion on your knees from twisting your body you can escape numerous injuries, unless you want to fake a few. There have been many comparisons to Ginobili, but James Homeless Beard Harden uses more straight-line drives. I would, however, take mental notes watching him, seeing how much he does zig-zag and how it affects his lower body.
Injuries are an area still mysterious to the NBA, and even something like total minutes in the season or career is not an accurate predictor of collapse. Derrick Rose won an MVP, got to the conference finals and then he followed it with an injury-plagued season ... and suffered an ACL injury that will likely prevent him from playing next season. One can't make too many logical leaps from just one incident, but it's important to figure out why these things happen. After all, an injured player is of no use, as all they do is it on the sidelines in nice suits like they're watching their own funeral.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Round Two: Western Conference
(1) San Antonio Spurs versus (5) LA Clippers
For a number one seed, the Spurs are strangely a wild card. Few people think they're more likely to win it all over, say, the Heat, the pre-injury Bulls or the Thunder even. It's because Popovich is an extreme adherent of the rest your veterans, and anyone, philosophy that Duncan is playing less than 30 minutes a game, causing the perception that he's fallen off because of his per game numbers. Compared to Kobe, who stupidly played a ton of minutes, he's arguably been a much more effective player. Kobe's PER is high because of how many shots he takes, and other rating systems that don't give credit simply for shooting like Wins Produced rate him lower. Duncan actually does have better numbers in some metrics and his adjusted +/- is better at +4.7 overall (4.1 just for his defense) compared to Kobe's +2.4 (all on the offensive end.)
The Clippers are also a strange case for a prediction. Unlike most basketball teams, they do appear to have an ability to perform better in clutch situations. However, what that means really is that they'll outperform their estimated win percentage from their point differential. Their real win percentage, which is boosted by their clutch play, still doesn't make this a close series on paper. I also don't think they have any match-up advantages. Spurs still struggle with big power forwards, but Griffin can't be considered that; Diaw is a surprisingly good defender and Duncan can also help. The Spurs can also reasonably contain Chris Paul and Parker will make him work on the other end.
The Spurs are the number one seed with a great record and they've been blowing teams out. They did all this even with playing their stars obscenely low minutes and without one of their most effective players, Ginobili, for most of the year. Everyone's healthy at the right time. I won't over-think this.
Prediction: Spurs in 5.
Random prediction: Duncan won't play a single game of 40 minutes or above even though it's the second round.
(2) Oklahoma City Thunder versus (3) LA Lakers
The reason causal fans overrate the Lakers is because they have the star power including productive big men but no bench and Kobe, like I explained above, has masked his reduced effectiveness by gunning so much that his points per game stays high. Normally I would say the combo of Gasol and Bynum would be too much for a frontline, but Perkins has had some rest, Collison will do better at keeping Bynum from receiving deep post position than people would think and Ibaka can clean mistakes. Most importantly the Thunder have perimeter players who hit shots at incredible rates in Durant and Harden, and Westbrook though much maligned isn't bad either.
Ultimately, what it's going to come down to is the Thunder are simply a better team. The seeding doesn't show that. The Thunder's offensive rating if 107.1 and defensive 100.0. Lakers? 103.3 and 101.7. That's +7.1 versus +1.6. Sure, Artest has given Durant trouble in the past, but in three games this year against Artest (World Peace) Durant has averaged 29.7 points and Oklahoma's other two weapons are potent enough now that Durant doesn't even have to score 25 or 30 points. The west isn't the Lakers' turf anymore (last year they were disappointing in the playoffs and then lost Odom in the offseason) and the Thunder are a tier above them.
Prediction: Thunder in 5.
Random prediction: Bynum and Ibaka will combine for 15 blocks in one game.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
The NBA as Wizard of Oz Characters
Javale McGee is the Scarecrow. He is gangly and desperately needs a brain.
LeBron is the Tin man. His body is indestructible but freezes in tough situations. He needs a heart.
Pau Gasol is the Cowardly Lion. He has a mane and roars like a lion but can't be soft and should take advantage with the size mismatches he has most nights. He needs courage.
David Stern is the Man Behind the Curtain.
Round Two: Eastern Conference
There's already an insane amount of predictions on the internet for the NBA playoff, so I'll keep this short. People think the Heat were given a path with no resistance to the finals, but the Pacers and Celtics aren't bad teams. Besides, the Heat easily got past the Bulls last year; what they need to do is perform in
(2) Miami Heat versus (3) Indiana Pacers
The Pacers don't inspire fear, but they're a better team than they seem and when their best players are on the court they're pretty darn good. Their starting lineup is +15 per 48 minutes, while the Heat's starting lineup is just +9.7. However, those numbers are unadjusted +/-, and as such there are many problems associated. Using an adjusted flavor, the average +/- for the starting lineups for the Pacers and Heat is +2.06 and 2.82, respectively. And it's not like the Pacers have a better bench even compared to the Heat. LeBron didn't play huge minutes versus the Knicks, and I expect their big three to crush any possibility of extending the series.
Prediction: Heat in 5
Random prediction: Hibbert with a 20-20 game.
(8) Philadelphia 76ers versus (4) Boston Celtics
This will be an ugly series. Both teams are great defensively and below average offensively, and given how playoff games have a slower pace than the regular season I expect the final scores to be in the lower 80's. It's like instead of an unstoppable force versus an immovable object it's an immovable object versus an immovable object. But don't focus on the points per game. Instead focus on Garnett's defense, Rondo's passing, Iguodala's dunking and perimeter hawking, Avery Bradley's on-ball pressure, Ray Allen's shooting and Spencer Hawes' strange transformation into a useful basketball player. For me it's a toss-up if the series'll go five or seven games; tweaking the numbers just a little is enough the change the results. I think Boston has the match-up advantage because Boston's guards can control Philly's guards, and Garnett has been playing well enough lately that he'll make Hawes and Brand's lives very hard.
Prediction: Celtics in 5.
Random prediction: Iguodala will have a dunk on Garnett that reminds everyone of how old the Celtic is.
(2) Miami Heat versus (3) Indiana Pacers
The Pacers don't inspire fear, but they're a better team than they seem and when their best players are on the court they're pretty darn good. Their starting lineup is +15 per 48 minutes, while the Heat's starting lineup is just +9.7. However, those numbers are unadjusted +/-, and as such there are many problems associated. Using an adjusted flavor, the average +/- for the starting lineups for the Pacers and Heat is +2.06 and 2.82, respectively. And it's not like the Pacers have a better bench even compared to the Heat. LeBron didn't play huge minutes versus the Knicks, and I expect their big three to crush any possibility of extending the series.
Prediction: Heat in 5
Random prediction: Hibbert with a 20-20 game.
(8) Philadelphia 76ers versus (4) Boston Celtics
This will be an ugly series. Both teams are great defensively and below average offensively, and given how playoff games have a slower pace than the regular season I expect the final scores to be in the lower 80's. It's like instead of an unstoppable force versus an immovable object it's an immovable object versus an immovable object. But don't focus on the points per game. Instead focus on Garnett's defense, Rondo's passing, Iguodala's dunking and perimeter hawking, Avery Bradley's on-ball pressure, Ray Allen's shooting and Spencer Hawes' strange transformation into a useful basketball player. For me it's a toss-up if the series'll go five or seven games; tweaking the numbers just a little is enough the change the results. I think Boston has the match-up advantage because Boston's guards can control Philly's guards, and Garnett has been playing well enough lately that he'll make Hawes and Brand's lives very hard.
Prediction: Celtics in 5.
Random prediction: Iguodala will have a dunk on Garnett that reminds everyone of how old the Celtic is.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Level of Fit: Carmelo and Amare in New York
Analyzing basketball with the same criteria and weight for every team is, obviously, problematic. What one team needs is not necessarily what another needs. Another way to think about it is that there are diminishing returns for basketball skills on a team. A sharpshooter who can only shoot three's is more valuable to the 76ers than the Magic. Even in more sophisticated basketball studies this can be lost. If there's a team with no reliable outside weapons except one player, then when that specific player is on the court the team gains a benefit that is usually larger than when that player is on the court for a team that already has shooters. In NBA analysis we assume that there's a Platonic "true" level of value for a player, a concrete number we can find with better statistical models. Instead I think the true value of a player is intractably linked to his teammates, and like a fluid that fits the outline of its container rather than its own inherent shape.
One of the biggest unresolved issues in the basketball stat community is the issue of usage. How valuable is the ability to create a shot, even if the shot is not efficient? Shouldn't it vary by the team? First of all, there's the problem of the shot clock and that sometimes you need your playmaker to bail you out with a shot at the last second. Beyond that, how efficient scoring is defined is usually on a league-wide basis when it's actually the team-wide level that pertinent. If player X's entire team shoots below the league average percentages except for guys who can't create their own shots and live off offensive rebounds or open dunks, but Mr. X is the most efficient scorer, then it is more efficient for that player to take more shots. A large number of teams are close enough in their shooting percentages that it isn't an issue, but in some cases it's important.
I think that's enough of the hypothetical player talk. The best real world example of an active player for this discussion is Carmelo Anthony, partly because he's a big name superstar and he's in New York. He's known for his skill in scoring one-on-one, which according to various reports from Team USA and other basketball players he's the best in the world in that particular aspect. While NBA stars aren't always the best assessors of talent -- Dwight wanted Orlando to recruit Glen Davis and Stephen Jackson, and Michael Jordan can now say he was part of the best and worst teams of all-time -- there's no denying his skills.
But how do you best use Carmelo Anthony? If you concede that Anthony is one of the best at playing one-on-one, and thus doesn't need a lot of help to score, then you agree that a more efficiently designed team employs players who are best at impacting the game without scoring. Not saying everyone else should be terrible at scoring; rather I'm saying the rest of the team should be designed relying on the non-scoring aspects. Essentially, surround him with great defensive players who can crash the boards, hit open three's, and give him one good offensive option, a Robin to his Batman. This isn't exactly innovative, but a lot has been written about how the Knicks can get better and few focus on how to use Carmelo's skill by surrounding him with defenders.
The table on the left displays the non-PGs with the lowest percentage of shots assisted. Carmelo's true-shooting percentage for his career is near 54.4; he's usually a little above the league average. Of course, you'd rather have LeBron creating plays for you, but there's only one LeBron to go around. There's obviously more to this -- turnovers, passing, positive effect on teammates, etc. -- but it gives you a general idea about who's best at creating shots without help. Carmelo in this respect is elite, able to initiate offense by his own will, and on a basketball court with advanced defenses and the shot clock this is useful.
The Knicks, to most people's disbelief, were one of the best defensive teams in the league, surrendering only 98.4 points per 100 possessions a game, ranking fifth in the league. Their offense, ranked 19th, was submarined by an unusually poor shooting season from Carmelo and an atrocious one from Amare. Speaking of Amare Stoudemire, New York was hoping he'd be the perfect offensive partner for Carmelo, but it was a shortsighted pairing. Amare's best at receiving passes and playing the pick-and-roll; Carmelo's best in isolation. Jeremy Lin, a godsend, can operate with Amare, and in terms of playing with Carmelo he can at least be a viable second option if the other team is doubling Carmelo or he's having an off-night.
The problem, actually, is that they built the wrong team backwards -- Carmelo on a defensive team is a good idea, but Amare is the wrong partner. For one, Stoudemire is a terrible defender, and defensive metrics have him pegged consistently as one of the worst over the years. Carmelo's decent when he tries, but it's not like New York will peg him as their stopper. Next to Amare, however, he's more exposed as it's harder to hide both of them at the same time when they play adjacent positions. Also, New York has had success with him at power forward, where he's also played in the Olympics. He's called a one-dimensional player, but he's one of the best rebounding small forwards in the league; sliding over to power forward isn't as damaging to the defense as it seems.
In retrospect, signing Chandler was the perfect move, as last year they were ranked 21st in defense. There are other reasons for the improvement, like Shumpert, but Chandler is the perfect complement for Carmelo because he can guard the basket and clean up missed shots. I'd argue that the amnesty should have been used on Amare, but I know that's not the sort of move an organization can make. Their target of Billups with the amnesty, however, was a sound decision.
New York will want to know how to proceed with its nucleus and build on their 7th seed. Defensive player of the year Tyson Chandler is obviously their defensive anchor. Lin and Shumpert, if healthy, are good pieces for the backcourt. Toney Douglas is also a decent defender, but his offense has been so terrible it's not worth the trouble. There's not too much additional help in the frontcourt. Jeffries is a solid role player and Harrellson could be useful, but Stoudemire will receive most of their minutes. They ideally need to replace Stoudemire with someone who's decent at offense like a reliable jumper and some post moves, but who's also a pretty good defender. Not asking for an all-star here -- just a better level of fit. Lin can provide the scoring/play-making help as well. They also need a wing defender who has a reliable outside shot. Those guys are precious commodities for NBA teams, and champions usually have a couple. Courtney Lee, for example, is one guy you can get for cheap.
If Carmelo Anthony is to win a championship, paradoxically it will come on an elite defensive team, as in top two in the league, where he can use his shot-creating skills on a team who finds his isolation play most valuable. Amare Stoudemire was the first major piece of this incarnation, but he's also the worst fit. The website stats-for-the-nba, which uses a sophisticated model for +/- stats, found that Carmelo and Stoudemire are a pretty good offensive pair at +0.9 for essentially a whole game but lost that value on defense with a -0.8. The same website looking at the players individually gave Carmelo +1.3 overall and Amare -.4. There's definitely evidence they don't work well together, and it's not a minority viewpoint. However, keep in mind that players aren't static vessels, and their interaction and utilization changes how "good" they are. Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks are entangled now, and further improvement will come from coherence, not more star power.
One of the biggest unresolved issues in the basketball stat community is the issue of usage. How valuable is the ability to create a shot, even if the shot is not efficient? Shouldn't it vary by the team? First of all, there's the problem of the shot clock and that sometimes you need your playmaker to bail you out with a shot at the last second. Beyond that, how efficient scoring is defined is usually on a league-wide basis when it's actually the team-wide level that pertinent. If player X's entire team shoots below the league average percentages except for guys who can't create their own shots and live off offensive rebounds or open dunks, but Mr. X is the most efficient scorer, then it is more efficient for that player to take more shots. A large number of teams are close enough in their shooting percentages that it isn't an issue, but in some cases it's important.
I think that's enough of the hypothetical player talk. The best real world example of an active player for this discussion is Carmelo Anthony, partly because he's a big name superstar and he's in New York. He's known for his skill in scoring one-on-one, which according to various reports from Team USA and other basketball players he's the best in the world in that particular aspect. While NBA stars aren't always the best assessors of talent -- Dwight wanted Orlando to recruit Glen Davis and Stephen Jackson, and Michael Jordan can now say he was part of the best and worst teams of all-time -- there's no denying his skills.
But how do you best use Carmelo Anthony? If you concede that Anthony is one of the best at playing one-on-one, and thus doesn't need a lot of help to score, then you agree that a more efficiently designed team employs players who are best at impacting the game without scoring. Not saying everyone else should be terrible at scoring; rather I'm saying the rest of the team should be designed relying on the non-scoring aspects. Essentially, surround him with great defensive players who can crash the boards, hit open three's, and give him one good offensive option, a Robin to his Batman. This isn't exactly innovative, but a lot has been written about how the Knicks can get better and few focus on how to use Carmelo's skill by surrounding him with defenders.
 |
| 2011-12 (Hoopdata.com) |
The Knicks, to most people's disbelief, were one of the best defensive teams in the league, surrendering only 98.4 points per 100 possessions a game, ranking fifth in the league. Their offense, ranked 19th, was submarined by an unusually poor shooting season from Carmelo and an atrocious one from Amare. Speaking of Amare Stoudemire, New York was hoping he'd be the perfect offensive partner for Carmelo, but it was a shortsighted pairing. Amare's best at receiving passes and playing the pick-and-roll; Carmelo's best in isolation. Jeremy Lin, a godsend, can operate with Amare, and in terms of playing with Carmelo he can at least be a viable second option if the other team is doubling Carmelo or he's having an off-night.
The problem, actually, is that they built the wrong team backwards -- Carmelo on a defensive team is a good idea, but Amare is the wrong partner. For one, Stoudemire is a terrible defender, and defensive metrics have him pegged consistently as one of the worst over the years. Carmelo's decent when he tries, but it's not like New York will peg him as their stopper. Next to Amare, however, he's more exposed as it's harder to hide both of them at the same time when they play adjacent positions. Also, New York has had success with him at power forward, where he's also played in the Olympics. He's called a one-dimensional player, but he's one of the best rebounding small forwards in the league; sliding over to power forward isn't as damaging to the defense as it seems.
In retrospect, signing Chandler was the perfect move, as last year they were ranked 21st in defense. There are other reasons for the improvement, like Shumpert, but Chandler is the perfect complement for Carmelo because he can guard the basket and clean up missed shots. I'd argue that the amnesty should have been used on Amare, but I know that's not the sort of move an organization can make. Their target of Billups with the amnesty, however, was a sound decision.
New York will want to know how to proceed with its nucleus and build on their 7th seed. Defensive player of the year Tyson Chandler is obviously their defensive anchor. Lin and Shumpert, if healthy, are good pieces for the backcourt. Toney Douglas is also a decent defender, but his offense has been so terrible it's not worth the trouble. There's not too much additional help in the frontcourt. Jeffries is a solid role player and Harrellson could be useful, but Stoudemire will receive most of their minutes. They ideally need to replace Stoudemire with someone who's decent at offense like a reliable jumper and some post moves, but who's also a pretty good defender. Not asking for an all-star here -- just a better level of fit. Lin can provide the scoring/play-making help as well. They also need a wing defender who has a reliable outside shot. Those guys are precious commodities for NBA teams, and champions usually have a couple. Courtney Lee, for example, is one guy you can get for cheap.
If Carmelo Anthony is to win a championship, paradoxically it will come on an elite defensive team, as in top two in the league, where he can use his shot-creating skills on a team who finds his isolation play most valuable. Amare Stoudemire was the first major piece of this incarnation, but he's also the worst fit. The website stats-for-the-nba, which uses a sophisticated model for +/- stats, found that Carmelo and Stoudemire are a pretty good offensive pair at +0.9 for essentially a whole game but lost that value on defense with a -0.8. The same website looking at the players individually gave Carmelo +1.3 overall and Amare -.4. There's definitely evidence they don't work well together, and it's not a minority viewpoint. However, keep in mind that players aren't static vessels, and their interaction and utilization changes how "good" they are. Carmelo Anthony and the Knicks are entangled now, and further improvement will come from coherence, not more star power.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Race and Ethnicity in the NBA 2011-12 Season
Disclaimer:
Yes, I know that talking about race is stupid. There is only one race: the human race. Skin color has nothing to do with a person. Racial groups were created years ago in a different world and today they’re hardly used. Etc. However, the discussion of race in the NBA lives on, and I thought it’d be interesting to put some numbers behind things. It might be best, also, to think of this as an analysis of the background of NBA players, not race.
Background
The basis of this study is to find average "race" of each team weighted by minutes played, meaning bench warmers have less of an influence on the statistics. For example, if there is one white player on a team and he plays 10% of the total team minutes, then the team is 10% white. If a player had parents of different ethnicities, I allocated the weight accordingly. I separated the groups into African, Caucasian, Hispanic, East Asian, Native American, and Indigenous Australian.There are numerous issues that arise when dividing people into these groups, but this was the best I could do to make sense of it all. I also have numbers for international and European players. That's decided by the country of birth, not where one has spent most of his youth, with the exception of those born on a military base like Carlos Boozer.
As for the specifics behind racial classification, Hispanic, which is an ethnicity and not a race, is a catch-all for Spain and Portugal’s influence over the western hemisphere, where otherwise it would be very difficult finding the right numbers for, say, the amount of white and black ethnic roots for Al Horford. This means that Spanish players were not Caucasian but Hispanic in this study. The Caribbean islands were a difficult bunch of countries to set a “race,” so I used the historical background of each one – Hispanic like Puerto Rico or West African like Jamaica. Caucasian included middle-eastern and Semitic groups like Iranian giant Hamed Haddadi. I understand that Native Americans have genetic similarities to East Asians, but culturally there’s a clear divide and when the average person thinks about race today that person doesn’t group them with Asians.
Additionally, please note that I do not have comprehensive information on the background of each player, and I'm sure there are more players with a Native American background than what I have (just Delonte West though a couple others like Andrew Bynum allegedly have some as well.) Indigenous Australian seems like a group that’s too specific, but anthropology differentiates them from East Asians or Africans. There are also issues where most African-Americans have some Caucasian blood, and many Americans have some Native American. However, I do not have a DNA test for each NBA player; I worked with what I could find.
This is the second season I've down with this topic. I may have errors in the database, and any help is appreciated. Some players had difficult backgrounds to discern, and I imagine like some people, especially in the US, a few NBA players don’t know their ethnic makeup. Also, if you have any problems with the categories I have, please contact the US government census since their system is very similar, and what they're doing is more important than what I'm doing. The first question in the census about race/ethnicity asks whether or not you're Hispanic, and the next what specific race -- American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, black, Pacific Islander, or white.
Results
Nearly three-fourths of the minutes during the 2011-12 season were allocated to black players. At 75.6%, it's 0.1% more than last year, while the percentage to Caucasian players increased to 18.6% from 17.7%. Mostly because of injures to Nene, Brook Lopez and Horford, Hispanics decreased from 6.4% to 5.4%. All other races added up to less than a fraction of a percent. In contrast to the trend seen in the early part of the last decade, there were less player-minutes for European (10.5% to 10.1%) and International players (18.7% and 17.4%.) Part of this was undoubtedly the lockout swaying some to stay overseas like Kirilenko, but it's something to watch in the future since both the last draft and the next one are devoid of international talent.
The most African team was, surprisingly, the Portland Trailblazers, and the results would have been even stronger if they didn't give up midway through the season, freeing minutes to Babbitt, and Pryzbilla didn't come back from retirement. The Clippers, however, have a stronger hypothetical case. If it weren't for Blake Griffin's mother, the LA Clippers would be completely black. They didn't even have a bench scrub who wasn't black. The reason for the big spread in the percentages is that it only takes a couple players to dramatically affect the numbers. If Utah had drafted an African-American in place of Gordon Hayward, they would have been the fourth on the most African teams list.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Minnesota Timberwolves are the only team who are less than half black. The frontcourt featuring Love-Pekovic-Milicic-Brad Miller was almost completely white. In fact, since their two Hispanic players, Rubio and Barea, are white-Hispanics, they are in actuality the only team with the distinction of being more white than black including last season. Classifying Hispanics in a separate category, the Milwaukee Bucks are the most Caucasian team, and that's with another injury-riddled season from their Australian center Bogut. The Magic are an unexpected case, and if one of the Lopez or Gasol for Howard type trades went through they could have taken the title of whitest. Memphis almost gave no minutes to non-Hispanic white players, and only an Iranian center Haddadi and Josh Davis, who played just 130 minutes, prevented that.
While not every team has a Hispanic player, the influence is growing. The Hornets, surprisingly, head the top of the list, but it's probably only surprising because no one was watching them. Venezuelan Greivis Vasquez and notable find Mexican Gustavo Ayon were the main Hispanic influence. The Gasol brothers have a large influence here since Pau is the only representative on his team yet the Lakers are fifth, and Marc nearly the only one if it weren't for Gilbert Arenas' Cuban heritage. Renowned for its international flavor, the Raptors' starting point guard is another Spaniard, Jose Calderon, and the "Brazilian Blur" Barbosa was a bench weapon. One interesting result is that some cities with a large Hispanic influence like Miami and Dallas don't have any of those players, suggesting that race is not an important determinant in the hiring process.
As for other races represented, Jeremy Lin caused a media firestorm and led to lots of discussion about race, specifically Asians, in the NBA. He didn't pick up playing time right away and got injured, otherwise the Knicks would have had more than 5.9%. Also, despite his hoopla, or rather illustrating the point, Asians only had 0.2% of the total minutes during the regular season. The other one is Yi Jianlian, who picked up a few minutes on an odd Dallas bench that featured the pouting Lamar Odom. Dallas also has the only Native American player, or rather the only player I could find, Delonte West, with reliable information (he's 1/4th Native American.) Another Texas team, the number 1 seed no one takes seriously as a contender in the Spurs, played Australian speedy point guard Patty Mills late in the year. It's not a completely one-man category as Nathan Jawai last played in the league as recently as 2010.
Not a total shocker, but Dallas and Toronto had the most minutes for European born players. Other than finals MVP Nowitzki, Roddy Beaubois and center Mahinmi are both French. Toronto was led by Calderon and their first overall pick Italian Bargnani, although they'll be joined next season by a seven-footer Jonas Valaciunas. Four teams featured no one born in Europe, and Indiana and New York were a Fesenko and Gadzuric away from joining them. France again had the most NBA players, and all of them were at least partly of African descent.
The Spurs climb to the top of the international list because of Argentine Ginobili, Brazilian Tiago "Log" Splitter, and US Virgin Tim Duncan (or Virgin Islander, whatever it is.) The Clippers like last year featured no international players, and in fact were nearly 100% black as previously mentioned if it weren't for Blake Griffin's mother. Cleveland and Houston, interestingly, had little to no Europeans but are high on the international list with such players as the Australian number one pick Irving, Israeli Casspi, Argentine Scola, Hatian Dalembert, and others.
There are definitely stereotypes about race and basketball talent, but are there effects in the NBA? First of all, be careful about interpreting the fact that the league is predominately black. There's definitely a cultural bias that leads more black men into basketball. The league is roughly 18% non-Hispanic white, and some of the 5% of the Hispanic players are "white," yet few American Caucasian players are elite with the notable exception of Kevin Love.
There is no correlation, however, between race, ethnicity or place of birth and winning. Teams that have more black people do not win more often, and vice versa. The atrocious Bobcats, for instance, are near the league averages for percentage of minutes given to Africans, Caucasians, and Hispanics; but so are the Spurs and Bulls. If you think you see a slight correlation in the green dots below, you're wrong -- doing a simple regression the R^2 is 0.015, which means that only 1.5% of the variation in wins is explained by race and it's not statistically significant. The same is true of team wins and the percentage of minutes given to international and European players. You can also visit the appendix at the end of the article to see how there's also no correlation with race and birth place and three point field goals, free-throw percentage, and defensive rating.
The fact that there's no correlation between a team's ethnic background and wins doesn't prove anything about who's best at basketball, however. But I don't want to ever suggest that's what I'm stating. The NBA has the best collection of players in the world, and some of the best shooters and athletes include white and black players. The lack of correlation does suggest teams are color-blind in who they play. If teams were averse to playing white or black people, then there should be a trend in the graphs since the other teams would have an advantage by hiring according to talent, not race. The NBA is the wrong league for a racist employer (which explains why the Clippers were terrible for so long.)
Conclusion
Race and ethnicity in the NBA are an interesting subject. On a negative note, there's plenty of prejudice and epithets thrown around in the league and one racial group dominates the sport, but it's also one that features diversity even with its executives and guys from Russell, Rick Barry, Magic, Bird, and Jordan to Bryant, Nash, Chris Paul, Nowitzki, and LeBron James have received cheers from fans of every background. This is the season of Jeremy Lin, who busted stereotypes by providing an Asian-American athlete relying on speed and quickness at a competitive position, point guard, in the bright lights of Madison Gardens. Ignoring race doesn't solve problems. Instead admire the variety of backgrounds of NBA players, where Swedish, Nigerian, Canadian, and Canadian players can all earn stupid amounts of money throwing a stupid orange ball into a hoop.
Appendix
See the stats for the 2010-11 season here.
The charts are a little blurry, but to fit them correctly they needed to be that size. Click on them for a clear picture.
Yes, I know that talking about race is stupid. There is only one race: the human race. Skin color has nothing to do with a person. Racial groups were created years ago in a different world and today they’re hardly used. Etc. However, the discussion of race in the NBA lives on, and I thought it’d be interesting to put some numbers behind things. It might be best, also, to think of this as an analysis of the background of NBA players, not race.
Background
The basis of this study is to find average "race" of each team weighted by minutes played, meaning bench warmers have less of an influence on the statistics. For example, if there is one white player on a team and he plays 10% of the total team minutes, then the team is 10% white. If a player had parents of different ethnicities, I allocated the weight accordingly. I separated the groups into African, Caucasian, Hispanic, East Asian, Native American, and Indigenous Australian.There are numerous issues that arise when dividing people into these groups, but this was the best I could do to make sense of it all. I also have numbers for international and European players. That's decided by the country of birth, not where one has spent most of his youth, with the exception of those born on a military base like Carlos Boozer.
As for the specifics behind racial classification, Hispanic, which is an ethnicity and not a race, is a catch-all for Spain and Portugal’s influence over the western hemisphere, where otherwise it would be very difficult finding the right numbers for, say, the amount of white and black ethnic roots for Al Horford. This means that Spanish players were not Caucasian but Hispanic in this study. The Caribbean islands were a difficult bunch of countries to set a “race,” so I used the historical background of each one – Hispanic like Puerto Rico or West African like Jamaica. Caucasian included middle-eastern and Semitic groups like Iranian giant Hamed Haddadi. I understand that Native Americans have genetic similarities to East Asians, but culturally there’s a clear divide and when the average person thinks about race today that person doesn’t group them with Asians.
Additionally, please note that I do not have comprehensive information on the background of each player, and I'm sure there are more players with a Native American background than what I have (just Delonte West though a couple others like Andrew Bynum allegedly have some as well.) Indigenous Australian seems like a group that’s too specific, but anthropology differentiates them from East Asians or Africans. There are also issues where most African-Americans have some Caucasian blood, and many Americans have some Native American. However, I do not have a DNA test for each NBA player; I worked with what I could find.
This is the second season I've down with this topic. I may have errors in the database, and any help is appreciated. Some players had difficult backgrounds to discern, and I imagine like some people, especially in the US, a few NBA players don’t know their ethnic makeup. Also, if you have any problems with the categories I have, please contact the US government census since their system is very similar, and what they're doing is more important than what I'm doing. The first question in the census about race/ethnicity asks whether or not you're Hispanic, and the next what specific race -- American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian, black, Pacific Islander, or white.
Results
Nearly three-fourths of the minutes during the 2011-12 season were allocated to black players. At 75.6%, it's 0.1% more than last year, while the percentage to Caucasian players increased to 18.6% from 17.7%. Mostly because of injures to Nene, Brook Lopez and Horford, Hispanics decreased from 6.4% to 5.4%. All other races added up to less than a fraction of a percent. In contrast to the trend seen in the early part of the last decade, there were less player-minutes for European (10.5% to 10.1%) and International players (18.7% and 17.4%.) Part of this was undoubtedly the lockout swaying some to stay overseas like Kirilenko, but it's something to watch in the future since both the last draft and the next one are devoid of international talent.
Team
|
African
|
Team
|
Caucasian
|
Portland Trailblazers
|
93.8
|
Milwaukee Bucks
|
38.3
|
LA Clippers
|
92.5
|
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
36.2
|
Boston Celtics
|
91.9
|
Orlando Magic
|
33.7
|
Washington Wizards
|
91.1
|
Phoenix Suns
|
30.7
|
Miami Heat
|
90.6
|
Houston Rockets
|
30.2
|
Detroit Pistons
|
89.7
|
New Orleans Hornets
|
27.1
|
Philadelphia 76ers
|
88.8
|
Chicago Bulls
|
25.2
|
Oklahoma City Thunder
|
87.9
|
LA Lakers
|
24.7
|
Sacramento Kings
|
87.9
|
Charlotte Bobcats
|
23.1
|
Indiana Pacers
|
82.6
|
Golden State Warriors
|
23.0
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
82.4
|
Atlanta Hawks
|
22.5
|
New Jersey Nets
|
80.4
|
Denver Nuggets
|
20.7
|
Utah Jazz
|
78.7
|
San Antonio Spurs
|
20.6
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
78.1
|
New Jersey Nets
|
19.1
|
Golden State Warriors
|
77.0
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
19.0
|
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
77.0
|
Toronto Raptors
|
18.2
|
Atlanta Hawks
|
75.4
|
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
18.1
|
Charlotte Bobcats
|
75.2
|
Utah Jazz
|
18.1
|
Chicago Bulls
|
74.8
|
New York Knicks
|
15.8
|
San Antonio Spurs
|
70.7
|
Indiana Pacers
|
14.7
|
New York Knicks
|
70.3
|
Oklahoma City Thunder |
12.1
|
Denver Nuggets
|
69.8
|
Philadelphia 76ers
|
10.9
|
Phoenix Suns
|
66.4
|
Miami Heat
|
9.4
|
Orlando Magic
|
66.3
|
Detroit Pistons
|
9.2
|
LA Lakers
|
60.2
|
Boston Celtics
|
8.1
|
Toronto Raptors
|
60.2
|
LA Clippers
|
7.5
|
Houston Rockets
|
56.9
|
Sacramento Kings
|
7.1
|
Milwaukee Bucks
|
52.0
|
Washington Wizards
|
6.8
|
New Orleans Hornets
|
51.1
|
Portland Trailblazers
|
6.2
|
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
48.5
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
2.1
|
The most African team was, surprisingly, the Portland Trailblazers, and the results would have been even stronger if they didn't give up midway through the season, freeing minutes to Babbitt, and Pryzbilla didn't come back from retirement. The Clippers, however, have a stronger hypothetical case. If it weren't for Blake Griffin's mother, the LA Clippers would be completely black. They didn't even have a bench scrub who wasn't black. The reason for the big spread in the percentages is that it only takes a couple players to dramatically affect the numbers. If Utah had drafted an African-American in place of Gordon Hayward, they would have been the fourth on the most African teams list.
At the other end of the spectrum, the Minnesota Timberwolves are the only team who are less than half black. The frontcourt featuring Love-Pekovic-Milicic-Brad Miller was almost completely white. In fact, since their two Hispanic players, Rubio and Barea, are white-Hispanics, they are in actuality the only team with the distinction of being more white than black including last season. Classifying Hispanics in a separate category, the Milwaukee Bucks are the most Caucasian team, and that's with another injury-riddled season from their Australian center Bogut. The Magic are an unexpected case, and if one of the Lopez or Gasol for Howard type trades went through they could have taken the title of whitest. Memphis almost gave no minutes to non-Hispanic white players, and only an Iranian center Haddadi and Josh Davis, who played just 130 minutes, prevented that.
Team
|
Hispanic
|
Team
|
East Asian
|
New Orleans Hornets
|
21.8
|
New York Knicks
|
5.9
|
Toronto Raptors
|
21.7
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
1.3
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
15.5
|
||
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
15.3
|
Team
|
Native American
|
LA Lakers
|
15.1
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
1.6
|
Houston Rockets
|
12.9
|
||
Milwaukee Bucks
|
9.7
|
Team
|
Indig. Australian
|
Denver Nuggets
|
9.6
|
San Antonio Spurs
|
1.6
|
New York Knicks
|
8.0
|
||
San Antonio Spurs
|
7.0
|
||
Sacramento Kings
|
5.0
|
||
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
4.9
|
||
Utah Jazz
|
3.2
|
||
Phoenix Suns
|
2.8
|
||
Indiana Pacers
|
2.7
|
||
Atlanta Hawks
|
2.2
|
||
Washington Wizards
|
2.1
|
||
Charlotte Bobcats
|
1.7
|
||
Detroit Pistons
|
1.1
|
||
New Jersey Nets
|
0.4
|
||
Philadelphia 76ers
|
0.4
|
||
Boston Celtics
|
0
|
||
Chicago Bulls
|
0
|
||
Dallas Mavericks
|
0
|
||
Golden State Warriors
|
0
|
||
LA Clippers
|
0
|
||
Miami Heat
|
0
|
||
Oklahoma City Thunder
|
0
|
||
Orlando Magic
|
0
|
||
Portland Trailblazers
|
0
| ||
While not every team has a Hispanic player, the influence is growing. The Hornets, surprisingly, head the top of the list, but it's probably only surprising because no one was watching them. Venezuelan Greivis Vasquez and notable find Mexican Gustavo Ayon were the main Hispanic influence. The Gasol brothers have a large influence here since Pau is the only representative on his team yet the Lakers are fifth, and Marc nearly the only one if it weren't for Gilbert Arenas' Cuban heritage. Renowned for its international flavor, the Raptors' starting point guard is another Spaniard, Jose Calderon, and the "Brazilian Blur" Barbosa was a bench weapon. One interesting result is that some cities with a large Hispanic influence like Miami and Dallas don't have any of those players, suggesting that race is not an important determinant in the hiring process.
As for other races represented, Jeremy Lin caused a media firestorm and led to lots of discussion about race, specifically Asians, in the NBA. He didn't pick up playing time right away and got injured, otherwise the Knicks would have had more than 5.9%. Also, despite his hoopla, or rather illustrating the point, Asians only had 0.2% of the total minutes during the regular season. The other one is Yi Jianlian, who picked up a few minutes on an odd Dallas bench that featured the pouting Lamar Odom. Dallas also has the only Native American player, or rather the only player I could find, Delonte West, with reliable information (he's 1/4th Native American.) Another Texas team, the number 1 seed no one takes seriously as a contender in the Spurs, played Australian speedy point guard Patty Mills late in the year. It's not a completely one-man category as Nathan Jawai last played in the league as recently as 2010.
Team
|
European
|
Team
|
International
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
27.3
|
San Antonio Spurs
|
40.2
|
Toronto Raptors
|
24.4
|
Toronto Raptors
|
37.8
|
Denver Nuggets
|
22.1
|
Milwaukee Bucks
|
35.6
|
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
19.7
|
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
34.6
|
Detroit Pistons
|
18.0
|
Dallas Mavericks
|
28.6
|
Milwaukee Bucks
|
17.2
|
New Orleans Hornets
|
27.8
|
New Orleans Hornets
|
17.1
|
Denver Nuggets
|
27.2
|
LA Lakers
|
15.1
|
Minnesota Timberwolves
|
26.2
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
14.9
|
Phoenix Suns
|
25.7
|
Atlanta Hawks
|
14.8
|
Oklahoma City Thunder
|
20.1
|
San Antonio Spurs
|
14.6
|
Houston Rockets
|
20.0
|
Phoenix Suns
|
13.3
|
Chicago Bulls
|
19.4
|
Portland Trailblazers
|
11.2
|
Detroit Pistons
|
18.0
|
Orlando Magic
|
10.4
|
Charlotte Bobcats
|
17.3
|
Boston Celtics
|
9.1
|
Atlanta Hawks
|
17.0
|
Oklahoma City Thunder
|
8.8
|
Washington Wizards
|
16.4
|
New Jersey Nets
|
8.6
|
Memphis Grizzlies
|
16.2
|
Washington Wizards
|
6.8
|
LA Lakers
|
15.2
|
Charlotte Bobcats
|
6.4
|
Portland Trailblazers
|
11.9
|
Chicago Bulls
|
6.1
|
Orlando Magic
|
10.4
|
Utah Jazz
|
5.4
|
Utah Jazz
|
10.3
|
| Philadelphia 76ers |
5.2
|
Miami Heat
|
9.8
|
Golden State Warriors
|
4.6
|
Boston Celtics
|
9.1
|
Cleveland Cavaliers
|
2.1
|
New Jersey Nets
|
8.6
|
Indiana Pacers
|
0.1
|
Philadelphia 76ers
|
5.6
|
New York Knicks
|
0.1
|
Sacramento Kings
|
5.0
|
Houston Rockets
|
0
|
Golden State Warriors
|
4.6
|
LA Clippers
|
0
|
Indiana Pacers
|
2.8
|
Miami Heat
|
0
|
New York Knicks
|
0.8
|
Sacramento Kings
|
0
|
LA Clippers
|
0
|
Not a total shocker, but Dallas and Toronto had the most minutes for European born players. Other than finals MVP Nowitzki, Roddy Beaubois and center Mahinmi are both French. Toronto was led by Calderon and their first overall pick Italian Bargnani, although they'll be joined next season by a seven-footer Jonas Valaciunas. Four teams featured no one born in Europe, and Indiana and New York were a Fesenko and Gadzuric away from joining them. France again had the most NBA players, and all of them were at least partly of African descent.
The Spurs climb to the top of the international list because of Argentine Ginobili, Brazilian Tiago "Log" Splitter, and US Virgin Tim Duncan (or Virgin Islander, whatever it is.) The Clippers like last year featured no international players, and in fact were nearly 100% black as previously mentioned if it weren't for Blake Griffin's mother. Cleveland and Houston, interestingly, had little to no Europeans but are high on the international list with such players as the Australian number one pick Irving, Israeli Casspi, Argentine Scola, Hatian Dalembert, and others.
There are definitely stereotypes about race and basketball talent, but are there effects in the NBA? First of all, be careful about interpreting the fact that the league is predominately black. There's definitely a cultural bias that leads more black men into basketball. The league is roughly 18% non-Hispanic white, and some of the 5% of the Hispanic players are "white," yet few American Caucasian players are elite with the notable exception of Kevin Love.
There is no correlation, however, between race, ethnicity or place of birth and winning. Teams that have more black people do not win more often, and vice versa. The atrocious Bobcats, for instance, are near the league averages for percentage of minutes given to Africans, Caucasians, and Hispanics; but so are the Spurs and Bulls. If you think you see a slight correlation in the green dots below, you're wrong -- doing a simple regression the R^2 is 0.015, which means that only 1.5% of the variation in wins is explained by race and it's not statistically significant. The same is true of team wins and the percentage of minutes given to international and European players. You can also visit the appendix at the end of the article to see how there's also no correlation with race and birth place and three point field goals, free-throw percentage, and defensive rating.
The fact that there's no correlation between a team's ethnic background and wins doesn't prove anything about who's best at basketball, however. But I don't want to ever suggest that's what I'm stating. The NBA has the best collection of players in the world, and some of the best shooters and athletes include white and black players. The lack of correlation does suggest teams are color-blind in who they play. If teams were averse to playing white or black people, then there should be a trend in the graphs since the other teams would have an advantage by hiring according to talent, not race. The NBA is the wrong league for a racist employer (which explains why the Clippers were terrible for so long.)
Conclusion
Race and ethnicity in the NBA are an interesting subject. On a negative note, there's plenty of prejudice and epithets thrown around in the league and one racial group dominates the sport, but it's also one that features diversity even with its executives and guys from Russell, Rick Barry, Magic, Bird, and Jordan to Bryant, Nash, Chris Paul, Nowitzki, and LeBron James have received cheers from fans of every background. This is the season of Jeremy Lin, who busted stereotypes by providing an Asian-American athlete relying on speed and quickness at a competitive position, point guard, in the bright lights of Madison Gardens. Ignoring race doesn't solve problems. Instead admire the variety of backgrounds of NBA players, where Swedish, Nigerian, Canadian, and Canadian players can all earn stupid amounts of money throwing a stupid orange ball into a hoop.
Appendix
See the stats for the 2010-11 season here.
The charts are a little blurry, but to fit them correctly they needed to be that size. Click on them for a clear picture.
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