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Author Archives: Ian Levy
Translated Lottery Odds
The NBA Lottery will be held tonight and the odds have been set since the end of the regular season. However, expressing those odds as percentages and fractions of percentages doesn’t always give a tangible sense of the real likelihood of each team winning. I took the liberty of converting each team’s odds into a unit that may be understood more intuitively. I hope it’s helpful. _____ Orlando Magic – 25.0% chance of winning … Continue reading
Playoff Shot Selection
All season long I’ve been tracking shot selection for players and teams using the metric Expected Points Per Shot (XPPS). If you’re unfamiliar with XPPS, here are the basics: Shots from different locations are provide different value. For example, a layup has higher chance of being made than a long two-pointer, and a three-pointer earns an extra point. We refer to these different values as the expected value of a shot. XPPS looks at … Continue reading
Shot Selection Round-Up: Part 2
Over the past week and a half, I’ve been slowly carving out time to go back and review my season-long shot selection numbers, using the metric Expected Points Per Shot (XPPS). If this is your first time reading about XPPS, here are the basics: Shots from different locations are provide different value. For example, a layup has higher chance of being made than a long two-pointer, and a three-pointer earns an extra point. We refer … Continue reading
Stats For Sundays
Although we spend our time writing about basketball, we’re a diverse bunch here at Hickory-High, with interests that extend far beyond the hardwood. Kyle Soppe, our resident archivist of statistical minutiae, also happens to be a devoted disciple of fantasy sports. If you follow Kyle on Twitter, @unSOPable23, you know that besides his work here he writes frequently about fantasy baseball and football for a variety of websites. Kyle has kicked that fantasy sports … Continue reading
Mike Conley, Top 5?
The Memphis Grizzlies are playing as good a brand of basketball as any of the eight teams left in the NBA playoffs, with the emergence of Mike Conley being a big reason why. But when Tony Allen, following an emotional road victory in which Conley led the way (26 points, ten rebounds, and nine assists), declared that his floor general was “one of the top five point guards in the league,” it smelled a … Continue reading
Shot Selection Round-Up: Part 1
Shot selection and specifically shot locations have become a larger and larger part of the basketball conversation. It’s a topic of great personal interest to me and I’ve written quite a bit about it this season. To add an easily comparably quantitative element to the conversation, I also developed Expected Points Per Shot (XPPS). This metric is based on the expected value of shots from different locations and boils the quality of a player’s … Continue reading
Video Playbook: Joakim Noah, Clutchiness
The Bulls missed out on a chance to finish the Nets at home in Game 6, and will now have to face a Game 7 in Brooklyn. Although they came up just short last night, they were the recipients of a sparkling and driven performance by Joakim Noah. He finished with 14 points, 15 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 blocks and a steal in 43 minutes. Not bad for a guy struggling with plantar fasciitis. Although … Continue reading
2013 NBA Anti-Awards!
It’s time again for The NBA Anti-Awards! These awards (playfully) recognize some of the most miserable and discouraging statistical achievements in basketball. The basketball analytics movement has been evolving and using visual and graphic representations to communicate data has become more and more important. I tried to add some of those visual components to the final awards this season, really emphasizing the ugliness of the numbers. This is also the 3rd season in which … Continue reading
Video Playbook: Clippers Crash The Glass On The Grizzlies
From just about any perspective, Game One was a disaster for the Grizzlies. In wasn’t just the 112-91 torching they suffered at the hands of the Clippers, it was the way their defense broke down in multiple ways. Two huge keys for the Grizzlies heading into this series were slowing down the Clippers’ pick-and-roll and keeping them off the offensive glass. Both areas were a huge disaster in Game One. The heart of the … Continue reading
All By Myself
So far, the hero of the NBA playoffs opening day is Carmelo Anthony who scored 36 points, leading his Knicks to an 85-78, Game One victory over the Boston Celtics. Knicks’ fans can begin rolling their eyes now, but I’d like to point out that Anthony needed 35 offensive possessions to cobble together those 36 points. Criticizing Anthony for freely spending offensive possessions in the passionate pursuit of points has become old hat, and in looking through … Continue reading
