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Tag Archives: Dwight Howard
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
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
The Myth of Danger
Every year as the playoffs approach one thing is guaranteed. A team or two always gets marked as “the team no one should want to face.” The teams normally fall into one of two categories. First the young up and coming team that does something better than anyone else in the league. Think the Grizzlies of a few years ago, who excelled at the slowdown grind it out game because of an elite defense. … Continue reading
The Free Throw Hokey Pokey
This piece is not about the camerawork at a basketball game, but for this introduction, it’ll be about the camerawork at a basketball game. You can often tell when the producer is slacking off. He or she hoards an army of cameras, sprawled across the arena, ready to provide their unique view of the game. During periods of inactivity, the producer must cut to the most action-y shot he or she can find: a … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
This week I decided to take a look at the impact of free throws on the final outcome. Is getting to the line more important than taking advantage of the freebies when a team gets there? During a 54 game sample, I recorded the free throws attempted and the free throw percentage for every team. Winning teams shot an average of 77.1% on 21.9 free throws per game while losing teams made 76% of … Continue reading
What Happens at 7:07 PM
Back in the day when I was still a capable guard and ballin’, my center and I would orchestrate a method before tip-off to snag the first possession. I would stand outside the circle, and as the referee tossed the ball into the air, my center would intentionally graze the ball, barely touching it. The opposing center would easily tip it back, but I would rush into our opponent’s side, jump, and grab the … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
This week I decided to take a look at players who rebound, but also score. I charted the total points each team received from players grabbing at least five rebounds in an effort to determine if teams with high scoring rebounders won more often than not. I figured that winning teams would have a higher average point total from qualifying players, but never did I imagine the difference being this drastic. During the 50 … Continue reading
Fridays With Fenrich: Reading Between The Lines
Fridays With Fenrich is a weekly feature here at Hickory-High, the aggregation of an extended, week-long email conversation on a single basketball theme, between myself and Kris Fenrich of Dancing With Noah. This week Kris and I worked on the Hickory-High Question Of The Week. Ian: You’re starting a book club and the first selection is the classic Phillip K. Dick novel, ‘A Scanner Darkly.’ Which four NBA players do you invite to join? Kris: 1. Joakim Noah: By … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
For this week’s #StatStudy, basketball coach/guru @C1ayMitche11 questioned an offense predicated on launching three pointers and chasing down the loose ball was an effective strategy in the NBA. He estimated that 60% of teams that won the rebound battle and attempted more triples would win the game and that the number would rise to a 75% success rate if the team tallied more offensive rebounds and 3PA. Our sample size this week was 54 … Continue reading
Weekly Stats Recap
This week, thanks to the suggestion of David Vertsberger (@_Verts), I decided to take a look at the top assist men on each team and how they contributed to each game this week in terms of percentage of total points scored (PS%) and percentage of total assists handed out (A%). I constructed a spread sheet that detailed the top dime dropper on each roster along with the PS% and A% for that player entering … Continue reading
