ANALYTICAL TRAIL BLAZING How the Portland Trail Blazers are using analytics to drive strategy
BACKGROUND Ben Falk Basketball Analytics Manager The Job To help us make better basketball decisions through the use of statistical evidence and technology
NBA MLB NFL
NOT EVERYTHING “Stats vs. Scouts” Stats are not the be all and end all Intuition and expert opinion is valuable Experience is data – just a different kind
OUR TEAM Me Part-time statistical analyst PhD in Statistics Computer programmers 1 full time 1 part time This is a pretty big team by NBA standards
INTERNAL VS. EXTERNAL Build internal team or use outside vendor? My approach: build internally Why? Competitive advantage Customization and control Security No risk of going out of business
THREE AREAS Collection Analysis Communication
COLLECTION You are only as good as your data Our data: Play by play College box scores Coming soon: SportVU Sports science
COLLECTION Basketball is a complex sport! Here’s some video…
COLLECTION Play by Play Q1 6:26: Wesley Matthews made 22 foot three-point jump shot (LaMarcus Aldridge assist).
COLLECTION SportVU
COLLECTION Sports Science
ANALYSIS Low hanging fruit Effective Field Goal Percentage Diminishing returns Subject matter knowledge
COMMUNICATION Analysis may be more simple, but process is not Why? Routines and behavior Ability to relate to data Communication is part of the job
COMMUNICATION “Turning words into numbers and numbers back into words” – Dean Oliver But communication is not just words Design Usability
COMMUNICATION “Brilliant insights” meet communication bottleneck Effective Field Goal Percentage Can the eye pick this up? If not, how do we communicate it?
EXAMPLES
THE DRAFT Collection Historical data going back 20+ seasons Statistical and biographical and anything else Analysis Advanced statistical modeling Subject matter knowledge Communication Uncertainty Ultimately a binary decision
COACHING STRATEGIES Collection Easy to search format Prepared for anything Analysis How much can we really say? Experience + stats Communication Reports that can be understood Data visualization
DANGERS
POWER = DANGER SIMPLICITY
DANGERS Know what the stats are measuring Measuring wrong is worse than not measuring at all Know the assumptions your stats are making Kevin Durant and Wayne Winston
DANGERS Know the subject matter Alternate explanations Correlation vs. causation XKCD:
THANK YOU