I enjoy the gameflow from popcornmachine. I like the boxscores with +/- at NBA.com(and there's a cool halftime game pdf they post too). I've learned how to use some of the features of basketball-reference.com, which has a lot of advanced stats and a pretty good method of analyzing player vs. player stats and other somewhat arcane data.
I've stumbled into all of this stuff more or less by accident, but I suspect I'm missing stuff.
Recently, someone said something about "checking the game log" as though there was a place with descriptions of play-by-play game data. And I thought, "Is that available? And if it is, what else am I missing?"
So, the question is, what do you look at after a game, what do you look at if you want to look deeper? What do you look at if you haven't seen a game? What are your personal analysis tools?
0 recs | 29 comments
I personally use hoopdata a lot.
I like to keep track of how well Blake is doing from midrange and stuff. I don’t like metrics much in basketball, but I do like EFG, TS and Usage, those can tell you how efficient a player is.
http://hoopdata.com/default.aspx
AudioDope - February 14, 2012
AudioDope... I think it was you who referenced a "game-log"...?
I might be mistaken.
John Raffo - February 14, 2012
I guess I am behind the times..
I just use the ESPN boxscore. But since I only just started using advanced stats like PER, I’m rounding into form.
LJ Hann - February 14, 2012
You're not but where do you get your PER?
John Raffo - February 14, 2012
ESPN
hollinger’s. I used stats like ppg in my last article and took some heat in the comments. apparently ‘per game’ stats are archaic. Who knew?
LJ Hann - February 14, 2012
Come on youngin... get with the times! :)
shay - February 15, 2012
Speaking of box scores, what is the matter with CP3's health?
He had a day off prior to the Dallas game and he basically got to rest the entire 4th quarter of the previous Bobcat game. Yet, in the Dallas game, he only logs 32 minutes while Mo logged 38 minutes. Is his knee still hurting? Was he just off last night or were Dallas’ taller perimeter defenders bothering him too much?
In a game where the Clips were playing from behind in a close game it makes no sense to keep your franchise player on the bench for 16 minutes in close, winnable game.
Jerdog - February 14, 2012
Hoopdata, 82games, bball-reference, popcornmachine, espn box score
that’s all you need right there. Synergy takes it to a whole new level.
ReignMan - February 14, 2012
Synergy's interesting.
It’s a pay-site isn’t it? I’ve looked around a little, a lot of good defensive and bench breakdowns. Could use more info.
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
Synergy
What’s amazing about synergy is the link to video. The stats are interesting, and may prove useful — but the fact that you can actually watch the exact plays that are being referenced in the data is invaluable for in depth analysis.
Steve Perrin - February 15, 2012
game log
Both espn and nba.com have a play-by-play. I’m not sure if there is an ‘official’ play-by-play, but if there is it would be the one on NBA.com, and there are differences between the two. I always use the play-by-play when writing recaps. The time on the clock when something happened, more granular information about what happened during a run than is available on popcornmachine, that sort of thing. In fact, I’d say that’s how I use it — as a supplement to the popcornmachine gameflow.
On the box score page for either of those sites, there are some tabs near the top — play-by-play is one of them. I do sometimes consult ESPN’s shot chart as well, for a quick reference on how a player shot from outside for instance.
Steve Perrin - February 14, 2012
On games where I'm writing a recap, I keep my own log...
but it’s rough. And for recap purposes, popcornmachine is great but often takes them an hour or so to post, so…
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
I use regular stats
Take a look at the players fg%, TO’s etc etc, look at the opponents and see how their opponents matched up, and then look at the +/-. It’s not the best way of measuring a player, but it gives you a very small sample taste of how the player did, accurate or not. It’s not the best way, but when you have nothing, might as well use something.
JackduhSun - February 15, 2012
Raffo, this looks right up your alley
http://www.sports-reference.com/blog/2012/02/introducing-play-index/
BelgianClipper - February 15, 2012
Great googily moogily
This is amazing. How timely.
Steve Perrin - February 15, 2012
I need to start using all these stats. I always wondered where to find them…now I know haha
DannyDodger - February 15, 2012
Game log
Generally, game logs aren’t play-by-play, but rather a log of each player’s individual game stats.
Game log per NBA.com.
Game log per ESPN.com.
Game log per Yahoo Sports.
Game log per basketball-reference.com.
They more or less tell the same information (none show +/- unfortunately—-if someone can point me to one that does, that’d be great), but if you click the “advanced” header on the basketball-reference.com one, you can see PER, True Shooting , WS/48, and other advanced stats on a per-game basis. I mainly use this to see TS for players per game. I also use the NBA.com play-by-plays for game analyses.
Erik O - February 15, 2012
Yeah, thanks for that Erik...
What I was looking for was the “play-by-play”, which is here.
But there must be more.
A little tangential but Shamsports used to be the go-to site for salary info but, last I looked they weren’t updating. I tend to use Hoopsworld for that now.
DraftExpress is pretty good for player profiles. Not super up to date, but not bad.
Erik, where are you drawing data for MEGASTAT? Or have you abandoned it?
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
Not abandoned!
Just got reassigned at work so I’m super busy for a little bit. Putting a cramp in my style for sure.
MEGASTAT data was from basketball-reference.com and thenbageek.com.
Erik O - February 15, 2012
I didn't know about thenbageek at all.
That’s an interesting blog.
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
He actually does the Wages of Wins thing without sounding like aliens took over his brain.
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
Yeah
Berri’s kind of flakey. I’ve read a lot about him defending his product until the conversation gets difficult, and then he apparently just starts ignoring the ones who dig too deep. One guy even said he had his comments removed from the site. And then when Berri wasn’t putting up easily usable databases (everything was in pictures, not text) people got suspicious as to why he wasn’t letting anyone investigate WP more. Obviously they were being a little paranoid because now there’s an easily accessible database linked directly from Berri’s site.
Stat-nerd drama!
Erik O - February 15, 2012
Linked from the Wages of Wins site
Finally a WP database :)
Erik O - February 15, 2012
Oh and when I add in salaries
I’ll use Hoopsworld.
Erik O - February 15, 2012
the terminstatnator!
BelgianClipper - February 15, 2012
I'm looking forward to MEGASTAT
I haven’t made up my mind whether I think it’s something brilliantly perfect, the one-number amalgamation of lesser one -number amalgams and thus, inherently good OR the evil bastardization of something completely evil (which makes it decent and holy), OR a shamockery of a shamockeries, like a beast with three heads, which I guess would be bad, OR perverse, funny, and useful.
Damn your work. Let’s move on to IMPORTANT things.
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
Potentially has problems because I'm arbitrarily deciding which stats to include
For example, if I included 4 stats that over-value rebounds and 1 stat that over-values scoring, MEGASTAT would be 80% as flawed as one of those stats that over-values rebounds.
But I feel like PER and WP are very different, so there’s a nice balance. I worry that WS is too similar to WP but then as I add players, I can see that WS seems to be somewhere in the middle. Sometimes agreeing with PER and sometimes agreeing with WP, but not overly one way or the other. So that was encouraging.
I was considering throwing TS% in the pot too, but that will add a stat that focuses solely on scoring which could imbalance MEGASTAT, as the 3 current stats are supposed to hit multiple facets of a player’s game.
Erik O - February 15, 2012
Shockingly, I found out that keeping it simple would keep it from being too convoluted.
Erik O - February 15, 2012
Well, there's nothing simple about a WP or PER or WS...
You’d be at least trebling the complexity, which is why it’s so wonderfully evil genius in nature.
John Raffo - February 15, 2012
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