Dean Oliver @DeanO_Lytics Twitter profile

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

20 years ago today, I recovered enough for the doctors to take me off life support (I used to aim to win at any cost, even my life). I began a bonus life, when I wrote Basketball on Paper, got into sports, met my wife, and lived a lot. Very grateful for 20 yrs of bonus life.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Threshold Win: When a player has more positive net points than the team won by. Also interpreted as: The team wouldn't have won w/o him. Threshold Loss: When a player has more negative net points than the team lost by. Also interpreted as: The team would have won w/o him.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Thanks for the encouragement since the announcement of my new position. As I've promised the Wizards, I promise that I will work hard, work smart, and aim for the highest levels of success, in hopes that it also opens up opportunities for others...But I won't promise many tweets.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 month

I joined ESPN in 2011 to help build their fledgling Analytics group. We got a lot done before I left in 2014. Since then, several people I worked with carried the group forward. shows off some of what they've done. And now I'm very happy to rejoin them.

ESPN Analytics

Models and data visualization from ESPN Analytics. NBA & NFL Draft, schedule analysis, receiver tracking metrics and more.

espnanalytics.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

When Kyrie plays in a game then goes off the court, his teammates do worse. When Kyrie _does not play_ in a game, his teammates do better. That is weird. Can't adjust style in game after playing w/him? It's both O and D, essentially all his teammates. I don't think it's sched.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Sports analytics is so multidisciplinary that it has forced me to learn or re-learn - network theory, - evolutionary dynamics - geometry and trigonometry - machine learning - statistics And that's not counting all I've learned from coaches about their game (hoops and football)

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

@kirkgoldsberry Analytics is all about taking the best shot. Oh average, it's layups and threes, but the core is taking the optimal strategy. And... Late game strategy to maximize win % can be a little different than maximizing points.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

I don’t hate Russell Westbrook. I would want this guy on my team. But he shouldn’t win the MVP this year.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 months

A fascinating JJ Redick interview with Joe Mazzulla. It's long, but at around 37:15 or so, the conversation shifted to analytics. The next 20 minutes or so are basketball rocket science. A great listen.

Celtics Coach Joe Mazzulla Reflects On Last Season's End, Tatum &...

The coaching series is BACK and this week we're delighted to welcome in, Boston Celtics Head Coach, Joe Mazzulla. Joe was gracious enough to give us an hour ...

www.youtube.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Yet it often takes a player's absence to notice. Last year at this time, people were taking shots at him for his vulnerabilities and saying how KD is better. KD is really good, but Steph is changed-the-game special.

Robin Lundberg

@robinlundberg

6 years

Warriors have an offensive rating of 120.4 with Curry on the court (would comfortably be an NBA record) and 106.2 without him (basically the Charlotte Hornets). Steph is easily their best and most important player.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

3 years

It has been 33 years or so since my first work on points per possession got published. I was at @Caltech , studying hard, playing hard. I had no idea then it would lead to all of this.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 year

Curry may be out of the playoffs, but here is one remarkable stat about him that came up this year. Players with the most career games with 9+ 3pt field goals made: 4. Harden with 9 3. Klay with 14 2. Dame with 16 1. Steph with 41

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 years

The Warriors' D efficiency is 20th overall, but actually 10th when it's not garbage time. Dead last in garbage time (21 pts worse than avg).

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 year

I reached 25 years of life after death, as of today. I should have died two other times, doing crazy risky things, but the one in 1998 didn't feel risky. Just biking uphill for 78 mi as hard as I could. I celebrate today, the anniversary of when I came off life support. Good day.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

28 days

It is now 26 years of bonus life after coming off of life support on this day in 1998. I remember looking around the hospital room and being confused, as well as the pain of having a catheter ripped out. But I was alive and ready to take advantage of the time I had left.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 months

It was twenty years ago in November that Basketball on Paper came out. It introduced a lot of analytics to the game. In about a year from now, my second book will come out. Here's a preview:

🏀 5x5 | Royce Webb

Fresh angles and insights in search of greater truths about basketball and a better version of the game — from Royce Webb, former ESPN NBA editor. Click to read 🏀 5x5 | Royce Webb, a Substack...

www.roycewebb.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 month

Here is the official ESPN announcement about my rejoining them, with mention of the new book coming this fall.

Former Washington Wizards Coach Dean Oliver Returns to ESPN as a Data Scientist

Today, ESPN has agreed to hire former Washington Wizards assistant coach and well-known statistician Dean Oliver as a data scientist.

espnpressroom.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

OKC-GSW: Paul George had the highest correlation of his own net pts to the team. Kevin Durant was negatively correlated to what GS was doing - the better he did, the worse the Ws did - a common thing with KD. I kinda like Huestis as the low usage/good D Roberson replacement.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

@MZavagno11 James Harden has more unassisted 3 pointers (139) than anyone else has total 3 pointers (Curry has 138).

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

A Threshold Win is when your individual contribution to a win was as big as the point margin. Exs: If you added 5 net points and won by <=5, that's a Threshold W. A Threshold Loss is when you cost 3 pts and you lost by <=3. Here are the leaders. (Doncic is in the pack at +2.)

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

In the last ten years, these are the top five players in terms of "threshold wins" in the playoffs, where the player's net points are what carried team to win: 1. Lebron, 32 2. Durant, 15 2. Harden, 15 4. Curry, 12 5. Paul, 9 All the guys still left this year.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

3 years

Math and science can get you to Mars, to the NBA, to the boardroom, and fundamentally to a state of knowing more than the next person. Don't bash it, don't take it lightly. Study it, learn the process. (Not paid for by anyone. Just my occasional mention of what's important.)

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 months

One of my gripes about a common stat: points off turnovers is really misleading when so many turnovers are dead ball. They should report points off of steals, not off of turnovers.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Just heard about Campbell’s Law: “The more any quantitative social indicator is used for social decision-making, the more subject it is to corruption pressures and the more apt it will be to distort and corrupt the social processes it is intended to monitor." Like sports stats.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Probably the best thing I learned at @Caltech was that there are a lot of people smarter than I in this world and that I can find ways to contribute nonetheless.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 years

I submitted the manuscript for Basketball on Paper to the publisher 20 years ago. The basketball analytics industry didn't really exist then (it was just a community), so I guess it's come a long way.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

The NBA 3-point revolution is changing defense. This year shows stark decline in defensive performance by bigs, with simultaneous improvement by guards. (See 2019 line relative to the others.) There are things that I need to think through on this, but it's interesting.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 months

In ways, my new book this fall is how you can change players via analytics. This article is about how KP made his body do things that analytics suggested. I'm glad that I was part of the group that helped him, but he put in the mental and physical time.

Kristaps Porziņģis’ career was at a crossroads. Then he learned to trust the numbers

With help from a trusted friend, Kristaps Porziņģis found a way to shift the analytics in his favor by learning everything about them.

www.nytimes.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

This is why the corner 3 point shot is overrated, by the way. I did a study 13 years ago, suggesting that the above-the-break 3 has so many secondary benefits to overwhelm the small FG% increase in the corners. And that stretching deeper helps a fair amount.

FiveThirtyEight

@FiveThirtyEight

6 years

The Rockets have attempted 178 3-pointers from the 28-to-35-foot range. That’s a lot.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

So the Pats won the game without leading for even a second? That's gotta be rare.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 months

Preorders are available for my book, Basketball beyond Paper, which is scheduled for release in November. The link has a short overview, as well as advance praise and the list of chapters.

Basketball beyond Paper - University of Nebraska Press

As a follow-up to Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper, Basketball beyond Paper recounts the insights gained over Oliver’s twenty years of experience using statistics to understand basketball.

www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 months

Why sports analytics should be part of academia.

Colin Camerer

@CFCamerer

6 months

1/ Totally agree with this. I think there is a strange prejudice in economics that studying sports, movies, game shows etc is not “serious” The truth is that as Ignacio explains, they often provide unusual control and diagnosticity.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Just for kicks, the worst clutch defenders thus far.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

4 years

His 81 point game seemed superhuman. At times like this, you wish that @kobebryant was actually superhuman... He indeed moved the game forward.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

Yesterday, DeMarcus Cousins & Anthony Davis used 89% of team poss combined, the highest by a lot since at least 2001. Seems unhealthy.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

9 years

Just heard phrase that Player X is "worth his weight in gold." Assuming 300 lb player, that's only $5-6M. Many plyrs worth weight in gold.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 months

And here is why the NBA will change the rule on starting the clock on in-bounds next year.

jimmy changa 🍉

@sultanwaystar

2 months

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

One of these days, I will figure out what it is about Q3 that causes Steph Curry to go all supernatural. I have looked into Quarter-related differences before and you can relate to fatigue or adjustments or caffeine. Whatever Curry drinks at halftime, I want some of that.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

Still many who think that more data and more reports means more knowledge. If you don't know how to put it together, it's just more noise.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Great work on a small set of manually collected data. You can do good work even if you start off with nothing but a work ethic.

The Nylon Calculus

@NylonCalculus

5 years

More magical work from @CrumpledJumper charting player passing lanes

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

I saw this line in here "Joel Embiid’s production routinely drops in the second half of games" and looked it up. Embiid has THE BIGGEST 2nd half drop off of any player. Embiid goes from 8.3 net pts/48 to 0.9 in the 2nd half. Next biggest is L Galloway w/7.0 drop.

The Ringer

@ringer

5 years

Trade season is afoot in the #NBA . @KevinOConnorNBA breaks down all of the teams, players, contracts, and scuttlebutt to keep an eye on as the deal-making starts to heat up:

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Clutch performance is somewhat noisy, of course. But offensive usage in clutch time is not. Alpha-players use a lot of possessions. These are the top possession users so far this year, with the rank from last year. Doncic on the list! And actually 12th in O Net Pts.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

3 years

My eye: I forget about it, but I am, well, cross-eyed and people notice it right away. People who are around me forget about it with time, but first impressions - I look like an idiot because that is the stereotype. It was a crazy low probability event that caused it... 1/14

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 months

I don't have numbers for today's game, but historically players going 0/7 from the field or worse and committing 5+ turnovers - they have been bad. Josh Hart did a lot of good things today around the bad shooting/turnovers (generally under the radar guy).

Fred Katz

@FredKatz

2 months

Every time from now on that Thibs says "You can play well without shooting well," he is going to show us all this Josh Hart game.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

11 days

Simulating the NBA Draft can be a useful exercise for teams - forcing them to plan for contingencies of guys get taken higher or lower than expected. ESPN put together a simulation for that, where you can take the role of whichever team you want.

NBA Mock Draft Simulator - ESPN Analytics

ESPN Analytics' free NBA Mock Draft Simulator allows you to be the General Manager (GM) of any team for the NBA Draft.

espnanalytics.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 years

NBA "+/- win" leaders, which is % of games team better w/player on than off. Not very predictive, but interesting.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

18 days

Win probabilities across the four games of IND-BOS. Only Game 2 didn't have a crazy shift in the last couple minutes.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 month

In the playoffs, the entire difference for Boston has been 3pt shooting. In their wins, the net value of 3s is +14 (offense minus defense). In their losses, it's -20. On average, they're winning the non-shooting factors in both wins and losses, like tonight, winning TOV and FTs

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Now the individually most inconsistent players from game to game, as defined by an average of percentage of games that are good and bad. Mostly guards, but LaMarcus Aldridge is way up there.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

I personally wish there was an NFL Draft show where the talking heads reviewed their prognostications from the last few years. And someone kept track of how many they got right/wrong. That would be entertaining and informative.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 years

If you want to do sports analytics, know 1. The sport (very well), 2. At least one of data/databases, stats, programming, 3. communication.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

FYI - UNC has 30% offensive reb%. Gonzaga at 25%. So UNC is actually outrebounding Gonzaga but missing more shots. Illusion of missed shots.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

4 years

22 years ago today, I awoke from life support, the nice nurse ripped the catheter out, and she moved me to a normal room. I had luckily survived pushing my body past its limits in order to win a race. In some cases, giving 110% can kill you.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

I had it as his second best defensive game of the year, adding +4.9 through his D alone. Rim protection and perimeter showed good numbers.

Mike Schmitz

@Mike_Schmitz

5 years

One of Deandre Ayton's best defensive games of the season against Milwaukee tonight. Made it tough on Giannis around the rim, looked really agile guarding the perimeter, made some fairly instinctual rotations, recovered nicely for blocks. 3 BLK + 12 REB for the #1 pick.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 years

My work in basketball has been a lot about how to optimally incentivize players to be team players. I don't think I've ever written it that way. At its most basic, it's about making sure that … 1/5

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

26 days

From 97% for Denver to 98% for Minnesota.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

4 years

It is possible to have zero minutes and zero seconds played in an NBA game but have a turnover. Justin James did it on 12/26/19, . He threw an inbound pass off the rim and out of bounds. (One of those rare events that threw an algorithm off.)

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

I used arcsin in sports analytics work today to determine the pass a player needs to make to hit a moving player. Kids, keep studying math.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 months

A quick overview of what I'll be putting into the new book. This is on Royce Webb's new site, Royce having been the longtime ESPN editor who really led a lot of people to basketball analytics via @johnhollinger , @kpelton , @TrueHoop

Introducing ... Basketball Beyond Paper!

Dean Oliver's new book and what it's all about

www.roycewebb.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

1 year

KP was the most receptive player I ever worked with to analytics. It was great working with him. (Pictures with him also made me look like he was my dad because he's so much bigger.)

Boston Celtics

@celtics

1 year

first day in the 📚

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

22 days

The cover of my book is out, pre-orders are available. Feels more real. Available November.

Basketball beyond Paper - University of Nebraska Press

As a follow-up to Dean Oliver’s Basketball on Paper, Basketball beyond Paper recounts the insights gained over Oliver’s twenty years of experience using statistics to understand basketball.

www.nebraskapress.unl.edu

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

3 months

I'm teaching an online course in analytics beginning in April. There will be some insight on my upcoming book as well.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Let's just keep celebrating @manuginobili , the most underappreciated basketball great that ever played (and that I know of). Prepping for him and Tim Duncan was absolutely brutal.

Ben Falk

@bencfalk

6 years

I have data on Cleaning the Glass for the last 15 seasons. 2017-18 was only the 2nd time in those 15 seasons that the Spurs did not have the point differential of a 60-win team or better with Manu on the court. In six of those seasons they played like a 68+ win team.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

11 years

Dribble charts for Melo his last yr in Denver vs 2013 in NY. You can see how much less he's attacking paint. http://t.co/SFa5uoXYvK

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

Under Ty Lue, the Cavs have won 66% of their games. Under David Blatt, they won 68%. Under Lue, the O got 5 pts/100 poss better than under Blatt, but the D got 5 pts worse.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Using the language of how GMs often think about players, this classification system works with pretty simple rules.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

I lost my sight (and looks) to an infection more rare than winning $500m Powerball. I pushed myself so hard in a bike race to end up on life support. Yeah, life is hard, but all that came before the public ever heard of me... Work harder and smarter.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Hmm, Anthony Roberson has been out since 12/29 and this is how the team has done defensively (in green). I have Roberson as the best floor defender in the NBA this year.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

This is a cool cartoon version of my talk at NIST yesterday. I know what I said and I still liked looking at it.

Rob Dimeo

@Rob_Dimeo

7 years

"Basketball Analytics" - Sketchnote of @DeanO_Lytics ' excellent NIST colloquium on analytics for modeling basketball performance data.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Charles Barkley: "Basketball is very simple: offense, defense, rebounding,and turnovers." I guess that's his Four Factors.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

11 months

"The hardest thing to coach is decision making." I would agree. Getting too complicated makes decisions inaccurate or too slow. Getting too simple makes decisions inefficient.

How the Warriors shook up their player development department

The Warriors are built around their veteran core, but the difference could come with how their youth is developed.

www.nytimes.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Ben and I haven't explicitly worked together in probably 10 years, but we have a lot of the same guiding thoughts on basketball and analysis. The following are his thoughts on how lower level basketball coaches can use data.

Ask Ben: High School Coaching Stats

How can high school coaches use statistical analysis?

cleaningtheglass.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

The Warriors with Durant playing with Draymond generates an O efficiency of 123, D efficiency of 108, net of +15. Durant w/o Draymond or Draymond w/o Durant is nowhere near as good. It's ironic, but they need each other more than any pair on the Warriors.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Jacob is projecting not only wins but offensive and defensive performance. Even when wrong about a win total, this kind of projection is good because you can see why/how. (That also can show you got O and D wrong, but total right.)

Jacob Goldstein

@JacobEGoldstein

6 years

I added a Wins Likely Range, which is a 90% confidence interval, into my live win projection tracker:

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 years

There are a lot of basketball people behind $Chedda - John Wall, Duncan Robinson, Eric Spoelstra, Buddy Hield, and Alex Len. Crypto linked to sports access. Interesting.

BitMart

@BitMartExchange

2 years

🎉 #BitMart has opened the deposit feature for @CheddaToken 🚀 $CHEDDA/USDT pair will be tradable at 10AM EST, Mar 10 🔥 To celebrate the listing, we are giving away 4,816,000 CHEDDA 🔥 👉 Deposit: 👉 Details:

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Quinn Cook had 5 threshold losses this year - basically games where the Warriors would have won had he not played - and 0 threshold wins - where Ws would have lost without him. That -5 difference was 3rd worst in NBA behind Kevin Knox and Jabari Parker.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 years

A problem w/media coverage of sports analytics is that it groups all analytics together. Some analysts/analytics are better than others.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

No basketball updates for a week or so. I'm going off grid. There's nothing in my contract that says I can't do crazy risky things. So I'm going rock climbing and ignoring the world for a few days.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

10 years

With a spot open at ESPN in Analytics, http://t.co/lBFxY3kxdY, we hire mostly how @fivethirtyeight does, http://t.co/FiG9o4rJXw

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Warriors took 32 layups to Toronto's 18, but made just 50%, their second lowest percentage this year. Cousins making 1/6 didn't help. On the other hand, Toronto had roughly their 10th best shooting game of the year. Danny Green's best O night of the playoffs.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

I'm a big believer in the value of metrics, but "metrics fixation" in the way described can be a problem. There are dumb metrics. There are dumb ways to use metrics. Remember that they're a guide to making things better, not a crutch to be lazy with.

David Shaywitz

@DShaywitz

5 years

Key argument of ⁦ @jerryzmuller ⁩ Tyranny of Metrics book, re: metrics fixation. Essence: “not everything that’s important is measurable, and much that is measurable is unimportant.” Cc ⁦ @FrankPasquale ⁩ ⁦ @nntaleb ⁩

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

4 years

No sports on TV, so I watched a film on when the NBA last suspended a season due to mysterious illness. That's right, I watched Space Jam. MJ dunked on some evil toons and kept the world from Moron Mountain.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Dear Tankers - Remember 2013 when teams tanked for a top 5 pick? And they all missed out on the best player in the Draft - Giannis at #15 ? (And Gobert at #27 ) On average, top 5 drafting teams pass over 3-4 players who end up better than who they took. #TankingFails

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 months

I'll share this again, in part to thank WIRED for doing a great job on this. It was an interesting set of questions and, seriously, it ain't easy putting my face in a video.

Sports Statistician Answers Sports Math Questions From Twitter | Tech...

Statistical analyst and ex-NBA assistant coach Dean Oliver visits WIRED to answer sports math questions from the internet. What’s the most efficient shot to ...

www.youtube.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

I've been lucky to work with some great people, in and out of sports, on and off of teams, many of whom will never get publicity. It's good to see @bencfalk get some from @SI_ChrisBallard ,

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

9 years

Michael Lewis reviews @R_Thaler , who does work that feeds into sports analytics. http://t.co/c3a0pvTlyA

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14

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

There have been 72 triple-doubles this year, 11 of which have been net negative contributions. Westbrook has 7 of those 11 negative triple doubles (and 12 positive ones). He's had 22 negative triple doubles in the last three seasons, more than the rest of the league combined.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

LeBron may have more weapons,but Curry's 3 is the most deadly single weapon in the league.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

A former student put together a simple classification scheme for players - Superstar, Star, ..., Reserve, Fringe. It comes from a more GM/coach/eye test perspective and is easy to implement. His article

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

2 years

The annual Lucky-I'm-Alive Day. 24 years since coming off life support. A lot good has happened since then.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

Some rookie progression numbers this year. Doncic has dominated, next three picks have been OK and steady. Trae Young has leveled off after a terrible start.

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11

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

10 years

NBA: Best O with 5s or less on shot clock: GSW. Best D with 5s or less on shot clock: GSW. I'm guessing Coach Jackson emphasizes this.

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51

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 months

Rule of thumb for box scores: +/- totals for ATL starters was -60, or -12 per player. +/- totals for the bench was +30, but divide by 5 (not 4) to get +6 per player because there are always 5 on the floor. The rough estimate: starters cost them 12, bench got them 6, losing by 6.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

6 years

Threshold Wins are when a player has enough total net points to take a team from losing to winning. M Harrell, D Fox, and J Embiid, for instance, all had Threshold Wins last night. Good performances in fairly tight games. Here are leaders in rate of getting them since 2011 seas.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

26 days

If broadcasters can make a reference to PER in the playoffs (as they just did), we aren't that far away from having them use an even better metric with all the stories it could tell.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

Warriors are still playing almost an entire quarter per night in garbage time. 22% of their minutes, 21% of possessions.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

5 years

JVG is overthinking it. It's an open shot with under 5s on the shot clock. Reasonable floor balance. You're not going to get a better one.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

4 years

Uh, Basketball on Paper? 😀

Morris: Clippers relying on being good 'on paper'

A day after the Clippers blew a 16-point lead in Friday's Game 5 -- allowing the Nuggets to stave off elimination -- Marcus Morris Sr. explained it as the team leaning on "being as good as we are on...

www.espn.com

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

8 years

I have a tool to look at substitution patterns. Here are some diverse players. Durant subbed by everyone. Impressive w/subs as PGs and PFs.

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Dean Oliver

@DeanO_Lytics

7 years

Some teams know this, but tanking in the NBA doesn't actually work on average. It takes LONGER to be good by tanking than by building.

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