This Week's Show
- NBA Playoffs Rounds 2
- Franchises players and "Advanced Stats."
- Defunct NBA Franchises
Hosts
- Andres Alvarez (@nerdnumbers)
- Produced by Brian Foster (@boxscorebrian)
Sources
You can watch us live at twitch.tv/nerdnumbers; we usually go Tuesday or Wednesday at 9:30 pm EST. Follow us on Twitter and we'll keep you posted!
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Video Show
Show Notes
Dre's Kobe Impersonation
To start the show, we ignore the NBA to talk crazy stories in the hosts weeks that caused a delay in taping. We also discuss Brian's "hot take" on Game of Thrones season 6. Of course, we make some WWE comparisons.
Playoffs
Some smart people aren't sold on the Raptors:
I've got Round 2 Picks fresh off the presses. pic.twitter.com/TMNRmOhwWM
— The man with the #'s (@ArturoGalletti) April 30, 2016
We talk the Raptors crashing and burning in the playoffs. I make a Kobe Bryant to DeMar DeRozan comparison, but not the one you'd think! Also, we can just admit we all want Cleveland versus Miami in the conference finals.
We talk how the Cavaliers are being a "Coach Brian" team in shooting tons of threes and starting Tristan Thompson.
Bizarre finish aside, I can't buy that the Thunder compete in this series. It took everything to squeak out a close win. A bigger story to me is LaMarcus Aldridge's absurd play and if the Spurs can get four Finals MVPs on the squad.
Hats off to the Blazers for getting as far as they did. Warriors, you make sure Curry is 100% before he gets back on the court.
Franchise Players
We talk about teams that have recruited franchise players. We even use it to give LaMarcus Aldridge a little more credit.
We talk more about flaws in conventional wisdom in basketball analytics.
There are many fantastic theories in basketball analytics that only require ignoring data and history to perfectly explain everything.
— Andrés Alvarez (@NerdNumbers) May 5, 2016
We regularly cite Joey Harrington's post on not being a bust and the issue of putting so much weight on top draft picks.
Just some "math" on the Philadelphia 76ers:
Hinkie won 47 games in last 3 seasons. 76ers would have to average 66 wins/year to be a "mediocre team" over 6 years https://t.co/qRa3jIC9R6
— Andrés Alvarez (@NerdNumbers) May 4, 2016
Fun articles bashing "Real Plus-Minus." We intend to talk this more but do talk it a bit this week.
Reminder, our Comparison Engine, explains why we think a player is good or bad. This is an important piece of a metric. If you can't explain why you like a player, it's not useful.
We bring up the distinction between being busy and being productive (a theme on recent Freakonomics Podcasts). It's an issue I see all the time in analytics, data and work on their own don't always result in useful analysis.
We talk about the hot hand research, a subject I know way too much about, but think is a time waster regarding analytics. I do bring up one paper about how the hot hand may be undetectable, though!
Defunct NBA Franchises
We talk the Kings a bit more. Can they get worse? Great Deadspin piece on them.
We talk Byron Scott getting fired. The NBA is a weird place where people like Scott and Hinkie can come out and act as if they had a good plan.
Shouts Outs
I shout out the great site nbametrics.com, which uses Net Points and adjusts for league average. Two things I can get behind. The Twitter account is @NBA_Metrics.
Brian shouts out Leicester City and their Premier League victory. He also shouts out the band, the Earl of Leicester. Apparently those are both pronounced "Lester.