Basketball’s best-kept secret is the manner in which it exposes the ways humans think analytically; the fluidity of its events and “optimal” thinking handle abstract concepts which are prone to reduction. Namely, during a Knowledge Revolution in the midst of exponential growth, the lack of agreement on what constitutes “knowledge” has complicated the acceptance and interpretations […]

This is the first season for which I’ve done the Retro Player of the Year project, but it’s worth noting this isn’t the NBA’s inaugural season. That was actually the 1946-47 season, in which the league was known as the Basketball Association of America (BAA). For a myriad of reasons, but mostly related to the […]

Premise This year, I was curious if a player’s box scores, his team’s record, and miscellaneous factors could accurately predict how likely he is to win the MVP. Wielding the results from past award voting—supplied by Basketball-Reference—I got around to establishing patterns among these types of indicators to forecast who’s most likely to win the […]

While the NBA’s MVP has no criteria (and I guess this is a good thing), there’s definitely a set of underlying themes that circulate the ballots every season. There are countless examples from which to draw online. You’ve got those who prefer “the best player on the best team.” Some treat the premise of “value” […]

Analytics are imperfect, and we’re all aware of it. Proponents refer to them as ballparking measurements. I’ve used the “one size fits all” sock as an analogy, in which certain metrics tend to “fit” players better or worse depending on things like playstyle and modeling techniques. For my money, they’re pretty decent estimates of player […]