Basketball≠Moneyball?

A friend asked me to comment on this article, which was published by Michael Lewis in the New York Times. It is related to this article, published on by Howard Bryant on ESPN.com.

The first article discusses how teams use statistics to assess performances. There are definitely methods to evaluate effectiveness beyond points, rebounds, steals, blocks, and assists. Plus/Minus, Player Efficiency Ratings, Points-Created, and Win-Shares all offer a more balanced approach. Billy Beane decided to eschew batting average in favour of on-base plus slugging percentage and other statistics, which was catalogued in Michael Lewis’ book Moneyball.

Given the success that the Oakland Athletics experienced with a limited budget, Beane and Lewis experienced sudden fame. The term Moneyball became part of the vocabulary of sport to describe any situation where a team relies heavily on statistics. Other General Managers refused to deal with Beane because they felt that he knew something which they didn’t. A film was in production.

Now, the public perception of Moneyball is different and the film has been cancelled. First of all, it will likely be revealed that the Oakland clubhouse from 1999 to 2003 was the one of the most juiced in the majors. Drafting low-ceiling college players pays off when they increase their potential artificially. Secondly, even during their peak, they never won a playoff series (maybe if Jason Giambi had slid into home plate). Thirdly, after the initial crop of stars left, Beane has been unable to replace them.

Is an overreliance on statistics to blame? The Boston Red Sox have won two World Series since 2004 and they also use statistics. However, they also draft elite talent to stock their minor league system who can be called up (Dustin Pedroia, Jacoby Ellesbury) or traded to acquire needed players (Josh Beckett, Victor Martinez).

But like the balance between quals and quants in financial analysis, there is not a single correct solution. A junior gold company may have a great chart but not enough gold in its mines. As New York Yankees General Manager Brian Cashman said: "You need someone with a high degree of common sense that surrounds himself with a strong team to run an efficient business. You have to have a blend, and he'll gravitate toward the best possible solutions.”

Inbreeding of ideas and conservatism are to blame. Taking one idea to an extreme is problematic. According to the Howard Bryant article, some believe that the Moneyball emphasis on walks leads hitters to become more concerned with seeing pitches than hitting pitches. It’s like if a coach told Allen Iverson that he had to pass first because that’s what point guards do.

Red Auerbach was one of the most open-minded coaches ever. Auerbach didn’t care how Bob Cousy made the pass, as long as it got there. He never discussed statistics with Bill Russell, only winning percentage. Those were the best approaches for those particular players.

Michael Lewis wrote about the Houston Rockets and their use of statistics. According to the Houston front office, Shane Battier is one of the most effective players in the Association in terms of how he plays defence and contributes to the team offence. Trevor Ariza is a good signing and I am sure that his high effective shooting percentage and tipped passes were part of the reason that he was signed. However, the Rockets will go nowhere without someone who can take over the game, since it appears that Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady will not play much next year.

When you are allocating the mid-level exception or signing complimentary pieces, Moneyball is a good idea. But eventually, they will need a player who can create his own shot. The Triangle Offence worked well for the Los Angeles Lakers’ second unit but in the playoffs, the team had to relied on the weak-side two-man game or isolations for Kobe Bryant to score.

Using Moneyball in basketball is not a new idea. I’m not sure if the Oklahoma Thunder still employ the idea under Sam Presti but they are in a good situation with a promising young roster and plenty of cap room. Still, they needed to draft an elite player such as Kevin Durant to lead their team.

Any coach should define their own set of statistics that suit their systems and the skill set of their players. Aside from statistics which track points created and chemistry among different combinations of players, these criteria should be revised and updated with each season. After the season, there should be some sort of evaluation to determine if the outcome validates the process.

Interesting stats for basketball include: fast-breaks initiated, moving the ball to the open man, effective shooting percentage, turnovers caused by dribbling or passing in a rushed manner due to overdribbling, ball reversal speed, forcing a pass on an odd-person transition, (1) forcing the dribble and (2) forcing the dribble to the left, tipped passes, help and rotation speed, hedging/shocking the ball screen, boxing out, and low shot-clock situations.

Not all of these situations can be recorded with hard data (such as a shot chart); others are more subjective (like defensive communication). To play up-tempo basketball, there are decision making criteria to watch (initiating the fast break, moving the ball to an open man) but they are mood if the player cannot execute basic skills at high speed. The A’s have guys who can take pitches but not necessarily the bat speed or the eye to hit a cutter into the gap with runners on base and two outs. They reached they have reached their ceiling for 2009 and their record and attendance ($) shows.

The goal is not to do the best you can with less but be the best. The Oakland Athletics and Houston Rockets are not the models to follow but the Boston Red Sox and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Malcolm Gladwell and Full-Court Pressure

A friend asked me to comment on this article, which was published by Malcolm Gladwell in the New Yorker.

First of all, Vivek Ranadivé is incredibly self-centered and should reevaluate why he wants to coach twelve-year-old girls. This statement does not absolve his counterparts of their boorish, loutish, and short-tempered behaviour but he is coaching at the wrong level. Usually, that particular age group restricts full-court pressure because of the destructive effects on skill development. If he had limited practice time, Randivé should have focused on fundamental skills.
Obviously full-court pressure would work; most teenagers make horrendous decisions under any type of pressure. It’s entirely different when rick Pitino does likewise at the University of Louisville because of the difference in skill level and age.

T.E. Lawrence did what any intelligent person facing long odds would do: he changed the paradigm under which he was operating. It’s what the Viet Cong did to the U.S. Army, what David did to Goliath, and what Digger Phelps and Fordham did to Doctor J. and the University of Massachusetts. One of Gladwell’s arbitrary set of examples that is appropriate is Tibco software because that company understood that they needed real-time information and accurate analysis to surpass larger competitors.

If a “skilled” youth team executes at an acceptable level, full-court pressure will bedevil their players. If a team executes at an elite level, they will pick full-court pressure apart. There is a reason that the favourite in war wins 71.5%. The underdogs don’t win because they are better at war but because they change the particular type of war that is being fought (which is exactly what anyone who is short-stacked should do).

Gladwell acknowledges this fact in effect on page two of the article but continues with another seven pages of dilatory, pedantic, and superficial logic. He is right about one statement: need fuels innovation and dire need accelerates the creative process.

The article discusses two possible outcomes for a mismatch: the underdog changes the game and prevails or favourite crushes them. It’s incredibly rare that the underdog does not alter the conditions of the battle and prevails (prevailing only due to luck, perhaps). Princeton didn’t try to beat Georgetown in the paint in 1989, they tried to cut and pass around them.

If a Major League pitcher has a great fastball but poor control, the batter should make him throw strikes or wait for his pitch. If the pitcher has a great fastball and precise control, their talent will overcome the batter (except for the element of chance, such as when Kirk Gibson took Dennis Eckersley long).

Pressure has its place, at the right time, in the right situation, and against the right opponent. Against the tremendous talent of the superior talent of teams such as the Chicago Bulls and the Boston Celtics, Rick Pitino won only one playoff series during his Association coaching career. Michael Jordan (1989) and Larry Bird (1988) picked his team - the New York Knicks - apart.

I Never Had It Made

Jackie Robinson - who debuted for the Brooklyn Dodgers fifty years ago - recounts his career in sport and business in his book, which he titled I Never Had It Made.

Although known primarily among the general public for his baseball career, Robinson devotes scarcely more than a third of the book to the topic, covering his experiences in politics, business, and raising a family. Two basic lessons that the reader can take away are how adversity affects all sorts of people and it’s important to preserve nonetheless and that it is never to late to change one’s course in life, if one is willing to work and learn.

Robinson’s exploits on the diamond show athletes from all sports the value of smart, aggressive play and a determined, competitive nature. Obviously, his role breaking baseball’s colour barrier and the dignified way that he handled himself is a well-known positive example.

Throughout the autobiography, Robinson isn’t afraid to admit occasions when he did not succeed and would have acted differently if he could choose again. Nobody’s perfect and the ability to self-evaluate and reflect, irrespective of success or failure, is an important skill in life and sport.

The Death of NYM/STL Is/Has Been Greatly Exaggerated

The team with the best record has not won the World Series since 1998. I have been guilty have making ill-informed predictions although I have been keeping them on an informal basis for some time. This year, I thought that the Yankees lineup would see too many pitches and wear out opposing pitching staffs. This didn’t happen. I was more accurate in the National League Divisional Series but by the time the N.L.C.S. rolled around I had learned not to make predictions. I thought the Cardinals would stick around to at least make a competitive series but otherwise I had not real idea.

Pundits buried the Cards before the series. The Mets were dismissed heading into Game 4. Then St. Louis had no chance and now New York can’t hit Chris Carpenter nor field a reasonable Game 7 starting pitcher. One Cy Young winner in this series is out for the year and both of the others have been lit up during their starts. St. Louis can get to the New York closer. The only effective pitchers have been the ones who have been erratic throughout their careers so John Maine and Darren Oliver may be as effective as Pedro Martinez and Tom Glavine.

It seems like St. Louis should win by riding Carpenter’s arm, or because New York has no arms to ride. But they still have to play the games. Nobody thought Detroit would be in the World Series – during Spring Training, May, August, or before the playoffs – and even though they will have an advantage over the National League team, they are not the sure thing they have been made out to be.

Sport allows any team to win at any time. Why bother predicting? Just play. Furthermore, N.F.L. favourites are only 33-36-5 against the spread so far this year.

Stream of Consciousness, Part II

Charlie Weis mishandled the closing moments of the Notre Dame - USC game. He should have used his timeouts to stop the clock once USC got in the red zone. At least Notre Dame would have had thirty seconds to drive for a game tying field goal … I’m really interested in what happens with the Astros - Cardinals series. Houston could be completely crushed as a result of that slider Albert Pujols crushed in the top of the ninth. Nevertheless, starting Roy Oswalt and Roger Clemens in games six and seven and their mental toughness gives them a chip and a chair. (Because of what happened in game 5, it’s the Astros who have the chip and the chair, not the Cardinals. That was a huge psychological hit for a jinxed franchise) … I designed a zero post motion offence today based on option like reads. It’s rather particular and relies on a player who can screen and shoot, as opposed to a traditional post presence … It’s old news but Mike Scioscia did an excellent job in Game 2 of the A.L.C.S. That dropped third strike was a terrible call, mostly because the umpire clearly called the batter out. Scioscia made his case but didn’t make a big deal out of it. The Angels lost because of Chicago’s ridiculous starting pitching, not the missed call.

5hrs 41min of Madness

Some of Phil Garner’s decisions last night adversely affected his team. First of all, the athletes on the field (the Houston Astros) were given several excellent chances and could not execute. They share a great deal of responsibility because they did not deliver any clutch hitting. But it is questionable as to whether the best Houston line-up was on the field at times.

Garner has had a strong post-season and made some great moves. Clemens and Burke in Game 4 of the N.L.D.S. were examples of the right players at the right time, as was Vizcaino pinch-hitting in Game 2 of the World Series. It’s one thing to go all out and lose; Houston will discover that it is much worse to lose when you did not use every tool available.

Coaching isn’t social work. I have no doubt that Jeff Bagwell and Ezequiel Astacio are nice gentlemen but they shouldn’t have been in the game in those spots. Garner will be the subject of a flurry of second-guessing that will remind him that coaching is much more about “what have you done for me lately?” than on-field loyalty (off-field/off-court value systems needn’t be comprimised.)

Bagwell no longer possesses the bat speed to handle a pitcher like Jon Garland and it would have been extremely surprising had Astacio preserved the tie. W - Marte (1-0), S - Buerhle (1) looks odd but it did the job. As Homer Simpson opined, “you don’t make friends with salad,” and you don’t win the World Series with Ezequiel Astacio while Roger Clemens, Andy Pettite, and Brandon Backe sit on the bench. The Astros could not afford to go down 3-0 in games and should have employed dire measures.

In October, the goal is winning and coaches must disperse with equality in favour of equity and excellence. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts…