The “short or long but never midrange” theory of NBA shooting has been popular in analytics since at least the early 2000s. Statistically, 3-point shots have long been more efficient than long 2-point shots: The reward — an extra point — has outweighed a slightly lower completion percentage. So, the theory goes, teams should eschew […]
The world of sports research has grown exponentially over the past decade, a trend nowhere more apparent than at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, the industry’s highest-profile exhibition. Sloan has ballooned from 175 attendees at its inaugural event in 2007 to nearly 3,000 visitors a year ago at the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition […]
The world of sports research has grown exponentially over the past decade, a trend nowhere more apparent than at the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, the industry’s highest-profile exhibition. Sloan has ballooned from 175 attendees at its inaugural event in 2007 to nearly 3,000 visitors a year ago at the sprawling Boston Convention and Exhibition […]
On Thursday, after LeBron James and the Miami Heat won their second consecutive N.B.A. championship, I noted on Twitter that James was on the same pace as the Chicago Bulls great Michael Jordan. Both James and Jordan won their first championship at 27 and their second at 28, I wrote. Jordan went on to win four more N.B.A. titles, for a total of six. Mike Segar/Reuters LeBron James and Michael Jordan were about the same age when they won a second championship. My statement depended on a technicality, I later discovered: Jordan’s biological age was 28 when he won his first championship, in 1991, and 29 when he won his second, in 1992. However, basketball statisticians generally define a player’s...
This story was originally published May 31, 2013. Once again, two U.S. teams, the Chicago Blackhawks and Tampa Bay Lightning, are headed to the Stanley Cup finals. Stanley Cup banners of the Montreal Canadiens, the last Canadian team to win the championship, hang from the rafters at Bell Centre in Montreal. The N.H.L.’s conference finals […]
