The Value of LeBron, Durant, and Curry - The US Olympic Trio
The USA men’s basketball team took gold in Paris after an epic comeback win against Serbia in the semifinals and a nail-biter against host France in the final. The team was led by legendary NBA trio of LeBron James, Kevin Durant, and Stephen Curry. In this analysis, I’ll take a look at the value that these three superstars have added to their NBA teams over their careers.
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How Should NBA Coaches Use Their Challenges?
For the 2023-24 NBA season, the league adopted a new policy allowing coaches a second challenge if their first challenge results in a successful overturn. NBA coaches successfully challenge out-of-bounds calls at a 77.7% clip; they successfully challenge foul calls at a 53% rate, and on average, they are successful with 59.5% of their challenges.
But what is the optimal challenge strategy for an NBA coach?
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Should You Intentionally Foul With a 1-Point Lead to Secure the Final Possession?
Team A is leading Team B by one point. Team B has the ball with 10 seconds to go. If Team B’s two-point field goal percentage is higher than 50%, which is the case for 29 of the 30 teams in the NBA this season, they could be the favorite to win the game, despite trailing by one point. In which situations can an intentional foul by Team A swing the win probability back in their favor?
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Paraball’s March Madness Bracket
The brackets are in and one of the most exciting weeks of sports is about to begin! This year’s March Madness tournament features top seeded UConn, looking to defend its title and become the eighth program to repeat as national champions—the first to do so since Florida in 2007. The bracket also features some potential Cinderella teams that have had tremendous seasons in weaker conferences. Who will come out on top?
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Opinion: NBA Should Stop Counting Full Court Shots against a Player’s Field Goal Percentage
For my first Paraball Notes opinion, I argue why the NBA should stop counting full court shots against players' field goal percentages, analogous to how the MLB does not count sacrifice bunts or sacrifice flies against batters' batting averages.
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How to Stop The Celtics?
The Boston Celtics are off to an incredible start. They are 18-0 at home, with the best record in the NBA. According to the Simple Rating System, which takes into account both point differential and strength of schedule, the Celtics are the best basketball team since the 2016-17 Warriors, who had each of Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green in their primes.
In fact, the Celtics don’t have any glaring weaknesses. In this analysis, I will look at the team on an individual player level, to find weaknesses that defenses can exploit to beat the Celtics.
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What is The Most Important Position in Basketball?
The NFL has realized the value of the quarterback: their contracts dwarf those of their teammates and the league has made it a priority to protect them from injury. In basketball, is there a particular position on the court that holds greater value when compared to the other four?
This generation of basketball has seen tremendous talent emerge in the small forward and power forward positions, notably LeBron James and Kevin Durant. The previous generation had one of the most impactful centers of all time in Shaquille O’Neal. So are we able to determine which is the most important position on the basketball court? In this analysis, I will make a go at it.
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From '96 to Today: Unveiling the Most Efficient Scorers From the Field
In my previous basketball analysis, I looked into the optimal shot location in today’s NBA and identified the most and least valuable shooters from the field.
In this analysis, I am broadening my scope: I will examine all shots taken dating back to the start of the 1996 season, to determine which players would be the most efficient scorers from the field if they played in today’s NBA, to assess how shooting efficiency has improved over the years, and to evaluate shooters that were the most valuable when accounting for the league average efficiency in the year each shot was taken.
Does The “Hot Hand” Exist in Basketball?
There exists an age old debate among researchers and statisticians as to whether “hot” exists in sports, i.e., that a person who experiences a successful outcome has a greater chance of success in his next attempt. Tom Tango does a great job determining whether batters and pitchers go through hot and cold streaks in baseball in “The Book”, and Gilovich, Vallone and Tversky (1985) famously studied the phenomenon in basketball.
The idea of the “hot hand” fascinates me from both a cognitive and statistical perspective, and in this analysis, I am making my own go at determining whether the phenomenon exists in the NBA.
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What Are The Expected Points of Shooting From Each Location?
With the NBA season well under way, it’s time for my first basketball analysis!
The NBA has evolved into a three-point shooting league, with 39% of shots taken in the last 3+ seasons (from 2020-2021 to the current 2023-2024 season) being three-pointers. That figure has risen steadily from just 3% of shots being three-pointers in 1980. This fact got me thinking: What are the expected points per shooting location on the field?
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