"Measure a thousand times, but cut only once." - Turkish Proverb
I've discussed Jim Collins' seminal work Good to Great. He describes the 'flywheel' of forces that drive great organizations. Collins and researchers found that technology doesn't drive success but adds value to successful companies.
We can envision many uses of technology and metrics to monitor team performance, ranging from conditioning to game understanding (quizzes with feedback) to performance.
Dean Oliver's landmark Basketball on Paper identified key metrics that drove winning, become the Sabermetrics analog for basketball. Bill James' ability to use complex statistical analysis in player analysis spurred "Moneyball" and helped the Red Sox win three championships. The Celtics' internal analysis of NBA statistics (personal communication) found guard rebounding correlated with winning. Oliver emphasized four key measures of success - shooting percentage differential, rebounding, turnovers, and free throws taken.
What surprised many was the importance of OFFENSE to winning. My mantra, "Possession and possessions" derives from rebounding and turnovers leading to POSSESSION and shooting percentage and free throws consequent to good POSSESSIONS.
With older groups in particular, we track player minutes (partly to assure 'reasonable' minutes), and assign varying values to player contributions.
For example:
+/- 3 points (drawing a charge, committing a charge)
+3/-3 making or missing a three point shot
+2 (offense) two point goal, assist, screen leading to a basket, offensive rebound
-2 (offense) two point miss, turnover, missed free throw
+2 (defense) steal, forced turnover, blocked shot
- 2 (defense) lost assignment, bad foul leading to free throws
+1 made free throw, defensive rebound, forced held ball
-1 allowed held ball, common foul
You can get extra points for the "hockey assist" pass, hustle plays (e.g. deflection in transition), et cetera.
I use the data to assess both team performance (e.g. shooting percentage, turnovers, rebounding) and individual performance (plus/minus). Jacking up a lot of shots (throwing mud against the wall) doesn't mean 'sticky' performance. Players can 'show up' as screeners, rebounders, stellar defenders without big offensive numbers.
Analysis:
Below minus 10 - really struggled
Minus 10 to zero - negative
One to plus 10 - positive
Plus 10 to 17 - strong contribution
18 and above - extraordinary performance
The highest score I've recorded for an individual on our teams was 26 and that's for sixth to eighth grade girls.
Players like the system because it credits them for contributions that don't readily appear in the scorebook. It adds value by identifying "needs" areas (e.g. shot quality, turnovers, free throw percentage). I tweak the system to fit my analysis, but it's far from definitive because it doesn't look at situational performance, opponent performance, groupings (e.g. did a stronger player appear weaker by playing with weaker players?), and so on. I don't have the resources to film, analyze, and get the most accurate data.
What 'tracking' does (see The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy) is quantify process and progress and allow trends to emerge objectively. It tends to expose weakness and reveal surprising strengths.
Ronald Paul Sen, MD
Melrose, MA
