Basketball: Theory and Practice, Raw Data Versus Analysis, True Shooting and More

Basketball theory and practice diverge. Dr. James Naismith warned, "basketball is an easy game to learn and a difficult one to master." 

One of my pet peeves is raw data. "Susie led the Appaloosas with twelve points." That gives no insight as to her scoring effectiveness. She may have scored on four shots or twenty. 

The video explains measures of scoring efficiency. I'm not saying that data manipulation turns mediocrity into excellence. But data is nuanced and true shooting percentage tends to be 'normally' distributed. 

"Well, that's bad coaching." As far as the NBA 2021 true shooting percentage leaders, no Boston Celtics player landed in the top 80. Not to say that shooting is independent of coaching. 

The NBA True Shooting Percentage is 56%. 

Career True Shooting Percentage Leaders. FYI, Wilt Chamberlain had a career true shooting percentage of .547 and NBA Finals TSP of .529. Free throw shooting drags the number down. Michael Jordan's career TSP was .569. Larry Bird's was .564. Magic Johnson's was .610. Walt Frazier's was .542. Sam Jones (Mr. Clutch?)....503. Pete Maravich was .500. It's one measure, not the Holy Grail. 

Player proficiency at three point shooting has raised the TSP of the top players. Always consider statistics in the context of the era. 

"Statistics don't mean that much." Maybe it depends on which statistics we examine, for example VORP.

If we look at VORP (value over replacement player), the top five are Jokic, Curry, Giannis, Doncic, and Lillard. 

"I know what I see (the eyeball test)." Get granular. "It's the details."

Jayson Tatum shoots best in the restricted area (despite "contestedness") and his midrange game isn't nearly as good as I would have guessed. Although his corner 3 percentage is lower than above the break, he takes relatively few. 

Kevin Durant had a 65 percent true shooting percentage and is effective almost everywhere.

With more data, granular analysis is better. 

Lagniappe. Thoughts on building vision. I think you have to play and study the results and watch the film. 

Lagniappe 2. Simple actions create high quality shots. 

Lagniappe 3. Learn across disciplines. "The Swedish Investor" shares "The Psychology of Money" from Morgan Housel. Lessons translate.

1. "Pay the price." You want to excel? 

2. What is enough? Each of us decides.

3. What are our values? Stick to our circle of competence. 

4. Peekaboo. We cannot see around corners. The unexpected. Black swans.

5. The Seduction of Pessimism. Pessimism doesn't pay. 

"Let’s say you put two finance basketball experts in front of each other. Both will come up with their own best strategies. Although both are experts on the same topic basketball, they may make different decisions. What’s causing that? Beliefs cause the difference in the opinions.

Give an example. At one point, Coach John Calipari parlayed '1 and done' recruiting into epic success. Others chastised him for his approach...and then copied him. "Try to come up with your own ideas. Experiment yourself."

"Most of us aren't good at compounding... If you keep writing every day for a year, you won’t be the same person anymore. I mean, you would turn into an amazing person. Put another way, if you keep adding small victories each day, you will become highly skillful." Or as I say, "we make our habits and our habits make us." There's "negative compounding" too. If we buy a $3 coffee every day for 10 years, that's far more than $10,000 in coffee buys.