Say you’re Miami Heat coach Erik Spoelstra. You’re on the road, in the last five minutes of a close game, facing a key decision: Who do you want shooting the ball? Conventional wisdom says get the ball to LeBron James. But data gleaned from a trove released online by the NBA shows that Chris Bosh is a better bet.
In a clutch situation — when leading or trailing by five, in the last five minutes of a road game — Bosh has been nearly perfect this season, making 10 of 11 attempts. That isn’t to say James is a slouch — the man has made 18 of 39 shots in the same situation. But it’s clear who’s better when the pressure’s on. And it’s exactly the type of insights coaches and fans can glean from the deepest set of stats the league has ever released.
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NBA.com/Stats is an amazing treasure chest fans can use to settle a bar bet or analyze their favorite basketball team’s most effective lineup with a few clicks of the mouse. It began as a password-protected tool for journalists and league personnel. But after a design makeover and the addition of a powerful database from SAP, it was ready for a public debut during All-Star Weekend. The league began by digitizing the box score of every NBA game ever played, so it’s as easy to find details on Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962 as it is to find last week’s Lakers’ score.
Such information will no doubt be a huge hit with fans who still debate whether the 1992 Chicago Bulls were better than the 1996 Chicago Bulls. But it also will be a powerful tool that scouts and coaches can use to evaluate players and make tactical decisions. In addition to Bosh’s sharpshooting prowess in tight road games, the site reveals that the Houston Rockets’ James Harden has nearly 100 more fast-break points than anyone else in the league, and his inside-outside skills make him the only player so far this season to score 200 baskets from inside five feet and 50-plus baskets from 25 to 29 feet away.
The filters and splits in the tool let you take deep dives into the data and come up with some esoteric results. Want to know who led all rookies in the 2002-03 season in three-point percentage? Boston’s J.R. Bremer, an undrafted free agent from St. Bonaventure, hit 35.3 percent of his three-pointers. After two seasons in the NBA, Bremer went on to a long career in the European pro leagues.
Inside the site, you’ll will find shooting charts for each player, showing both where they like to shoot from and where they’re most successful. (Not always the same thing.) Other statistical breakdowns for players and team include performances per possession, in the clutch, team performance when a particular player is in the game and on the bench, and each team’s best combination of players over the past seasons.
It’s all built on SAP’s HANA database, chosen for its speed and flexibility in handling queries. Capable of handling even larger data sets than all NBA stats from the past 67 years, HANA’s strength lies in providing quick responses to a nearly unlimited combination of stats. League officials estimated that if the site were built with flat files to accommodate all the potential permutations of data, they’d need 4.5 quadrillion pages to hold them.
“The NBA has had all of this data, but there really wasn’t a technology out there that was going to allow them to get it out there in a way that could scale,” said Steve Peck, senior vp of global strategic initiatives at SAP. “Our in-memory database lets people go in there in real time and come up with a new idea.”
Updated stats will be available about 15 minutes after each game and any page can be shared on Twitter, Facebook, or Google+.
While there’s plenty to appeal to stat heads, the NBA has built in a few learning tools that open the door to more casual fans. The home page lists the league’s top five scorers, but also spotlights and explains a deeper stat known as true shooting percentage (TS%): a percentage that takes in account the value of free throws, regular two-point baskets, and three-point shots.
Ken Catanella, the director of basketball operations for the Detroit Pistons, said the site’s features could help team officials evaluate players and help coaches with tactical decisions. For example, a chart of shots taken this season by Boston Celtics star Paul Pierce confirms that his favorite spot on the court is the right elbow, where the free-throw line and lane marker come together. Heading into the All-Star break, Pierce was shooting 45.4% (50 of 110) from that area. If you force him a step or two back, however, Pierce’s shooting percentage drops to 29.7% (25 of 84).
“We’d look at a team’s or player’s tendencies: What’s their comfort zone and how can we get them out of their comfort zone?” Catanella said. “If somebody’s used to going to their sweet spot to score, you might want to consider putting them in a different spot they don’t feel so comfortable in.”
Other sites, including Basketball-Reference.com, HoopData.com, and 82games.com, have had these comprehensive stats available for some time, but Steve Hellmuth, the NBA’s executive vice president for operations and technology, believes NBA.com/stats has the edge with better tools for fans to analyze what’s happening on the court.
“I was talking with someone the other day who said he expects coaching staffs to hear a lot from NBA fans after this,” said Hellmuth, who added that video will soon be added to the site so fans can see the game action behind the numbers. “This is a whole new category for fans to see what is going on on the court.”
Biggest Ever NBA Data Trove Will Settle Your Next Bar Bet
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Biggest Ever NBA Data Trove Will Settle Your Next Bar Bet
