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Analyzing the NBA Offensive Revolution with Machine Learning
Categorizing 8 years of NBA offenses Much ink has been spilled over the NBA’s analytics revolution, most of which has been focused on the consequences of teams fully realizing that 3 pointers are worth 150% as much as 2 pointers. I’ve previously looked at categorizing offenses from the 22-23 season with machine learning. The same…… Read more
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The best Pokemon type combinations according to game theory
Finding the Best Pokemon Types A couple of years have passed since I used game theory to find the best Pokemon type, time I spent enjoying the vast riches that this discovery has brought me, sleeping soundly knowing that the world was safe from worrying about what Pokemon type is the best, as I had…… Read more
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Four types of “junk” candidates and some thoughts on how to model them
While analyzing some approval voting election results, I came across a problem that I attributed at least partially to “junk candidates”: candidates who, whether due to their radical political views, dearth of charisma, or general weirdness, can’t realistically achieve substantial support. When approval elections featured lots of candidates, voters didn’t vote for as many candidates…… Read more
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Categorizing NBA Offenses with Machine Learning
In an age where old heads are complaining that every team plays the same (but anyone who watches games can tell you this is not at all true), I got to thinking about how many different types of offenses there really are in the NBA. I wondered, as any normal person would, “How well can…… Read more
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How valuable is each NBA draft pick?
The lottery balls bounce your team’s way, and they jump to the 4th overall pick despite having had the 6th worst record. How much better off should you expect them to be because of their good luck? How much worse off would they be if they had dropped to the 8th pick? How much better…… Read more
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The NBA MVP voting system is actually good. Voter fatigue might make it better.
The NBA uses a variation of what is called a Borda Count voting system to select its MVPs, where voters (100 American and Canadian media members who aren’t affiliated with teams) are asked to rank their top MVP candidates, and then those candidates are given points based on where they are ranked on each ballot.…… Read more