Analytics Stories

CHAPTER 38Why Are the Houston Rockets a Good Basketball Team?

In 2000, my former student Mark Cuban hired noted sports statistician Jeff Sagarin and me (see twitter.com/jeopardy/status/1083830913077788672?lang=en) to analyze Dallas Mavericks players and lineups. According to Mark, we were the first NBA data scientists. Today, every NBA team has an analytics department (see www.nbastuffer.com/analytics101/nba-teams-that-have-analytics-department/). Teams are pretty quiet about what their analytics departments work on, but to the casual fan probably the most visible impact of analytics departments is the huge increase in three-point attempts since 2000. As shown in Figure 38.1 (see the workbook 3PtShooting.xlsx), three-point attempts have more than doubled since 2000. In fact, during the 2017–2018 season, more than half of the Houston Rockets' field goal attempts were three-pointers. As you can see, three-point shooting percentage has not changed much since 2000, so increased accuracy did not cause the increase in the number of three-point attempts.

Figure 38.1: Trends in NBA 3-point shooting

In this chapter, we will show how middle school math explains the rise of the three-pointer and why the Houston Rockets have consistently been a top 5 NBA team.

NBA Shooting Math 101

In many NBA ads, NBA players tell you “It's a make or miss league.” It's not as catchy, but the players ...