Browsing All Posts published on »April, 2009«

How Sportswriters are Like Coaches: Explaining the Vote for Rookie of the Year

April 30, 2009 by

22

My last post focused on media’s decision to give the 2009 Rookie of the Year award to Derrick Rose.  The post began by noting that Rose was essentially an average point guard in 2008-09.  It then proceeded to offer the following argument: So why was he named Rookie of the Year?  The key issue is point […]

An Average Rose

April 28, 2009 by

46

According to 111 members of the sports media (out of 12o voters), Derrick Rose was the very best rookie in 2009.  Of the nine voters who differed from this conclusion, five preferred O.J. Mayo, two preferred Brook Lopez, and two preferred Russell Westbrook.  Of these choices, none was actually the most productive rookie.  But before […]

Thoughts on the 2009 NFL Draft

April 26, 2009 by

4

For a fan of the Detroit Lions, the annual NFL draft is the highlight of the year (yes, it’s sad to be a Lions fan).  After a 0-16 season – which in the perverse world of American professional sports was rewarded with the number one pick in the draft – the draft was an even […]

Jamal Crawford is Unlucky?

April 23, 2009 by

21

Now that regular season is over there are many, many stories to be told.  For example, I could – and probably should – talk about the Rookie of the Year (Derrick Rose is the best rookie?), the 6th Man of the Year (Jason Terry is the best 6th man?), the Coach of the Year (Mike […]

The Bottom 10% and One Big Reason Why the Celtics are Having Problems

April 21, 2009 by

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The NBA season ended last week and now we have (thanks to Basketball-Reference.com) all the data needed to measure each player’s Wins Produced (and WP48, Win Score, etc…) for the 2008-09 season.  With data set in hand, there are numerous stories to be told.   While most people start with the best (i.e. MVP, All-NBA, Rookie […]

Picking the First Round of the 2009 NBA Playoffs

April 16, 2009 by

7

Two years ago I placed third in the TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown.  As I noted when the final results were announced, Justin Kubatko and I based our picks solely on the numbers.  The difference was that I only considered the quality of the teams (as measured by efficiency differential).  Kubatko considered both team quality and […]

Looking Again at Implicit Bias in the NBA

April 15, 2009 by

20

Last week my sports economics class at Southern Utah University had a visit from Joe Price.  Joe is an assistant professor of economics at BYU.  More importantly – at least to readers in this forum – Joe is also one of the authors of the famous Price-Wolfers study.   Readers might recall that this was a […]

An Award for Joel Przybilla?

April 12, 2009 by

13

A few days I was asked the following by Henry Abbott (of TrueHoop): It’s possible he won’t qualify, but if he does come off the bench for more games than he starts, how crazy would I be to lobby for Joel Przybilla as sixth man of the year? The Competition To answer this question, we […]

The Other Better Bynum

April 9, 2009 by

6

Back in December of 2007 I observed that Andrew Bynum – who was much maligned by Kobe Byrant and others during the summer of 2007 – had improved tremendously in 2007-08 (relative to what we saw from Bynum’s first two seasons).  In fact, per-minute Andrew Bynum was offering – in a sample of just 17 […]

Marvin Webster Passes Away

April 9, 2009 by

2

Yesterday Richard Goldstein – of the New York Times – reported that Marvin Webster has passed away at the age of 56.  For those unfamiliar with NBA history, Webster – a.k.a. the Human Eraser – led the Seattle Supersonics to the 1978 NBA Finals.  He then signed with the New York Knicks only to have […]

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