Basketball on Paper: Rules and Tools for Performance Analysis

Originally got this for an obsessive 8th grade basketball player, but I also found it absorbing myself. (I do have a general interest in stats and team dynamics, but mostly associate basketball with sprained joints and PE nightmares!) The general idea is to develop a set of statistical tools and mental models for evaluating individual and team strengths and weaknesses. I appreciated the thought around accounting for team and player interactions and the nuanced analysis of contextual factors that complicate comparing any given statistic. I found the style very readable, and there are a lot of interesting bits of basketball history and generally useful ideas that are accessible even without following the maths. However, it's worth sitting down and thinking through the numbers and try applying the methods to really see how these models work. I did worry that the book would be a bit too dry and quantitative for its recipient. However, that young man dove in and stuck with it despite many Christmas day distractions. A fun read for nerds, and a good resource for serious players, coaches or anyone interested in what makes a lineup click or how to usefully compare teams and players.

While Oliver's methods and approaches are all applied to the NBA game in this book, they nevertheless can be applied in whole to the collegiate game. After reading "Basketball on Paper" over the last year and watching the 2009-2010 college basketball season, I can truly say that this book has revolutionized how I view a basketball game -- all for the better. Without giving away key premises, Oliver truly dives deep into the fundamentals of how a basketball game works to determine tools to evaluate how teams and players do just past the final score. Typical cliches are challenged -- some proven, some shown to be irrelevant -- as he puts a statistical and logical argument behind why the proposed approaches are superior. And I agree with his results. After focusing on them over the past year, I can truly say that this book has helped me further understand how and why a team wins just behind the final score. Diving into the box score alone can reveal hidden gems that you might not have thought about otherwise. If you're a stat nut, a basketball fanatic, or some sort of a combination of the two, this book is a definite must read. Considering that this is one of the greatest books I've ever read, I'd say it is worthy of a five star rating.

Service by Amazon was perfect, on time and brand new condition. The book is interesting as I expected, and I beleive Oliver adds some wit and humor that helps in the drier sections, but the book tends to get a little listy. For example, it will show you the scorer's sheet for an entire game, when maybe only a half is necessary. Or it will give you the top 30 offenses of all-time, when a list of ten might be more managable. There are also some typos in the book that the editor should not have missed. All in all though, it's a great purchase and a very educational and interesting read.

Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper is a must read for coaches and those interested in statistics. This book provides a significant amount of information leading to the genesis of sports analytics in basketball. A book about statistics I thought might be difficult to read but I found the flow to be quite easy and enjoyable

Fun to read. Can't wait to use so e of the goodies on my 5th grade team on the fall.

As a statistician, and someone who also loves sports, I have totally enjoyed the "new" satistical approaches to sports stats, from tversky to moneyball to learning you should never punt. Sports arguments are often a lot more fun these days (e.g., 90 percent of the ESPN analysis on NBA draft night is how well the players scored the ball in college, when that appears statistically to be only a minor indicator of professional success. The problem I have with much of the literature aimed at the general public though, is that is over simplifies the problems, and all to often takes away the argument by assumption. John Maynard Keynes taught us that the big problem with statistics is not the methods, it's having no way to validate the numbers we put in. So here we have an assumed method of picking the best offensive and defensive teams in history, no discussion of why most of those teams did not win a championship, no discussion of alternative methods. We get probabilities of winning streaks, but only a couple paragraphs on problems with those stats. (player injuries as the only example.). What about the fact that NBA teams almost always lose the second game of back to back road games? What about teams tanking at the end of the season to improve draft position? I appreciated large parts of this book, but also found myself deeply frustrated with it at points. There are better books out there for people who want to get started on modern sports statistics.

I have been using the formulas and ideas presented in Dean Oliver's book for the past three years. I was never a math fan, but my spreadsheets for calculating basketball statistics are the most complicated I have ever created and it was this book that started my obsession. The book inspired me with a fascination over a new way to look at the game and the players that bring it to life. Mr. Oliver's work was just a starting point and over the past few years I have added other formulas and other mathematical approaches to looking at the game, but I would not have gotten anywhere without this book. It is an essential tool in my toolbox for evaluating and enjoying the game of basketball.

If you are a numbers geek, want to write a paper that evaluates some area of basketball, or are looking to develop a way to evaluate what your team/ players contribute to the game, this book is for you. There an interesting chapter on the "best players ever"; but for the most part Dean Oliver does exactly what the title says; he gives us tools for performance analysis at a level of understanding and sophistication that only he can provide.

Ho acquistato questo libro nella speranza di riuscire a padroneggiare le statistiche avanzate come avviene nell'Nba. Risultato raggiunto. Se cercate un libro con tecnicismi ed aspetti statistici di altissimo livello questo è il libro che fa per voi. Per poter leggere il libro è necessario essere ben preparati in inglese

Everything was top class!

Como indica el titulo, es la opinión de mi hijo que es al que iba destinado. Le ha resultado interesante y le ha aportado datos a los que él quería recibir. Todo lo relacionado con el Basketball le interesa muchísimo y lo ha disfrutado a tope. Gracias Saludos

Very interesting book, that provides an excellent run down of statistical methods for evaluating teams and players. It is well written and the writing style is engaging. I would highly recommend this book as an introduction to basketball analytics and a reference tool for those already interested in the subject.

easy formulas to improve the reports about games