Chasing perfection : a behind-the-scenes look at the high-stakes game of creating an NBA champion / Andy Glockner.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Glockner, Andy, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

National Basketball Association.

Basketball teams--United States.

Basketball teams.

Basketball--United States--Statistical methods.

Basketball.

National Basketball Association--Forecasting--Statistics.

Basketball--Economic aspects--United States.

Basketball--Philosophy.

Basketball--Economic aspects.

Forecasting.

Statistics.

United States.

Genre:

Statistics.

Physical Description:

vii, 274 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First Da Capo press edition.

Place of Publication:

Boston, MA : Da Capo Press, 2016.

Summary:

"Basketball team building is the ultimate challenge as the NBA level and the last few years have seen a massive change in the amount of money, technology, and approaches to finding and evaluating players. This process starts at the high school level, goes through college, and culminates in the NBA, where the ability to identify and cultivate talent is at an absolute premium. Media and fans like to talk about "busts" when a player doesn't work out, but in truth, it takes a complete team/franchise culture beyond any evaluation system to ensure the greatest chance of player success. Spanning the entire amateur and pro basketball landscape and using the 2014-2015 NBA season as a prism to a much larger story, Chasing Perfection is a fascinating, all-access spin through the inner workings of the smartest minds at every level of the game, all of whom are part of the chase for an end goal that may be impossible: establishing certainty in player acquisition. It is part quant/analysis/data and part philosophical/theoretical, but all interesting. It is about the ongoing, relentless, high-stakes quest to find what national sports writer Andy Glockner calls "Perfected Players" and what ultimately happens to them at the highest (pro) level. Chasing Perfection explores those players who, by the end of their run through high school and college and into the NBA, hit as many qualitative and quantitative predictors of future success as possible"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Chapter 1 A Brief History of Modern Basketball Analytics 9

Chapter 2 The Basketball Technology Revolution 29

Chapter 3 Analytics Believers and Doubters 47

Chapter 4 The Hunt for Future Perfected Players 75

Chapter 5 Faster, Stronger, More Explosive 105

Chapter 6 The Tricky Art and Science of Turning Data into Wins 127

Chapter 7 How the NBAs Best Teams Were Built 163

Chapter 8 No Single Path to Mining Talent 193

Chapter 9 The World's Most Perfected Player 217.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780306824029

0306824027

OCLC:

942600330