Category: Bryan

Potential Records

Personal story

  • none

All of the hard data (career games played, PER, college statistics, past NBA draft results) I need for my story is publicly available, via NBA.com/stats and  basketball-reference.com. The pool of players I’m looking at is pretty big: players drafted from 2003 – 2011 (they have >5 years worth of NBA Data to look at; avg. NBA career is 4.8 years).

Team story:

  • current team rosters (e.g , Grayson)
  • Transfer migration patterns in GA high schools

High school records can be hard to track, but we’ve  already started compiling a list of local HS football transfer transfers to contact. We may need to file open records request to know the amount of transfers (within GHSA) over the last few years;  some patterns may emerge once we parse the data (like if there’s an area or school most transfers are leaving)

Personal Story // Memo

I’m looking at how age/college experience of NBA Draft picks correlates to NBA success. The independent variable (primary predictor) I’m keying in on is the amount of college games played, in 5 Tiers:  <10 , 10-33 , 31 – 60,  61-90 , 91-120+.The dependent variable will be # of NBA games played.

Graphics

  • Im think of plotting the player points  in a 4 quadrant graph to plot the points data. My pool of players would be players selected in the last 20 years (that may be ambitious), with color coordinating for lottery (1-15), first round, and second round picks.

Key questions:

  • What are some other determinants for NBA success?
    • PER, career Prass (Points+Rebound+assists) average
    • major award winners
      • MVP/ROY
      • All-NBA team appearances
  • Why hasn’t the Brandon Jennings theory caught on?
    • Some blue chip HS players like Brandon Jennings, Jeremy Tyler chose to forego college and play overseas for a year before coming to the NBA. Tyler is out the league, and Brandon Jennings is a sixth man for the New York Knicks (his 4th team in 7 years)

Sources:

  • Agents
  • Players (going to Hawks media day Monday)
  • Coaches //and scouts if available
  • NBA media members (Woj, Zach Lowe)

 

Story Ideas

One story idea I have for the L2M reports is a stats-heavy numerical analysis of how accurate NBA refs are throughout the games. I could see if the refs get better or worse as the game goes on.

 

Another story idea is to see how NBA players of draft eligibility  perform based on age they are when drafted. (The NBA recently changed rules on when players who declared for the draft could renege on their decision.) I could look at the performance of players based what age / year in college they were when they left college. (Milwaukee Buck rookie Thon Maker evaded the one-and-done rule by going to prep school after he graduated high school. He said he avoided going to college because he wouldnt be focused on grades. The fact that was eligible at 18* in itself could be  a story .  )

 

The NCAA changed a few rules before last season (shot clock, 3-foot arc). I could go back and look at how the rule changes affect pace of play, TV ratings and how how long the game were before and after rules, as well as player and coach reactions.

 

My final story would be to examine how close gap in becoming between USA basketball and the rest of the world. Although the Olympics are over, I could look at how many international players have joined the NBA and NCAA since ’92, as well the performance of international players in the NBA, NCAA and in international youth competitions.

Story Questions

When looking the Last 2 Minute reports, some questions that could drive the reports are:

  • How accurate are refs on a given night?
  • Does any other professional sports league reveal this type of information?
  • Will Commissioner Adam Silver continue to release the reportS?
  • What will the NBRA (National Basketball Referee Association) do if the NBA doesn’t meet their demandS?
  • How do coaches and players feel about the reporting?

This story on NBA.com show the NBRA’s reaction the reports after the season. The union wants the NBA officials  to at least make reforms to the process if they won’t abolish it.

Here the NBA defended the referee’s after a two controversial calls after  two different playoff games. The article even gives a few statistics about how accurate referee’s are (which is about 90% of the time).

Charles Barkley shared his opinion about the L2M report, saying its one of the stupidest thing the NBA has done. Barkley point out how slow motion replays make the refs job easier but they also make them more prone to scrutiny when they miss a call.

This column in The Washington Times goes in depth on how the L2M reports undercut the referee’s jobs. The article says the practice is pointless because we already know that mistakes happen, that refs make bad calls and miss good ones throughout each game, not just at the end.

The referees missed five calls in the last 13 seconds of a NBA Playoff game decided by one basket, but this article says the refs are not to blame. It points how the whole game is just as important as the last two minutes.