Right now, some of the brightest minds in Boston aren’t meeting to discuss nuclear research or an exit strategy for Afghanistan, but rather the concept of a “hot” shooter in basketball, whether there is such a thing as team chemistry, and how LeBron James will impact future labor negotiations.
Since 2007, the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference has attempted to bring the most innovative and thoughtful personalities in sports to discuss a wide range of topics. It has grown in popularity each year, mostly thanks to the attention given by perhaps the most famous sportswriter in the country, Bill Simmons. The conference attacks issues present in each sport, but I’m going to focus solely on basketball and some of the more interesting topics brought up.
At this time, the typical NBA fan looks at the box score on ESPN and sees the standard statistical measurements: Points, rebounds, assists. But anyone who’s watched or played basketball for a long time knows that games are often won not just on big buckets, but on key defensive stops, proper spacing to run plays, or battling for loose balls. If you watch a telecast the announcers will most likely call all these things “intangibles” or “Team A wants it more than Team B.” Of course players are humans, and humans are prone to emotions such as laziness, or an intense desire to compete. But what if teams could quantify effort? What if they could measure how hard a player worked?
We’ll likely never achieve that Holy Grail of analysis but advancements like Adjusted Plus/Minus have shed new light on how lineups are constructed in the NBA and how we measure the effectiveness of so-called “specialists” like Shane Battier or Bruce Bowen. Instead of looking at numbers in a vacuum, we’re now seeing more teams embracing context This sounds rather simplistic, but both the people who run the sports teams and those who write about them for a living are notoriously slow
to adapt.
Another interesting debate rose out of Malcolm Gladwell’s famous “10,000 hours” theory in relation to falling star Tracy McGrady, who at one time was one of the most dynamic players the league had ever seen. His former coach Jeff Van Gundy suggested that McGrady was somehow too skilled for his own good, which led to a decrease in practice time. In contrast, the practice habits of Ray Allen were brought up. The all-time leader in 3-point field goals made obviously spends a lot of time practicing jumpshots. But did you know that Allen practices so much that he’s capable of taking 1,000 jumpers at the exact same release point?
The most exciting (I use that term loosely) development for me was a presentation made by Sandy Weil. A number of NBA teams have enlisted the services of a company called STATS, LLC. They install a number of high-tech, 3D cameras in various arenas, which are then capable of capturing every movement on the basketball court and the exact location of each player. Spacing is key in basketball, whether it’s getting enough separation from a defender to take a jumpshot or creating passing lanes for cutters. This obviously affects the percentages of shot attempts, and not surprisingly the less space a player has to operate the less efficient he will be.
Another interesting find with these cameras is that the efficiency of catch-and-shoot (the bread8and-butter play of guys like Ray Allen and Reggie Miller) is much higher than almost every other shot. So while isolation-heavy guys like Carmelo Anthony earn a ton of superstar accolades, he isn’t necessarily an elite player because the bulk of his scoring comes in less than ideal situations (obviously he’s still really damn good). Also, shot attempts earlier in the shot clock go in at a higher percentage than those that come later. This correlates well with teams that force a lot of turnovers or play at a fast pace (Boston, Golden State, Phoenix).
The potential of this technology is vast. Teams could start charting shot percentages for their players in every situation and tailoring plays that maximize their strengths. For example, Warriors guard Monta Ellis is primarily thought of as a high-volume scorer who lacks traditional point guard skills. But shot attempts off his passes have a 60% success rate, so while he may not have great vision he is capable of breaking down defenses and creating good looks for his teammates. This is obviously just the surface of what was covered, but obviously without attending it’s hard to fully grasp the complexity of a lot of the topics. But it’s an exciting time for sports, or at the very least sports nerds.
We’ve long had a fascination with the plight of the werewolf. The whole concept of man turning into a large beast, well it’s the things of nightmares and really good movies. In my opinion there is nothing like seeing a really great werewolf transformation. It is the pinnacle of any movie featuring werewolves. We all wait to be awed by the technique. And we feel totally let down if the transformation doesn’t strike the right note of fear, shock, pain, and horror. I consider myself a werewolf purist in this regard. I can instantly tell when a transformation is going downhill. Mostly when you don’t see it happening. If a movie glosses over the transformation, then well, they’ve not done their movie and the genre service. If one minute there’s human and the next there’s wolf (especially a traditional quadruped wolf) then they’ve blown it.
Aside from any werewolf blasphemy, I love discovering a new entry worth its salt. The latest on my “super spectacular” wolf list is the UK version of Being Human. While the American version tries to stoke the same fires, it’s really the UK version that sails into respectable wolf genre territory. I’m halfway through the second season (So no one ruin the third season for me) and I’m pretty impressed so far with the wolf character “George” played by Russell Tovey. He strikes the right balance of fear, shame, and eventual acceptance of his curse. The horror and resignation is there, but also this sort of subtle charm that belies the real “monster” he can become. There is no CGI (Computer Generated Images) for the audience to lazily rely on. For a television show, an albeit gritty and no-holds barred television show, the graphic detail is phenomenal and the use of traditional special effects is impressive.
Werewolves in movies are not the sole interpretation of the likes of Stephenie Meyer and her bevy of non-shirted hunk-wolves. No, cinema and television have been the birthplace of the wolf for generations. And each new generation adds just a bit more to the lore to make a complete compendium of wolves from bipeds to quadrupeds, to full shifters to half shifters, to teenage wolves, wolves backpacking, girl wolves, boy wolves, middle aged wolves, medieval wolves, and King of Pop wolves — the curse runs the gamut.
But as we get even further into the 21st century the evolution of the werewolf is bound to take on even new shapes so to speak. Werewolves have often played second fiddle to their fellow monster brethren. Vampires have taken over the show, Zombies and their penchant for apocalypse have overshadowed the wolf, and aliens still manage to rake in movie dollars. The plight of the werewolf in modern times has been significantly reduced, mostly landing them in the B-movie category. Or shamefully worked into an overwrought period piece with not enough new elements to add to the genre, and relegating it to workable CGI (that they’ve built the whole movie on) and stunted acting from the stars of such film. See: Benicio Del Torro and Anthony Hopkins in a remake of The Wolfman. But I think the return of the wolf is coming, because just how many beautiful undead creatures can we really watch, and just how many chemical outbreaks can cause the Walking Dead? Somewhere, someone will establish a righteous ode to the moon cursed. And I’ll be waiting.
