Welcome
Issue 33! Welcome first-timers and old-timers.
For your entertainment this week, we start with a deep dive tutorial for R by using NBA career stats, followed by a paper highlighting in-play expected points for basketball and football. A new metric is introduced for soccer, and does scoring first in football make you good or do good teams just score first? Tricky one, right? Lastly, a fun technology update for shot tracking data is getting incorporated into broadcasts.
This Week's Lineup
Using R to Display NBA Player Career Stats
A legit step-by-step tutorial for R. It extracts data from basketball-reference.com and concludes with visualizations for a player's career stats.
Using Player Tracking Data to Analyze Dynamics in Basketball and Football
Published paper that talks about the idea of in-play expected points in both basketball and football.
Developing A New Metric: Heading
In soccer, it can be a viable and legitimate tactic to build a team looking to dominate aerially. A new set of metrics focused on heading has been created and includes the following. Expected goals, finishing, attacking, and defending set pieces, plus a few more.
Does Scoring First In The NFL Make You A Good Team? Or Do Good Teams Just Score First?
Classic chicken or the egg question. In 2021, teams that scored first won 63.2% of the time through week 15. And since 2000, the first team to score went on to win 64.5% of the time. But does that make the team good?
ShotTracker Added To ESPN Big 12 Conference Bball Games
Fun little addition to Big 12 college basketball broadcasts, implementing ShotTracker technology.
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