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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 2/4 (b)—With or Without Worm
I recently realized that if I don’t speed up my posting of this series, Rodman might actually be in the Hall of Fame before I’m done. Therefore, I’m going to post this section now, and Part 3 (which...
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UPDATE: 2010 NFL Season Neural Network Projections—In Review
Before the start of the 2010 NFL season, I used a very simple neural network to create this set of last-second projections: Clearly, some of the predictions worked out better than others. E.g., Kansas...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 3/4(a)—Just Win, Baby (in Histograms)
First off, congratulations to Dennis for making the Hall of Fame finalist list for 2011. The circumstances seem favorable to his making it, and if I had to guess I’d say he probably will. While his...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 3/4(b)—Rodman’s X-Factor
The sports analytical community has long used Margin of Victory or similar metrics as their core component for predicting future outcomes. In situations with relatively small samples, it generally...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 3/4(c)—Beyond Margin of Victory
In the conventional wisdom, winning is probably overrated. The problem ultimately boils down to information quality: You only get one win or loss per game, so in the short-run, great teams, mediocre...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 3/4(d)—Endgame: Statistical Significance
The many histograms in sections (a)-(c) of Part 3 reflect fantastic p-values (probability that the outcome occurred by chance) for Dennis Rodman’s win percentage differentials relative to other...
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MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, Day 1: Recap and Thoughts
This was my first time attending this conference, and Day 1 was an amazing experience. At this point last year, I literally didn’t know that there was a term (“sports analytics”) for the stuff I liked...
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Stat Geek Smackdown, Round 1: Leftovers
I’ve been invited to participate in TrueHoop’s “Stat Geek Smackdown 2011” on ESPN.com. Unfortunately, I won’t actually get to smack any stat geeks, but I will get to pick NBA playoff series and...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 4/4(a): All-Hall?
First of all, congrats to Dennis for his well-deserved selection as a 2011 Hall of Fame inductee—of course, I take full credit. But seriously, when the finalists were announced, I immediately...
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The Case for Dennis Rodman, Part 4/4(b): The Finale (Or, “Rodman v. Jordan 2”)
[ADDED: Unsurpisingly, this post has been getting a lot of traffic, which I assume includes a number of new readers who are unfamiliar with my “Case For Dennis Rodman.” So, for the uninitiated, I’d...
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Graph of the Day: Alanis Loves Rookie Quarterbacks
Last season I did some analysis of rookie starting quarterbacks and which of their stats are most predictive of future NFL success. One of the most fun and interesting results I found is that rookie...
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A Defense of Sudden Death Playoffs in Baseball
So despite my general antipathy toward America’s pastime, I’ve been looking into baseball a lot lately. I’m working on a three part series that will “take on” Pythagorean Expectation. But considering...
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Tim Tebow and the Taxonomy of Clutch
There’s nothing people love more in sports than the appearance of “clutch”ness, probably because the ability to play “up” to a situation implies a sort of super-humanity, and we love our super-heroes....
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Thoughts on the Packers Yardage Anomaly
In their win over Detroit on Sunday, Green Bay once again managed to emerge victorious despite giving up more yards than they gained. This is practically old hat for them, as it’s the 10th time that...
View ArticleSports Geek Mecca: Recap and Thoughts, Part 1
So, over the weekend, I attended my second MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference. My experience was much different than in 2011: Last year, I went into this thing barely knowing that other people were...
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Championship Experience Matters! (Super Bowl Edition)
To complete “Championship Week” at Skeptical Sports, I thought I’d post a little fun research I did before this year’s Super Bowl. Like basketball, teams with championship-winning experience outperform...
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Sports Geek Mecca: Recap and Thoughts, Part 2
This is part 2 of my “recap” of the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference that I attended in March (part 1 is here), mostly covering Day 2 of the event, but also featuring my petty way-too-long rant about...
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The Clock: A Graph and Some Thoughts
If you’re a hardcore follower of this blog, you know that one of things I have frequently complained about is the failure of NBA play-by-play data to include the shot clock. It’s so obviously important...
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Don’t Play Baseball With Bill Belichick
[Note: I apologize for missing last Wednesday and Friday in my posting schedule. I had some important business-y things going on Wed and then went to Canada for a wedding over the weekend.] Last week I...
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I’m Joining FiveThirtyEight
The title pretty much says it all. In January I’ll be starting a real j-o-b as a “Senior Writer, Sports” for the new ESPN-backed FiveThirtyEight, due to launch in February. So I thought I’d better say...
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