Favorite Basketball Analytics Books?

[nileriver]

I am in the middle of reading through the classic "Basketball on Paper." I am looking for the next book to get and was wondering what everyone's favorites are.

[mtamada]

As with the first America's Cup yacht race, this may be a situation where "there is no second". I'll be interested to see if people have recommendations.

Thus your best best for reading might be articles, from JQAS, and stuff from NESSIS and SSAC -- papers if you can get 'em, powerpoints or videoclips if that's all you can get. Oh and the Northern California Symposium on Statistics and Operations Research in Sports (NCSSORS) too, although I don't know of that conference is continuing to happen.

[nileriver]

Thank you for the suggestions. I will definitely look into those.

[Neil Paine]

As with the first America's Cup yacht race, this may be a situation where "there is no second".

C'mon, how could we leave out Hollinger's 4 physically-published Pro Basketball Prospectus/Forecast books?

[Crow]

There may be "no second" yet. But there should be. Plenty of extensions and new topics / ideas worth covering.

[Mike G]

Perhaps one reason there aren't more books is that, by the time a book is printed, it's out of date?

[nileriver]

Perhaps one reason there aren't more books is that, by the time a book is printed, it's out of date?

I understand where you are coming from. The technology used in this field changes constantly. However, these books should not all be technical manuals. That is why "Basketball on Paper" is still relevant. It does go into some detail, but a lot of the book is about what he is trying to accomplish, what information should be used, and the inherent difficulties at getting accurate results. If books are written more at a theory level, their shelf-life should be relatively long. I do want to know the technologies that teams are using, but that can be gathered from other resources.

[leerichardson]

Not strictly basketball, But Nate Silver's Signal and the Noise has some parts about basketball, gambling, and how he made his baseball system. I found it interesting with a lot of carry-over to basketball possibilities, especially when he talks about how his PECOTA system will certainly be surpassed, when people create ratings systems using some of the more recent data being accumulated. In my statistics department, I think every single professor/grad student has read it.

[nileriver]

Not strictly basketball, But Nate Silver's Signal and the Noise has some parts about basketball, gambling, and how he made his baseball system. I found it interesting with a lot of carry-over to basketball possibilities, especially when he talks about how his PECOTA system will certainly be surpassed, when people create ratings systems using some of the more recent data being accumulated. In my statistics department, I think every single professor/grad student has read it.

Good suggestion. I just ordered it on Amazon and will hopefully start it this weekend.

[leerichardson]

Nice! Yeah it's hard to put down once you start it.

[Bobbofitos]

Loved signal and the noise.

[mbosset]

Again not strictly a basketball book, but the book Scorecasting is also a great read. Not as much analytic based as maybe you are hoping for but definitely an interesting way of looking at the game outside of the norm. Very interesting, very objective with statistical basis for every claim they make.

[nileriver]

I just finished Basketball on Paper and Sports Analytics. Both were good reads. I started The Signal and the Noise and have found it very interesting thus far. Scorecasting should arrive early next week, so I will start that soon. Thank you all for the great suggestions.

[talkingpractice]

I totally agree on Silver's book.

"The Book" by Tom Tango (its a baseball book) may not be a bad idea either.

[nbo2]

Mathletics by Wayne Winston is a good one for introducing things you can do with adjusted plus/minus variants.

It also might help to read Stumbling on Wins to 1) get some more ideas and 2) see how analytics arguments that don't have a good understanding of all the dynamics of the game can be flawed.