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Jonathan Lowe

Professor Pompos

ENC 1102

7 March 2024

Annotated Bibliography

Through the research that I’ve conducted on advanced statistics in basketball and the

analytical discourse community that surrounds them I have concluded that the current conversation

is the same as it’s been since advanced statistics were introduced into basketball, are they even

worth discussing? Answering that question is nearly impossible as there are many cases in which

the interpretation of these statistics accurately depicts a team’s or even just a player’s skillset. For

example, University Wire interviewed James Whitford, a former basketball coach for Ball State

University and found that coaches believe advanced statistics to be a means of improvement within

a team. Stancin and Jovic have proven this as well through their findings with various statistics

derived from NBA teams with winning records and teams with losing records. Players, however,

tend to disagree and tend to dismiss these statistics as “useless” or more accurately stated by

Charles Barkley, a former NBA player, “It’s just some crap that people who were really smart

made up to try to get in the game because they had no talent.” Whatever the stance may be, none

can accurately answer the question. I cannot either but I plan to bring this discourse community

one step closer to an answer.

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Through my own research, I have found that there is one thing that not many have

considered, is it our interpretation of these statistics that creates discourse within the basketball

analytics community? With differing perspectives comes differing opinions. Statistics in the NBA

are abundant and observing one or two players simply will not do when conjuring an answer to

this question. I plan to use the perspectives of the people, the coaches, and the players to provide

research that may help us in our pursuit of knowledge in basketball analytics.

The research that I have conducted ranges from my own interpretation of advanced

statistics to audience members who have conducted research similar to this for years. Through the

observation of varying viewpoints, I plan to bring forth new information regarding the validity of

advanced statistics and whether our interpretation of them is linear to a player or team’s

performance in the NBA. The perspectives found through the interviews that I have conducted and

the online discussion forums that I have read through will add yet another piece of evidence to the

claims of Stancin and Jovic and Sanguesa through the analysis of prominent jump shooters such

as Michael Porter Jr. I also plan to look at how exactly these statistics hold up when observing

actual winning records in relation to winning contribution statistics. Though an answer may not be

found through this research, I plan to use these sources as a driving force to lead this community

towards an answer that satisfies mine and other’s claims.

Dirk’s genre analysis is the main framing concept I plan to include in my literature review

section of my research paper. A common theme throughout Dirk’s genre analysis was the passion

that would be required of a writer when studying genres. He feels that it’s important as it allows

for you to have a deeper connection with your discourse community and provides you with the

ability to create meaningful connections within your research. Dirk’s assertion was the catalyst for

my decision to analyze advanced statistics in basketball as a common theme throughout his writing
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was to analyze a genre that you previously know and are comfortable with. This method has

allowed me to keep myself motivated in the pursuit of my research and has provided me with a

deeper understanding of the rhetorical choices made by members of the basketball analytics

community. Choosing a topic that I was passionate about has also altered my viewpoints when

coding my primary sources as I find myself creating opinions of players. Dirk has allowed me to

become a subject of my own research.

In University Wire’s article, he interviewed James Whitford, the Ball State University’s

head coach from 2013-2022 with the intention of understanding the analysis that Whitford

undergoes after each game. According to the article, Whitford would be emailed the advanced

statistics for his team. These statistics include, True shooting percentage, defensive rating, player

efficiency rating, and many others. However, one statistic stood out for Whitford, defensive points

per possession (DPP). This metric is to be interpreted as it is read, how many points a team allows

per possession defended. Whitford believes that though this statistic is indisputable when

observing whether a team’s defense is good, it doesn’t exhibit where a team might need work. This

claim places Whitford on the side of the basketball analytics community that believes advanced

statistics truly depict how a player or how a team performs specifically on the defensive side of

the game.

This source is a good representation of the audience’s perspective on advanced statistics

and how the analysis of these statistics is used to create professional opinions on players and teams.

Whitford’s perspective will serve as a professional’s utilization of this genre to analyze not just a

player’s skillset but a team’s skillset as well. This also serves as an audience member’s opinion

that is without emotion as it’s a coach thinking objectively rather than a fan thinking emotionally

with predetermined feelings. I plan to use this as an example of the opinions formed by audience
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members turning into positive feedback for a team or player. This will also give insight into how

players utilize the feedback from their coaches and training staff to become better players. I plan

to use University Wire’s source in the results section of my paper as I feel it would serve as a

strong example from professional’s perspective on basketball analytics.

In this secondary source, the author, Adria Sanguesa, suggested a cost-effective alternative

to our current methods of tracking advanced statistics in basketball which could entirely change

how they are to be interpreted. In this article, Sanguesa and others analyzed notable NBA 3-point

shooters such as Stephen Curry, to find a more accurate way of discerning a player’s “openness”

through various cameras set around the court. Sanguesa suggests that “open/tough shots cannot be

generalized into a single model” (Sanguesa). As an alternative, these trackers will consider the

distance of the closest defender to the shooter creating a whole new statistic that considers three-

point shooters contested shooting rates versus their open shooting rates.

Initially, I found this source to be interesting rather than it being necessary for my paper

but after reading through it, I found that I may benefit from its usage in my paper. This is

groundbreaking as it gives an accurate depiction of a player’s jump shooting and finishing ability

while also promoting a cost-effective way of exhibiting these statistics. I plan to use this as both

an overview of certain advanced statistics and as an example of how the discourse community is

evolving by the day. I plan to use this source in the discussion section of my research paper as it

represents the evolution of advanced statistics before our eyes and how the research that I’ve been

gathering is a part of this process.

Stancin and Jovic provided me with probably the most statistical data that exhibits a team’s

correlation between their performance and advanced statistics. Stancin and Jovic conducted

research into various advanced statistics including Rebound chances, Contested field goal
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percentage, uncontested field goal percentage, etc. Their statistics were taken from two NBA teams

(teams not mentioned) where one had a winning record (won 41+ games) and a losing team (won

less than 41 games). Stantin and Jovic initially claimed that “everybody will make their

uncontested shots with approximately the same percentage and that the difference between

winning and losing teams would be a better percentage of contested shots” (Stantin and Jovic).

Upon analysis, they refuted themselves as they realized that the losing team was more likely to

shoot (and miss) contested shots than the winning team while the winning would make contested

shots at higher rate with a lower volume and uncontested shots with both a higher rate and volume.

I included this as means of exhibiting how advanced statistics show a team and its players

abilities when it comes to shot making, rebounding, defending, and playmaking. This is important

as it serves as professionally conducted research into the correlation between advanced statistics

and winning capabilities of teams and players. I plan to use this as data and as an explanation of

other points I plan to make throughout my paper. This also serves as an example of Dirk’s genre

analysis as they have conducted research based on previously collected data to properly

communicate these messages. This piece will be included in the literature review section of my

research paper as it gives insight into how these statistics are interpreted as well as to provide the

audience with information on advanced statistics (what they are, what they mean, etc.)

Advanced statistics are something I truly believe to be invaluable when dictating the overall

performance of a team, however I don’t believe that these statistics hold up when observing a

player’s skillset. Through the research that I’ve conducted, I’ve come to one main conclusion, a

player’s usage rate in comparison to the rest of their advanced statistics is the best way for a

member of the basketball analytics community to analyze these stats. The main component of the

database that summarized this was the description of a player’s usage rate which was described as
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“An estimate of the percentage of teams plays used by a player while they were on the floor.”

(Basketball Reference) This led me to analyze the trends in offensive efficiency when observed

from the volume of plays in which they used to create a shot out of. A player’s performance when

interpreted from a stat sheet can be skewed by the number of offensive plays that are drawn up for

them, their position and who they are tasked with defending on the defensive side of the ball, and

the number of minutes they play on any given night. For example, Nikola Jokic was named as the

NBA’s most valuable player while leading nearly all the offensive advanced statistics. Due to his

unselfish playstyle, he ranked 33rd in the league for usage rate, however, he ranked 1st in offensive

sets that were drawn up for him to either be immediately responsible for setting up another player

or for him to score himself. On the other hand, a player like Tyrese Haliburton hovered around the

top five for offensive advanced statistics himself with a lower usage rate and lower minutes per

game with a higher offensive efficiency. This insight shows that a player’s skill can be both

overexaggerated and overlooked. This will be used in my results section to exhibit my own

interpretation of my research.

The second of my primary sources that I will be analyzing is from a reddit thread in which

a member of the basketball analytics community argued that win shares (WS) and win shares per

forty-eight minutes (WS/48) are poor statistics that do not accurately depict a player’s contribution

to a win. To give some insight into what win shares are, they are a metric that is calculated from a

multitude of a player’s statistics, both defensive and offensive, to determine how likely they

contributed to a win. A positive win share is favorable as it shows that a player contributes to wins

rather than holding their team back from a win. The writer utilized LeBron James’ and Dirk

Nowitzki’s playoff performances from 2011 and James’ and Anthony Davis’s regular season

performance from 2020 as examples supporting the times the WS metric falls short. To summarize
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this, Davis and James had nearly identical statistics in 2020 yet despite James finishing higher in

Most Valuable Player ladders, Davis had the higher WS. As for 2011, it was the same argument

as Nowitzki defeated the team in which LeBron was on, the Miami Heat, in the NBA finals and

yet LeBron still topped Nowitzki’s WS total. In the end, I was brought to the conclusion that the

WS were heavily impacted by defensive efforts as Davis finished second in the voting for the

league’s Defensive Player of the Year and James was notoriously a better defender than Nowitzki

despite losing to him in the NBA Finals.

I plan to use this primary source as a direct example from the community as to how a

player’s skillset is perceived due to advanced statistics, namely WS in this case. In my research

paper, this will assist in answering the question of how the audience’s perspectives are altered, if

altered at all, through the observance of advanced statistics and it will serve as a solid focal point

for the question I’ve developed through my research which is, are advanced statistics even an

accurate way of determining a player’s skillset? This will give more insight to the community as

to what advanced statistics serve as fair metrics for player analysis. This will be included in my

results section of my research paper as a rhetorical analysis/interpretation of the discussions that

the basketball analytics discourse community is currently deliberating.

I conducted a series of interviews with a few of the members of the basketball analytics

discourse community to find more information regarding my research question. Through these

interviews, I found a trend in the opinions that arise from the analysis of advanced statistics which

is that a lot of specialist’s skillsets are accurately depicted whereas superstars are skewed due to a

variety of factors. The notable factors included a player’s usage rate, their defensive rating and the

players per 36 minutes statistics. A line that depicted this was when I was interviewing my final

interviewee and they said, “When looked at from a statistical standpoint, [Luke Kennard] would
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never be described as an all-time great shooter despite being a frontrunner for three-point

efficiency while a guy like [Paul Pierce] is praised when shooting 37% on 4 threes [per game].”

When observing a specialist’s advanced statistic, one thing to take note of is that their overall

player efficiency rating (PER) is rather low as that is a stat that takes all “positive” statistics into

account (points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks) while their offensive or defensive efficiency

ratings might be much higher as they might specialize in those statistics. An interviewee referenced

Michael Porter Jr. a small forward for the Denver Nuggets, who is known as a “3 and D” forward.

While Porter Jr. had only a 16.8 PER in the 2022-2023 NBA season (highest: Nikola Jokic 31.2),

he had the highest three-point efficiency and percentage for players shooting 6+ three-pointers per

game.

I plan to use this as an example of times in which advanced statistics may be skewed in

favor of players with a higher usage rate. I also used this as an opportunity to gain knowledge of

these advanced statistics for my research paper. This is probably the most important part of my

research paper as we’re able to see current perspectives that are answering my research question

first-hand. I also plan to use this as a connection to the other sources that I have within my paper

to further exhibit the results of my research. I plan to include the interviews that I conducted in

both my methods section and my results section of my research paper as it shows the ethical

decisions I made during the interviewing process and the findings that I have derived from it.
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Works Cited

A.A. Sangüesa, T. B. Moeslund, C. H. Bahnsen and R. B. Iglesias, "Identifying Basketball Plays

from Sensor Data; Towards a Low-Cost Automatic Extraction of Advanced Statistics,"

2017 IEEE International Conference on Data Mining Workshops (ICDMW), New Orleans,

LA, USA, 2017, pp. 894-901, doi: 10.1109/ICDMW.2017.123.

iCE_P0W3R. “Is There an Advanced Stat That You Just Don’t Think Is Very Good?” Reddit,

Nov. 2023,

https://www.reddit.com/r/nba/comments/17eq7w6/is_there_an_advanced_stat_that_you_j

ust_dont/. Accessed 12 Mar. 2024.

I. Stancin and A. Jovic, "Analyzing the influence of player tracking statistics on winning basketball

teams," 2018 41st International Convention on Information and Communication

Technology, Electronics and Microelectronics (MIPRO), Opatija, Croatia, 2018, pp. 1533-

1538, doi: 10.23919/MIPRO.2018.8400276.

Whitford speaks on advanced statistics in basketball. (2015, Apr 14). University

Wire https://www.proquest.com/wire-feeds/whitford-speaks-on-advanced-statistics-

basketball/docview/1672971716/se-2

“2022-23 NBA Player Stats: Advanced.” Basketball, www.basketball-

reference.com/leagues/NBA_2023_advanced.html. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.