Stats are great, they have their use but slavery to them only allows part of the story and not the most important aspect, the "human Factor" as someone above mentioned. All sports comes down to one human vs another in competition. For example, if RJ has a game where he is 3 for 12, it should not define RJ as a 25% jump shooter, it ONLY helps the Monday morning QBs claim that RJ is a 25% jump shooter. It does not look at the human match up that RJ went against for that single game.
I had a season long argument with the chappell clown with JUng (Nate) jumping in at times with his typical stats argument. I say JWash is a big time jump shooter, said that because I watched him shoot and I watched the shots he took, I didn't need a stat sheet, I needed a set of eyes. I shared that JWash was our leading field goal % guy and was retorted with the "well JWash doesn't have enough sample size"? LOL Stats are great, I believe in them as well as helpful tools but they are not the end all and be all, they are just one tool in the tool box. It is a video game mindset that tries to insure the same out come where the human factor can not be pre-determined. I think the worst by far stat is the +/- rating for a kid in a game, I find it as an awful way of laying blame on a kid for a loss or a win when there are 4 other team mates on the floor every time he is in the game that also play a part in the result, I now see this stat showing up in a lot of box scores? Look at the +/- for Ian Jackson from the Memphis game to the JCS game? Dean Smith was a match professor and yes he used stats consistently but he did not over use them, he used them as a teaching tool to help makes his points to the humans that played the games. But Dean was not a Monday morning QB, the was a Monday-Sunday teacher, his eyes and heart made his decisions. How big was Dean's heart, how clear were his eyes, got a stat on that?
Nate here... I think plus/minus is an extremely valuable tool under the right context. If you have enough, what for it, SAMPLE SIZE and it shows a bench player consistently is a negative, I think that tells something under a certain amount of SAMPLE SIZE. I think lineup data is actually extremely important. I wish it was more readily available in college basketball of which 5 man lineups do best and worst. I think it's an extremely valuable tool. As opposed to blaming one player for their plus/minus, having 5 man lineup data would provide the proper context around that.
The numbers are the most objective thing we have. They certainly don't tell the full story, but if you have enough SAMPLE SIZE, then the numbers likely share a pretty accurate assessment on what's going on with that particular data set. Whether you choose to use them, rely on them, or worship them is up to you.
The one great thing about analytics and seeing how basketball or any other sport evolves. And I like that it can take the bias out of things. Whether fans, teams, or organizations choose to go in a different direction because of analytics is again completely up to them. I like the fact that tempo based statistics are out there so you can see that excluding UNC and Kansas, teams that play 70+ possessions/game do not make the Final Four. Does that mean UNC should re-consider playing at an extreme fast pace? I know no one on this board will think so, but that's something I would look into. The Boston Celtics shot 61 3PTers on opening night. Now, NBA and college is different mainly because the NCAA Tournament is single elimination. But when the best team in the NBA is doing something really drastic, should that be a consideration on how you build your roster and your offensive game plan? I would consider it.
What I dislike is when it becomes purely about playing the results on a decision that's "analytically driven." This is common in football. A team goes for it on 4th down instead of kicking a FG and they don't convert. Then the "TAKE THE POINTS" people scream. My retort to that is how do you know the kicker makes the field goal? Let's say he misses the FG, was it right to try to still kick the FG?
In baseball, every old school player says how much they hate strikeouts. Well, no difference between strikeouts and popouts other than how it looks on a box score. Also, there are times in a game when strikeouts are a better outcome offensively (grounding into a double play). If people hate the analytics of today's baseball where teams don't care about batters striking out as much, I hope they can admit to when a strikeout isn't the worst outcome too.
Sorry, long essay. But I think analytics provides you an opportunity to constantly question yourself and what you believe in when it comes to sports.
And UNC should shoot 60 3PT'ers per game this season.
