Justin Jacobs
@Squared2020
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Senior Researcher for #NBA teams since '12. Intel Analyst. PECASE, CAREER, and ODNI Medallion Recipient. Prev: ORL, HOU, League Office.
Oakland, CA
Joined December 2014
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Pinned Tweet
It's not a change of pace, this time I'll get it right.
It's not a change of taste, I was the one there last night.
When I needed you most, when I needed a friend; you let me down now like I let you down then
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Anyone know how
#NBA
players shot free throws in the 1949-50 season? Never mind, I got you...
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Before the next
#NBA
season kicks off, let's remind everyone who the Top 30 3PT Assist players were in the regular season. The last couple seasons have been dominated by Simmons and Antetokounmpo. This year, we have a different leader.
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Since I'm dropping 1949-50 content. Here is the original
#NBA
step back "three."
If we had audio, I know we would have heard Leo Klier: "I hath just stepped you back. And now I must hoist this attempt at that cylinder."
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Braun could hit jumpers though. There's a reason he's in the
#NBA
Hall of Fame.
This shot was first possession of that same game.
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By the way, this is Knicks - Pistons back on January 7th, 1950. Pistons would go on to win 88-80.
The shooter is Carl Braun; who averaged 15 points a game that year. He also shot 76% from the foul line during this season.
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Why I really don't necessarily care when people state
#NBA
net ratings. A simulation study to show how bizarrely unreliable net ratings can be. And no... increasing sample size doesn't work...
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Subsampled multiyear
#NBA
RAPM from 1985 through 1996. Recognize some of the names at the top of the list?
And yes... I have logged over 39,000 possessions that involve Michael Jordan, over 24,000 possessions for Magic Johnson, and over 21,000 possessions for Larry Bird.
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Some insight into how non-negative matrix factorization works on
#NBA
play-by-play data. Some
#Python
code included with an analysis of the Celtics and Rockets.
#analytics
#Mathematics
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It's official. I've just signed with the
@OrlandoMagic
to become their Senior Basketball Researcher, starting in January.
I'll definitely miss my work from 12+ years in national security, but am extremely excited for this new opportunity and can't wait to get started!
#PureMagic
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Introduction on advanced
#NBA
gravity. And oh yeah... Curry is still tops in this too. Brush up on your physics, tensors, and generalized SVD's!
#Statistics
#Mathematics
#Analytics
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Crazy
#NBA
stat of the day. Here's the Top 25 NBA players ordered by Points plus Points Assisted.
Requirement? Assisted more points than scored...
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Now that the
#NBA
trade deadline is over. Here's a basic way to compare two players, two teams, two plays, and even the same team at different times. It also helps measure how various defensive schemes, including perimeter defense, change the game.
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Just dropping a random stat of the day:
No. Deaths in U.S. from Last 12 month Flu Season: 34,157
No. Deaths in U.S. from Last 2 months of COVID-19: 45,525
Now a pointed stat of the day:
Social Distancing Measures in last Flu Season: 0
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Since 2004 only 45
#NBA
players have directly contributed to scoring 75 or more points (PTS + assisted PTS) in a regular season game. Here's all 45 instances:
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Some
#NBA
Trivia for the night, per
@KellyIkoNBA
Distribution of successful coach's challenges for the 2019-2020 regular season.
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I've seen a lot of folks make the "Must be boring having to count dribbles" comment after
@JalenRose
noted that DRose took 653 dribbles last night. It's actually not that hard to count dribbles using simple machine learning. Here's a sample...
#NBA
#Analytics
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Random stat of the day. Through the first 490
#NBA
games. Here are the estimated "point values" of each NBA Shot Type, as dictated by play-by-play.
Do with this whatever you want. I'm going to go have coffee.
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Effectively, over the span of 11 NBA seasons, a sequence of 25 cheap shots / dirty plays is being used to specify that the generation of basketball during the 80's and 90's is "tough."
In actuality, this clip shows that the league has really cleaned up dirty plays.
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Some simple
#NBA
role alignment work to aid in the process of Ghosting. We walk through how role alignment works for tracking data, provide a little bit of
#Python
code, and show an application to a Utah Jazz offensive scheme.
#DataScience
#Mathematics
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Some simple manifold kernel density estimation applied to
#NBA
passing. Some use cases to show you in the intelligence it bring out. And, animations just look cool, too.
#Statistics
#Analytics
#Python
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Absurd
#NBA
"stat" of the day. Here are the NBA teams that have won the most titles since the year YOU were born. Born in 1980? The Los Angeles Lakers have won the most titles with 11.
Titles won in same year of birth count. There's a theme...
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Are the Milwaukee Bucks the new king of Moreyball this season? Here's a detailed look at the transformation the
@Bucks
have made over the past year.
We also see changes to the
#NBA
as a whole with a bonus inside.
#Analytics
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This is what a Ben Simmons
#NBA
scoring chart really looks like.
Blue: Scored
Green: Assisted
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In the play-by-play era of
#NBA
, Mitchell Robinson has set the record for most blocked 3PA in a season with 24. He has two more games to go.
Here's the list of all players with 10 or more blocked 3PA in a season, along with the league trend over the past 15 seasons.
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Last night, I got inspired to revisit geolocation methods in sports. Here's an introduction on how to use cameras to extract position estimates and then build follow-on analytics such as counting dribbles.
#NBA
#analytics
#statistics
#DataScience
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About this
#NBA
fights video that I've seen pop up on my feed over 20 times today...
A history. 1/x
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So over the past couple years I've received approximately 100 messages/critiques about the difficulty of error estimation in RAPM. Here's an explicit way to do all that with code and examples for the 2018-19
#NBA
season.
Enjoy!
#Analytics
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Gambler's Ruin type problem.
#NBA
games are not played indefinitely; therefore computing probabilities using Gaussians have unintended consequences. For instance a game played between two teams that take same number of possessions, one shoots 3's at 40%, the other 2's at 60%...
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Let’s add more context to Carl in this thread.
If you ever used the term “Swish” for a made basket, you can thank him.
For all games I have on Carl, he has shot roughly 25% on 30+ foot jump shots. Which is approaching Dame Lillard territory.
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How the league is trending with a 1,000,000 simulation for the remainder of the
#NBA
season. Highest probabilistic path in thread.
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Sooo... I'm stuck at an airport. Why not have some musings about consistency and
#NBA
analytics. And a secondary verification of
@bballport
's KR-21 analysis from a few years ago.
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The thought process in developing a simple spatial analytic.
#NBA
#Statistics
#Analytics
#DataScience
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If you average all of these guys’ all-in-one metrics...
What are the weakest NBA 🏀 arguments you’ve ever heard?
Not a conclusion, but a flawed argument. It can be player-specific (6-0 > 3-6) or generic (jump shooting team can’t win).
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An incredibly basic introduction into developing basketball analytics from the perspective of wins and points scored. Effectively, the basic building blocks that lead to all our
#NBA
complicated modeling.
#Analytics
#Statistics
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I'll say it once. I'll say it a thousand more times...
"But that's what the numbers say" is the one of the worst things an analyst can ever say.
I usually reply with "Yeah... well.. if you torture numbers long enough, they'll confess to anything."
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A simple introduction to stochastic tracking; cleaning up naive estimators from tracking data.
#NBA
#Analytics
#Statistics
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Some words on
#NBA
TS%? Sure! Some advanced GLM's for TS% that blows Poisson regression out of the water? Heck yeah!
An insight into advanced modeling of shooting attempts in TS% in an effort to test on-court decision making.
#Analytics
#Statistics
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While it's nice to swat shots as a defender, it's even better to "kill" your opponent's possession through a BLK+DREB. Here's all 30
#NBA
teams sorted by their "Kill Rate."
A category usually dominated by Utah in the past, it's no surprise who is in first at the moment.
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Merry Christmas everyone! Here's
#NBA
RAPM Part 3... What you're actually saying when you present RAPM results...
#Analytics
#Sports
#Statistics
#mathematics
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Well, it's the beginning of the
#NBA
season. Since everyone is throwing out their projections, might as well throw mine out there too.
I always seem to whiff on 1-2 teams (6+ off). Some of it is due to significant injuries; some of it is due to variability.
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Whenever I've seen this pushback from a coaching staff, it also didn't matter if I spoke their language. The label "analyst" would cause the conversation to start in an adversarial state, which is unproductive.
Instead, I would work w/ a video guy to get the information across.
Billy Donovan's full answer on weighing analytics vs. playing to individual players' strengths:
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So I got approval to talk about a thing in about a month...
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Hey look who is currently leading the
#NBA
in 3PT OREB! (And he's missed 17% of the season...)
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I've received roughly 20 requests for my Intro to Pandas tutorial over the past day; so I created a link to access the document. Enjoy!
#NBA
#Python
#Analytics
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Here's an introductory post on building curves on
#NBA
data. Simple, but take note of the thought process and interpretability. Next post will be a significant jump and understanding this post is a must.
Also, let's fan the flames while we can. :)
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Ever tried using a Kalman Filter? Here’s how you build one from scratch. Requires Gaussian measurement and Gaussian Process models.
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More bizarre pbp-era records made this year. This time, Steven Adams led all
#NBA
players with 28 OREB on FTA. This breaks Mehmet Okur's "modern record" of 24 in a season.
Over the past 15 years, only 25 players have secured 15 or more OREB on FTA's in a regular season.
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Fine, fine.... tracking on a 1960's Celtics-Lakers game, with a Jerry West turnaround jumper from the elbow.
Can extract the coordinates on this court at roughly +/- 5ft, which isn't fantastic. It's a flaw with the video compression and signal loss of the court.
#Analytics
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Get out your reading glasses for some 1995-96 Michael Jordan plus-minus (71 games worth)
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A cheap and relatively efficient way to identify passes in
#NBA
tracking data. And once we have that filter process in place, some simple things we can do!
#Statistics
#DataScience
#Mathematics
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Here's a methodology for diagnosing
#NBA
strategy. Developed it several years ago to attempt removing system components from players' attributes. Examples on a pair of Horns offenses.
#analytics
#Statistics
#DataScience
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Friendly
#MarchMadness
reminder.
If you have a ---X--- chance of predicting each game correctly, you have a ---Y--- probability of getting a perfect bracket: (X -> Y)
99.9% -> 93.9%
99.0% -> 53.1%
95.0% -> 3.9%
90.0% -> 0.1%
75.0% -> 0.000001%
50.0% -> 0.00000000000000001%
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I think the Lineup Predictor Tool that
@JacobEGoldstein
is simply amazing. I definitely found his worst lineup.
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Classic.
I once sent an analyst Python code that printed off a pancake recipe because I realized he wasn't actually doing his job. The next morning I was told 'Thanks for that code! Here's the list of players it produced.' And proceeded to show me a list of players. 🙄
During the JaMarcus Russell days, Raiders coaches didn’t believe he was watching film.
So they gave him blank tapes.
The next day, he came in saying he watched “blitz packages.”
Again, they were BLANK.
(h/t
@davediehl66
,
@AndrewMarchand
)
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You do know those ads are based on your browser search history... right?
When I look at it... it’s all Disney ads.
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My favorite version of this joke is: “The AFC has only won 26 Super Bowls in the last 2000 years.”
Onscreen graphic: AFC has won 15 of last 23 Super Bowls.
I think it was
@StatsbyLopez
who pointed out when ever you see a “x of last y” stat, you can assume “x of last y+1” too.
And it’s correct here too. AFC has won 15 of last 24 Super Bowls.
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This bench period is hurting him. Wilt played all 48 to get his 100.
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"If you don't lose power, great! Catch up on Games of Throne or whatever it's called." -
@marcorubio
this morning on CNN.
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Recalling that part of perimeter defense involves deterring players from taking the three, here's a list of the Top 40 NBA players from the 2018-19
#NBA
season that have had the fewest 3PA per possession. (Min 2000 possessions played)
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Can confirm. I've watched roughly 350 Jordan games from 1985 through 1991 in entirety.
One thing that gets forgotten about is that folks had no idea how to stop his baseline drive and reverse.
I implore you to go back and watch some full games - lots of them are on YouTube - and not just the highlight compilations of 7 seasons worth of hits from the Pistons/Knicks
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All of Harden's usage possessions with primary and secondary defenders from last night's game... and why it's really hard to use machine learning or real-time markings.
Beverley as primary defender:
13* chances
1-7 FG, 4-4 FT, 6 PTS, 4 TOV
Required help defender 9 times
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Here are your Top 22
#NBA
Duos that have the most assists leading to a 3PM. Oh hey, look at that...
Harden / Westbrook lead the league.
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Doug Collins with the 1985 breakdown of Darrell Griffith's
#NBA
league leading 3PT shooting. "What does he need to do to generate the same offense if these were all two point attempts?"
#Analytics
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Simple thought exercise after seeing about ~2,000 tweets from
@SethPartnow
on this topic:
Down 2, last off. poss. in regulation. Then:
P(W Now) = P(W|3)P(3) ~ (1.00)*(.36) = .36
P(W Later) = P(W|2)P(2) ~ (0.50)*P(2)
You need at least a 72+% FGA to just match the same EV.
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First
@Cardinals
game. Cards came away with a 4-2 win! Here's my view of the game...
#Cardinals
#MLB
#StLouis
http://t.co/q8OnjZpcOT
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Danny Granger.
Who is an NBA player from the 2000s who was really good in their prime that people have already forgot about?
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Added a few games, but decided to display 95% confidence bounds.
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Happy Monday! Little nuance into offensive rebounding in the
#NBA
. Some high level looks into why teams don't crash as much w/ some deeper probability management.
Also, a use case from the Hawks/Lakers game and a coaching drill I've seen over the years.
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If you've noticed that I've incredibly slowed down in my postings recently, here's why... I signed on with another team and I'm busy. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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It's the value of the assist that matters when it comes to assisting. Here's your
#NBA
assist leaders by points (min. 900 points) as of this morning. Points per assist appended as last column. Think of the two decimal places as "Percentage of assists leading to 3's"
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Updated
#NBA
dunks list through this morning. The Bucks have slowly fallen off with Giannis slowing down. Jazz and Lakers are still trying to run away. Three way race between Rudy, Giannis, and Clint as well.
And... when will the Spurs eclipse 100 dunks?
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Some straightforward
#Python
coding performing a simulation and a direct discrete distribution computation revolving around the strategy of going for two's versus going for three's in the
#NBA
#Statistics
#Analytics
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@David_C_Steele
Dr. Hrabowski is the only university president that I know who made it point to reach out to every student. I met Dr. Hrabowski three times. I took semesters off for deployments and took 9+ yrs to get my PhD. He congratulated me the day before my defense and remembered who I was.
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Love it when my clip goes viral for someone else. 😂
This is what the NBA looked like when the Celtics won most of their titles
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Out of the crime context, this is the lesson learned:
Always understand how your data is collected before reporting results. It should even be well understood before a model is selected...
Otherwise you won't see the forest from the hospitals.
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Say this louder.
Then say it even louder again.
Note: Open quote led into this paragraph.
Credit:
@timrequarth
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Thanks for the reminder of
@owenlhjphillips
visualizations and reminding folks that trying to obfuscate data in order to tell a narrative to sell books is not only disingenuous, but also unethical.
I like this alternative to Goldsberry's "most common shot locations" from
@owenlhjphillips
which shows that some types of midrange shots are alive and well.
At it was possible to drill down further, eg. charting trends in pull-up jumpers and bank shots:
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So cool! I've done some work like this, but always found the data too be too noisy to get to this level across players. I spent a long time on Steph a couple years back and that trajectory / release looks so familiar. Mike getting this for all these players is just fantastic.
A chart I put together a couple years back for a (rejected) Sloan paper.
Using SportVU data to compare typical "windup" motions for a player's three point shot.
Each dot on the chart is spaced 0.01 seconds apart.
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@AustinRivers25
@obitoppin1
Oh man. Hopefully this is a function of his not having a car at Dayton.... 😂
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Perfect example of how spacing is really a dynamic defensive metric:
Get one defender out of position and force another defender to guard two players in a position that cannot guard two players.
The offense reaps the benefits.
This is great ball movement from Houston. Drive and kick, kept moving it until they got the shot they wanted.
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I can't get enough of this. Langston Galloway leads all
#NBA
players with 10 OREBS on his own 3PT misses. It's over 5% of his misses that results in a rebound. The league average is under to 2.5%.
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