Lakers Plan Staff Move To Beef Up Analytics Operation

Discussion in 'Lakers Discussion' started by LALakersFan4Life, Jul 14, 2015.

  1. LALakersFan4Life

    LALakersFan4Life - Rookie -

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    http://www.ocregister.com/articles/operation-671640-coach-plan.html
     
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  2. pound4pound

    pound4pound - Lakers Starter -

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    yup...more information is never a good thing...aint that right, coach?
     
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  3. Chillbongo

    Chillbongo - Lakers 6th Man -

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    Thank god...a basketball mind and someone with coaching experience who can translate numbers into basketball decisions. This good. Question is will the info fall upon deaf ears? Mitch needs to sit down with Byron and figure out a plan to at least test some of the hypotheses this analysis will provide.

    Another thing....if one of our assistants is moving into the FO for this position, that means we have another staff position open, right? I'd love to see us nab an assistant coach for offense. Sadly everyone available is not known for offense/X's and O's, or they already run what we run:

    Adelman, Scott Brooks, Mark Jackson, Brian Shaw, Thibadeau.

    How's Monty Williams? I know he's a high character guy but what about his basketball acumen?
     
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  4. LALakersFan4Life

    LALakersFan4Life - Rookie -

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    Monty Williams was just recently hired by the Thunder as part of their coaching staff.
     
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  5. alam1108

    alam1108 - Lakers Legend -

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    You can hire all the analytics guys you want, if the head coach won't listen to them.....
     
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  6. thkthebest

    thkthebest Administrator Staff Member

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    I just don't understand how Byron can say that he's not a believer because coaches have been using "analytics" for a very long time. Coaches analyze and look into a player's strengths, weaknesses, etc. Isn't that analytics? Finding out how efficient a player is when they shoot at certain spots, when they catch-and-shoot, etc. That's all analytics. Coaches analyze what other teams run, how often, etc. This should be one of the fundamental blocks of coaching.

    Nowadays, analytics run much more in-depth, but I just don't understand how Byron can possibly see that as useless information. It's so bizarre that he can be so stubborn about the whole thing.

    Pop hates the 3pter, but he still realizes its strength as a weapon so while he hates it, he finds ways to use it.
     
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  7. therealdeal

    therealdeal Moderator Staff Member

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    I think Byron doesn't grasp exactly what analytics refer to. What you're saying is completely reasonable and I have to believe he doesn't think of analytics that way. He probably meant that he doesn't believe in abstract or superfluous statistical information like guys shooting better at 3:35 of the 2nd quarter when the air conditioner is on. I HAVE to assume that's what he meant because otherwise he's not just stuck in the Stone Age, he's yet to climb out of the primordial ooze.

    Any who, great sign from the FO that they're finally embracing something that is the future of sports.

    I also think you guys are thinking of this all wrong: if Byron doesn't embrace analytics but the Lakers do, then Byron is the odd man out. Unless Byron embraces the future as well, he may dig his own grave and that could lead to the coaching change some are asking for right now.
     
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  8. Chillbongo

    Chillbongo - Lakers 6th Man -

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    Agreed. I'm still not sold on analytics being able to replace traditional stats or that they are significantly better. IMO there are some useful stats and then some stats that have just as many holes as standard basketball stats. That being said analytics as a whole....not just 'advanced metrics' are definitely useful.

    I think what Byron means in that he's "old-school" is the sense that he doesn't believe in small-ball, Morey ball, all of the above. He believes in taking smart 3's, and taking what the defense gives you. I think some of what Houston is doing is useful....emphasizing attacking the rim and shooting corner 3's....but by no means do I think we should ONLY shoot 3's and layups. I mean Houston hasn't overly impressed me with their offense. It's good, but they have good players.

    If anything I want this new staff member to shed light on how certain kinds of plays and sets will increase in higher percentage shots and more offensive options for our guys (in the spots on the floor where they are effective). I feel like that's just watching film.....but whatever.
     
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  9. alam1108

    alam1108 - Lakers Legend -

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    Exactly, teams have been using analytics for a long time before it was called that.

    It frustrates me when Byron is so stubborn to his approach, refusing to adapt his schemes to his personnel. And when he comes out and says things like no 3 pointers or no pick and rolls, it's even more frustrating.

    Pop is arguably the best coach right now, he doesn't like a lot of the things he runs but he realizes that that's what it's going to take to win so he runs it.
     
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  10. OmarE

    OmarE - Lakers Starter -

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    @trodgers Hey man you gotta get that job!
     
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  11. LaVarBallsDad

    LaVarBallsDad - Lakers Legend -

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    Good move.
     
  12. karacha

    karacha Moderator Staff Member

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    Byron has to listen to these guys. This is our Achilles heel right now.
     
  13. sirronstuff

    sirronstuff - Lakers Legend -

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    or his coaching....
     
  14. karacha

    karacha Moderator Staff Member

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    I don't doubt that at all.
     
  15. abeer3

    abeer3 - Lakers Legend -

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    hate that analytics proponents paint the other side as too stupid to get what they're doing. the telling line in the article to me was the translation aspect: folks who crunch the numbers often don't understand what it would actually mean to follow their numbers-based suggestions, and they almost never have a way of statistically accounting for the practical issues that coaching staffs have with employing these ideas.

    I mean, Houston is supposed to be the world's greatest analytics team, and they've completely abandoned the midrange shot. which has led to a sub-mediocre offense that nearly grinds to a halt against good defensive teams. imo, this is because using context-less numbers that rely on faulty assumptions (not to mention extrapolating from small sample sizes to completely different situations...egads!) is not the path to enlightenment.

    I do suspect that scott may partially dismiss these things because they come from nerdz, and that's wrong. but there are plenty of grounds to dismiss a lot of what I've seen from modern analytics in basketball. speaking as someone who attempts to use statistics to get a grasp of how people do things, I can say it's quite difficult. effect sizes are generally small and thus fairly inconsequential in practical terms. you can tell a coach that running iso doesn't work as well as running a play at the end of a quarter, but your job's not the one on the line in the instance where ball movement's increased propensity to give rise to turnovers outweighs the bare points-per-possession analysis.

    I could go on. in short, I've never given a s*** if the lakers had the best analytics team. I think it's good to have folks on staff trying to look at things in different ways. I don't buy the myth that having the best group of these guys represents some tremendous competitive advantage. if lamarcus Aldridge thinks so, I don't think he's very smart, and I wonder why he didn't go to Houston. but I know why: because his good ol' horse sense tells him that harden and howard are losers, despite the stats.
     
  16. Chillbongo

    Chillbongo - Lakers 6th Man -

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    This part really resonates with me. I mean you can quantitatively and qualitatively document almost everything. Even still there are factors unaccounted for. Even still there may be no practical way to apply what you have gathered from the analysis.
     
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  17. sirronstuff

    sirronstuff - Lakers Legend -

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    the "it" factor
     
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  18. trodgers

    trodgers Administrator Staff Member

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    I don't claim to be able to make the Lakers better through stats, and I'm happy being a professor :)

    Still, some of my stats are good and useful!
     
  19. abeer3

    abeer3 - Lakers Legend -

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    to be clear: I'm the last person to be against attempting to create better metrics by which to estimate the value of things--the absence of a perfect metric should not preclude attempts at improvement. I just think people need to keep in mind how likely minimal the influence of these things can be.

    the lakers shifting some folks around sounds like PR face-saving. ok by me. they've obviously been skewered in the media (and apparently by at least one FA target--midrange specialist, btw...irony!) and feel the need to put a different foot forward. they'll probably ask scott to reign in his public comments about this stuff being useless, too. but I don't expect scott to turn to the analyses when he's thinking about whom to play and how. this could well be a shortcoming of scott, as far better coaches have admitted to at least attending to some of their stat guys' suggestions (btw, if you read between the lines on most quotes from Carlisle or pop, you can tell they feel more like scott does than is characterized in the media).

    as a psych prof, I'm sort of predisposed to looking at things quantitatively, but I'm teaching a new course right now in which I decided to incorporate a brief section on qualitative analysis (considered sacrilegious by some colleagues, I'm sure). I still prefer the more "objective" way of looking at human behavior on the whole, but I have to admit there are some advantages to the freedom from attempts to quantify everything and that one can learn quite a bit without translating observations to numbers. the real value is in the quality of the observation: coming up with new ways of seeing, quantitatively or qualitatively. I think the best coaches have been doing the latter for a long time, and there are some new folks in the business trying to do the former. given the nature of the game--all its interdependent parts--I think the qualitative approach will retain its value despite what the newcomers (and really, some uninformed members of the media) are suggesting.
     
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  20. trodgers

    trodgers Administrator Staff Member

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    Abeer, I take it you're familiar with Kahneman and Tversky's work on heuristics. You might also look into Mike Bishop and JD Trout's work on fast and frugal heuristics. Maybe you're on board already. We can do better than experts in some important fields - like in triage for heart attack - by following a two or three step decision chart. It's really fascinating stuff. There's bound to be SOME application to athletics. Figuring out what and where seems the next task to me.
     

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