Q00 wrote:What I never understand for those that want the Pistons to take a more advanced statisictal approach, is where is the statistical evidence that proves that approach is the better way to go?
There's people who believe strongly that every decision in basketball should be backed up by numbers, but then its no big deal to them that there's no numbers backing up the claim of that being a better approach.
It kind of doesn't add up. If you believe strongly in using stats for everything, then you can't just ignore the fact that there are no stats proving that an analytics based approach in basketball is better.
The only number needed to back up advanced stats usage should be wins and losses in an isolated environment. Now I'm honestly not familiar with which teams do what in regards to advanced statistics usage so I can't make any claims either way. I really don't know if anyone has that insight.
You can clearly see in other sports where things like sabremetrics have provided baseball teams like the Red Sox, A's, etc with a clear edge. How this translates to basketball is debatable but the theory that these numbers can be indicators seems plausible.
I don't even think you *have* to go so far as to use all of the bells and gizmos that people have dreamed up in recent years. But I do think you have to at least be cognizant of some very obvious statistical indicators that have been around forever.
If a guy shoots below the league average from a particular distance he probably shouldn't be taking a lot of shots from that range. If a guy is shooting above the league average then you should probably find a way to give him more opportunities. This pistons so far have done a very poor job at this this season. Part of this is that they have a lot of poor shooters but part is that they often ignore the people who are shooting well or go away from them.
Stats shouldn't be the ONLY factor you consider when evaluating a player. But over a large enough sample size they more often than not CAN point out strengths and weaknesses in a player's game.