Related papers: The problem of shot selection in basketball
Consider the problem of modeling memory effects in discrete-state random walks using higher-order Markov chains. This paper explores cross validation and information criteria as proxies for a model's predictive accuracy. Our objective is to…
Complex interactions between two opposing agents frequently occur in domains of machine learning, game theory, and other application domains. Quantitatively analyzing the strategies involved can provide an objective basis for…
With the NBA's adoption of in-game limb tracking in 2023, Sony's Hawk-Eye system now captures high-resolution, 3D poses of players and the ball 60 times per second. Linking these data to key events opens a new era in NBA analytics. Here, we…
Analysis of the popular expected goals (xG) metric in soccer has determined that a (slightly) smaller number of high-quality attempts will likely yield more goals than a slew of low-quality ones. This observation has driven a change in…
We develop a machine learning approach to represent and analyze the underlying spatial structure that governs shot selection among professional basketball players in the NBA. Typically, NBA players are discussed and compared in an…
I address the difficult challenge of measuring the relative influence of competing basketball game strategies, and I apply my analysis to plays resulting in three-point shots. I use a glut of SportVU player tracking data from over 600 NBA…
In this paper we model basketball plays as episodes from team-specific non-stationary Markov decision processes (MDPs) with shot clock dependent transition probabilities. Bayesian hierarchical models are employed in the modeling and…
Optimizing the performance of a basketball offense may be viewed as a network problem, wherein each play represents a "pathway" through which the ball and players may move from origin (the in-bounds pass) to goal (the basket). Effective…
Traditional NBA player evaluation metrics are based on scoring differential or some pace-adjusted linear combination of box score statistics like points, rebounds, assists, etc. These measures treat performances with the outcome of the game…
Modern basketball is all about creating efficient shots, that is, shots with high payoff. This is not necessarily equivalent to creating looks with the highest probability of success. In particular, the two most efficient shots in the NBA -…
We present evidence, based on play-by-play data from all 6087 games from the 2006/07--2009/10 seasons of the National Basketball Association (NBA), that basketball scoring is well described by a weakly-biased continuous-time random walk.…
When facing a heavily-favored opponent, an underdog must be willing to assume greater-than-average risk. In statistical language, one would say that an underdog must be willing to adopt a strategy whose outcome has a larger-than-average…
In this paper, we develop a group learning approach to analyze the underlying heterogeneity structure of shot selection among professional basketball players in the NBA. We propose a mixture of finite mixtures (MFM) model to capture the…
This paper aims to revisit and expand upon previous work on the "hot hand" phenomenon in basketball, specifically in the NBA. Using larger, modern data sets, we test streakiness of shooting patterns and the presence of hot hand behavior in…
This paper develops metrics from a social network perspective that are directly translatable to the outcome of a basketball game. We extend a state-of-the-art multi-resolution stochastic process approach to modeling basketball by modeling…
Football forecasting models traditionally rate teams on past match results, that is based on the number of goals scored. Goals, however, involve a high element of chance and thus past results often do not reflect the performances of the…
Value functions are used in sports applications to determine the optimal action players should employ. However, most literature implicitly assumes that the player can perform the prescribed action with known and fixed probability of…
Acting as a goalkeeper in a video-game, a participant is asked to predict the successive choices of the penalty taker. The sequence of choices of the penalty taker is generated by a stochastic chain with memory of variable length. It has…
The prospects of Kahneman and Tversky, Mega Million and Powerball lotteries, St. Petersburg paradox, premature profits and growing losses criticized by Livermore are reviewed under an angle of view comparing mathematical expectations with…
National Basketball Association (NBA) players are highly motivated and skilled experts that solve complex decision making problems at every time point during a game. As a step towards understanding how players make their decisions, we focus…