NBA gives casual fans and armchair GMs access to the league's entire statistical history
The odds of rising from NBA stat junkie / forum poster to Houston Rockets GM like Daryl Morey did are slim, but thanks to the new NBA.com/Stats page fans have access to more data than ever before. Until now, only league and team personnel have had access to the NBA's complete official stats -- media got access last spring -- with box scores that go as far back as its start in 1946-47, individual stats for anyone who has ever played in the league plus advanced statistical breakdowns and rankings of best lineup combinations. Fan sites like Basketball Reference have filled in the gaps in the past, but this should bring a new level of accuracy and analysis to bear.
Access to these stats means we can evaluate games at a much deeper level to know precisely why the Lakers are so bad this season, or which combinations of players are giving the Knicks their best advantage. SAP announced the project back in July as a part of its marketing deal with the league, as it gets to show off its database chops building a system that can handle such a large number of requests on so much info. Hopefully other leagues follow suit and encourage this level for interaction with fans, although we suspect it would take more than a few Moneyball-esque calculations to fix squads like the Bobcats. Hit the source link below to satisfy a jones for numerics or find the perfect angle for your LeBron vs. Kobe argument, although last night's All-Star Game may have given all the ammo necessary.
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HOUSTON and NEWTOWN SQUARE, Pa., Feb. 15, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Basketball Association (NBA) and SAP AG (NYSE: SAP) today announced the launch of NBA.com/Stats, a new unprecedented statistical destination on NBA.com providing fans with interactive access to unlimited amounts of official NBA statistics and analysis.
(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20110126/AQ34470LOGO)
Powered by the real-time SAP HANA® platform and free to all fans and media, the NBA's unparalleled statistical offering will feature the league's entire official statistics history, previously only available to league and NBA team personnel, including:
Every NBA Box Score: Dating back to the inaugural 1946-47 season, every NBA box score will be available including memorable games such as Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game in 1962 and Kobe Bryant's 81-point game in 2006.
Advanced Shooting Charts: Comprehensive shooting charts for offensive and defensive performance providing visual shot displays, "hot spots," and more.
Top Lineup Combinations: The best two through five man lineup combinations over the last six seasons. Combinations can be sorted based on a variety of statistical breakdowns.
In-depth Statistical Breakdowns: Per possession, clutch, efficiency, player/team comparisons and additional in-depth statistics with many breakdown options.
Player Pages for Every NBA Player: Complete individual statistical pages for every player in NBA history.
NBA.com/Stats will allow users to interact and analyze official league, team, and player statistics in real-time via an intuitive, highly visual interface. In addition, content from NBA.com/Stats can be easily shared with others via social networks Twitter, Facebook and Google+.
"NBA.com/Stats provides our fans and media with the definitive tool for accessing our entire up-to-the-minute history of official NBA statistical information," said NBA Deputy Commissioner Adam Silver. "Working together with SAP, a global leader in providing innovative software solutions, this groundbreaking offering brings big data to the NBA allowing fans, broadcasters and the media to run unlimited statistical breakdowns of NBA players and teams, past or present."
"Sports fans have a passion for statistics because it brings them closer to the game, their favorite teams and players," said Steve Peck, senior vice president, Global Strategic Initiatives, SAP. "The new NBA.com/Stats goes beyond the numbers by offering a dynamic, comprehensive and statistical experience like never before. As a proven business platform, SAP HANA will help the NBA provide an experience that allows millions of fans to find insights in the numbers that had previously only been available to NBA teams and selected members of the media."
SAP will be the presenting partner of the new NBA.com/Stats destination. In July 2012, the NBA and SAP announced a new multiyear marketing partnership that made SAP the Official Business Analytics Software Partner of the NBA. The partnership includes the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the NBA Development League (NBA D-League).
Along with SAP HANA, the NBA will utilize SAP® BusinessObjects™ business intelligence (BI) solutions for advanced analysis with SAP BusinessObjects Explorer® and SAP® Landscape Transformation software to power official NBA statistics on NBA.com/Stats.
In addition to unlimited statistics, NBA.com/Stats will provide special editorial features that highlight innovative NBA.com/Stats findings, in-depth analysis on historical box scores, a look "Behind The Numbers" and regular contributions from NBA.com's statistical expert John Schuhmann. A special "Glossary" section will provide a complete breakdown and explanation of innovative and new statistics.
