9 May 2010

A first step in statistics

In the NBA, they have shot charts for each game which show where each shot was attempted from and whether it was complete or not. Here's an example for a Cavs win over the Celtics.

In ultimate, when the statistical revolution gains steam, we should track how and where teams score with the disc and where they turn over the disc.

Where does the disc go dead/get dropped? Where is it thrown from? Are sideline hucks more risky? Is a team getting stuck on the sideline?

We could also log the time between throws and catches, to identify how quickly the disc is actually moving in an offence, and whether this correlated positively or negatively with scoring a goal, for a particular team.

1 comment:

  1. I like a lot of these ideas.

    Typically when people talk about stats in ultimate, they talk about individual stats; I like the more team (or, if you prefer, system)-based approach that tracking general trends like the location goals are thrown from or turns are made.

    These are things I'd be more likely to track as a coach - individual stats tend to, for better or worse, skew people's play style, but when that information is depersonalized the utility-to-bias ratio looks pretty good.

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