*Mathletics*

The subtitle is How Gamblers, Managers, and Sports Enthusiasts Use Mathematics in Baseball, Basketball, and Football and the author is Wayne L. Winston.

I read only the sections on the NBA.  He proposes a four-factor model to evaluate teams: Effective Field Goal Percentage, Turnovers per Possession, Offensive Rebounding Percentage, and Free Throw Rate, or how often a team gets to the line.  He claims you can raise your PER by taking lots of bad shots and for that reason PER isn't a great measure.  Kevin Garnett was an underrated player.  Playing four games in five nights hurts you by an average of four points.  The raw data, unadjusted for the Lucas Critique, indicate that when you are up by three points, and there are less than seven seconds left, you should not foul the other team.

Some people will enjoy this book.  Baseball receives the most attention.  Each chapter simply ends and the author moves on to another topic without any overarching narrative other than the statistical method itself.

Here is some of his blogging.

Comments

Comments for this post are closed