SB Nation User Blog: dsparks

Awesome Celtics History Visualization

dsparks — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 14:40:16 -0000

[Green Bandwagon Note: When you sit down to read this one do not try and multi task. You will have to be focused on it and only it. Give it a read.]

Celtics fans, please check out this post at Hardwood Paroxysm.

I develop a whole framework for measuring value based on individual contributions to team success, and then present the results in a cool graphical format. The best part is the awesome display of all of Celtics history, showing which players had what value to the team in every season! As the creator, I'd be very interested to hear your impressions on what the BoxScores methodology gets right and what it doesn't, as well as whether the information in the graphical history seems to mesh with your substantive recollections. Thanks a lot!

Clippers History Graphical Timeline--need expert advice

dsparks — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 19:14:17 -0000

Clippers History Graphical Timeline--need expert advice

Members of the Clips Nation:
I am writing to ask you to visit this post, which I've recently put together on Clippers franchise history. I run a blog at which I specialize in statistical measurement and graphical display of quantitative information, and I would really appreciate the opinion of this community, as experts on the Clippers, as to how well my statistical measures capture the actuality of what happened. Any insights or criticisms you might have, I would appreciate hearing, either here, or at my blog... things like, are the players in the right order within any given season? Does the color-coding mesh with your ideas about how each player plays, do they help you understand better a player's playing style? Does it all make sense? Thanks a lot in advance for your time, and I look forward to hearing your comments.

Season-Long Points Created Graphic

dsparks — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 12:47:04 -0000

If you haven't seen it, you might be interested in checking out this incredible graphic depicting the Celtics season in a novel way. Essentially, there's an estimate of points created for each game every player appeared in, that tries to approximate their contribution to the final score, and this is represented in graphical form. You can even see how the Lakers fared. It's very interesting to see how different players have stepped up throughout the season for the Celts, and how one-dimensional the Lakers appear to be--stop Kobe, stop the Lakers, for the most part. This representation also shows, in yet another way, just how awesome Garnett is--often leading the team to victory, and doing whatever it takes (as shown by the many different colors he takes on). Anyway, what do you guys think about this? Does it reflect your assessment of how the teams and players did over the course of the season?

via arbitrarian.wordpress.com

Kings franchise history in graphical form

dsparks — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:03:07 -0000

What if the entire history of the franchise could be represented (more or less) in one image? The best teams, the best players, how each player played--all together in one screen... Well, with this Winshare area graphic , it's been done.

Just scroll to the bottom of the post at The Arbitrarian (read the post if you want to become familiar with the methodology), and click the last thumbnail. Then, scroll and zoom and pan to your heart's content across 50+ seasons of team history.

The basic concept is a geometric representation of player value--the taller a player's rectangle, the more he contributed to his team's success, the wider the rectangle, the better the team performed. Multiplying the two together gives the area of that player's rectangle, or his Winshares. Players with league-best Winshares are often chosen as MVP, and typically, the player with team-best Winshares is considered the most valuable to that team. The color of each rectangle is determined by the extent to which that player can be classified (according to their statistical profile) as a scorer (red), perimeter player (green), or interior player (blue)--and mixtures of each type translate into mixtures in color.

The historical graphic gives an interesting perspective, too. Note, for example, the career arc of Oscar Robertson, and how the team really excelled in Lucas' first season paired with The Big O. It's also interesting to see that Webber, typically an incredibly well-balanced player (his gray color indicates a playing type fairly evenly divided between scorer-perimeter-interior) had his best year in 00-01 when he focused more on the scoring and less on the perimeter stuff. Also interesting is the contrast between Stojakovic and Divac--whose colors appear to be essentially opposites. Stojakovic is close to a purely scoring-focused player, while Divac's tint indicates a clear interior player with a shade of perimeter ability as well. I would be interested to hear other insights gained from this graphical history, as well as whether or not you feel that the players are given appropriate credit by Winshares. For example, is Martin-Miller-Artest-Salmons-Garcia the correct order of value to the team for the 07-08 season?