Basketball on Paper... or the Screen

Two months later and what do I have to show for it? Besides guiding two fantasy teams to disappointing third place finishes (due to a severe lack of Mojo and the curse of Grant Hill), half-starting a bunch of not interesting enough fantasy basketball analysis, drinking a lot of Sam Adams White Ale, and not posting on this blog, I've been spending time reading Dean Oliver's Basketball on Paper. Yes, you might be thinking, I typically enjoy reading all my books at least 4 years after they've been published. I ran across it at a discount store in my area called Mardens and picked it up for a couple of bucks. That usually does not bode well for the quality of a publication, but in this case it likely speaks more to the niche of the fantasy basketball analyst. Yes, we walk a lonely path.

Anyway, Basketball on Paper was definitely a good read. Of course, I was most interested in Oliver's chapters on team and player evaluation, and I thought his defensive player evaluation was particularly enlightening. He was able to conceptualize a lot of the thoughts I had on player evaluation but was never took the time or effort to work through. Not too surprisingly, he pushes a lot of his formulas and methodology to the back of the book and leaves the most complex stuff out entirely. Understandable. I guess he actually wanted to SELL some of these books. Unfortunately, that was also the stuff I happened to be most interested in. Which leads to what I thought was the weak point of the book; Oliver spreads the net wide, attempting to make the book applicable to just about everyone - fans, coaches, contact negotiators, players, statisticians (he lays all those groups out and more in the introduction). In doing so, the tone of the book bounces around from chapter to chapter. In particular, when he attempts to explain the value of analytical evaluation coaches, Oliver appears to enthusiastically downplay its importance to the overall scope of the game. My thoughts during those chapters; “if it's not important, then why am I reading this?”

Overall, though, a very good and interesting read. I learned quite a few things, which was what I was looking for. I didn't even mind the WNBA stuff (as an analyst, I know, you take data however you can get it) or all the Hakeem Olajuwon references.