advanced-stats Stories - Liberty Ballers
Does Hockey Math Work?
"Hockey is too complex for numbers to help understand, let alone predict..." Does this sound familiar? It should, it's one of the major arguments presented by those who do not appreciate the predictive value of math. In May of 2010, I wrote an article about using some basic advanced stats to give...
Edmonton Oilers Power Play Scoring Chances 2010-2011
As promised during our season recaps, today we'll work through the scoring chance rates of the regulars on the Edmonton Oilers' power play. As always, full credit goes to Dennis King at mc79hockey, without whom none of this would be possible. That he's counted scoring chances for two last place...
More Fun With Sample Sizes
Season opener, Rexall Place, October 10: Jordan Eberle, finally playing his first NHL game, takes Jim Vandermeer's wall pass in the neutral zone, bursts into the Calgary zone, puts an absolutely sick move on Ian White in which he toe-drags the puck under the sliding defender's stick while...
Advanced Stat Profile: Tim Duncan
Timothy Theodore Duncan Tim, The Foundation, Big Fun Role: Big in all seasons, Two-way game without weakness, anchor This is not the book on Tim Duncan and the Spurs. That subject would require entire sections of the Library of Congress. This is just the extra-heavy pamphlet on what a Tim Duncan...
Number Crunch: Has Thaddeus Young Turned a Corner?
As a 19-year old rookie Thaddeus Young looked like a promising part of the Sixers future. He accumulated a PER of 16.5, averaged 14 points per 36 minutes and shot 54% from the field. He played solid defense at two positions and was an average rebounder for a tweener (11.9% total). However; every...
Defensive Rating: Random Evan Turner Stat
Defensive Rating - Points allowed per 100 possessions Sixers Defensive Rating: 105.15 Sixers Defensive Rating w/o Evan Turner: 110.29 Sixers Defensive Rating w/ Evan Turner: 102.16
Advanced Stats on Turner, Favors, Cousins and Johnson
Previous updates: November 5 Again, this a check-up on rookies the Sixers realistically could have taken instead of Evan Turner, and a comparison to Turner using advanced statistics. We'll do this every 5 to 10 games. I also want to remind you this is a SMALL SAMPLE SIZE! Viewer discretion is...
The Touches Stat - The Next Horizon In Advanced Stats
The evolution of advanced NHL statistics begins sometime during the Original Six era. The building blocks of advanced statistics have been gleaned from interviews, books and conversations with men like Harry Sinden, Roger Nielson and Jim Corsi. Sinden's Bruins were tracking an ancestral version...
Sixers: 10 Stats You Should Know
Derek and I were throwing stats around on Twitter the other night, but since not everyone has Twitter I'd thought I'd share these statistical McNuggets with the entire Liberty Ballers community. SMALL SAMPLE SIZE ALERT! Andre Iguodala is shooting 25% from beyond 10 feet, on 6.7 attempts per...
Scoring Chances, Microstats And Why They Matter
...After tracking scoring chances, usually at the NHL level, since 1980, some interesting facts emerge. . . . The average number of scoring chances is about the same as when Roger and I coached in Buffalo, when anything under 15 chances against was acceptable..." That's Ron Smith, currently...




