Chasing Perfection A BehindtheScenes Look at the HighStakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion (Audible Audio Edition) Andy Glockner Graham Corrigan Hachette Audio Books
Download As PDF : Chasing Perfection A BehindtheScenes Look at the HighStakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion (Audible Audio Edition) Andy Glockner Graham Corrigan Hachette Audio Books
Basketball team building is the ultimate challenge at the NBA level, and the last few years have seen a massive change in the amount of money, technology, and approaches to finding and evaluating players. This process starts at the high school level, goes through college, and culminates in the NBA, where the ability to identify and cultivate talent is at an absolute premium. Media and fans like to talk about "busts" when a player doesn't work out, but in truth it takes a complete team/franchise culture beyond any evaluation system to ensure the greatest chance of player success.
Spanning the entire amateur and pro basketball landscape and using the 2014-2015 NBA season as a prism to a much larger story, Chasing Perfection is a fascinating, all-access spin through the inner workings of the smartest minds at every level of the game. It is about the ongoing relentless, high-stakes quest to find what national sportswriter Andy Glockner calls "perfected players" and what ultimately happens to them at the highest (pro) level. Every team knows they want to find the next Jordan or LeBron. Rather, the resources teams are pouring into various kinds of research and analysis is intended to turn less-expensive supporting players into crucial extra wins and, hopefully, championships.
Chasing Perfection explores those players who, by the end of their run through high school and college and into the NBA, hit as many qualitative and quantitative predictors of future success as possible. Molded and then unearthed by years-long processes, they theoretically should be very strong contributors, but there are a ton of external factors that can affect individual success. Sometimes, though, they bomb, and the stories of why they do are as interesting and illustrative as those who actually succeed. Maybe more so.
Chasing Perfection will generate a lot of conversation, as fans of both basketball and Moneyball-style performance analytics, people in the industry, and fans/outsiders will then discuss further and expand their understanding and approaches. It answers questions such as How do the San Antonio Spurs continue to get enormous production above normal from their complementary rotation players? What is behind the quiet rise of the Atlanta Hawks? What is the philosophy behind the so-called "tanking" employed by the Philadelphia 76ers? Where do perfected players come from? How are NBA teams using Big Data? Who are the top 10 current perfected players and the most perfected player?
Chasing Perfection A BehindtheScenes Look at the HighStakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion (Audible Audio Edition) Andy Glockner Graham Corrigan Hachette Audio Books
A good introduction to basketball analytics and an interesting read.Product details
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Chasing Perfection A BehindtheScenes Look at the HighStakes Game of Creating an NBA Champion (Audible Audio Edition) Andy Glockner Graham Corrigan Hachette Audio Books Reviews
Please do not buy this. This guy is all about being cynical 24/7. He gets incredibly annoying. Please avoid anything from this author. Terrible authors do not deserve your money, especially such a clown like this dude. Use your money somewhere else, somewhere useful.
I bought this as a gift for a relative and he enjoyed it.
Very good look at how NBA teams use and are increasing the usage of data and advanced stats. Interesting that there is such focus (i'm still midway in the book) from the advanced stats guys to make sure that they use terms coaches/fans already use. This allows the advanced stats to explain concepts that already exist in a better manner with familiar terminology.
Andy Glockner's book is a "behind the scenes look at the high stakes game of creating an NBA champion." It delves into the fairly recent evolution of statistics (big data analytics) and its impact on professional basketball. How is the NBA-- a league of big money and big outcomes -- using this potentially massive amount of data to its advantage? Is it the players, the coaches, the teams, the front offices looking to benefit? How can big data and statistics fit into the traditional paradigm of the NBA as we know it?
I nabbed an advanced copy of this book, because I'm a sports fan and a big NBA fan. I thought the book was going to take a look at the 2014/2015 season and how stats impacted it, but I don't feel that it exactly delivered on its promise. That's not to say it's not a good read. It's certainly enjoyable if you like basketball, particularly the NBA. If you're a fan of statistics and numbers related to your sports, you'll love the book, as it's chock full of data. In fact, so much that it reads like a term paper sometimes. My biggest issue, in fact, was that is was almost a little too dry and statistics heavy, with an outline that jumped around in organization, making it hard to follow and stay engaged. Still, the book is extremely well-researched and you'll pick up a lot of good tidbits to impress fellow sports fans.
Overall, it was amazing to read about the impact of statistics on the NBA and how what would take the video and tape guys hours (probably days ages ago) can now be compiled in seconds by companies with algorithms and computer programs. Glockner introduces to us to several of these firms, including SportsVU, and does a good job explaining their evolution. (Perhaps too good a job - it gets to be a bit much at times.)
Some of my other issues were that, at least in my ebook edition, some of the graphics were hard to read, as all the lines and charts were hard to read - the lines were basically all the same color.
To me, the book was best when Glockner mixed his use of stats with anecdotes and real stories. I'm not exactly sure billing it as a quest to find the most "perfected player" is true, or even a look at the 2014/2015 season, but the stories were fun. There's a short bit on University of Kentucky Coach Calipari's hire of Joel Justus in the analytics realm and how that led to UK's much talked about platoon system for one season - quite a fascinating portion of a chapter. Further, the Colorado State basketball program is a good anecdotal example use of SportsVU and is far less dry than the more stats heavy or less conversational chapters.
Again, the book also gets you thinking just like any other advantage in sports, stats often help those programs with more money; for instance, the Duke Blue Devils being the only team able to use the SportsVU system in their practice facility (this stuck in my craw, being anti-Duke and all. Go 'Hoos!) It also talks about how young players are showing worse movement than ever (very scary). And, a lot of the book is mind boggling with its repercussions; for instance, a company at the combine is predicting player injuries before these kids are even in the NBA (leading to great questions about who gets that data, what do they do with it, what does it mean for the kids or the teams scouting them, etc.)
Glockner goes into the biomechanics pieces of stats, with some fun and fascinating bits weaved in. He discusses how the company P3 can tell how a player is "off" in his mechanics, for instance, with their amazing system of measurements. This leads to a great Phoenix Suns and Grant Hill anecdote and the resurrection of Grant's career (again, book had more pull to me when it was aligned with an actual team or player that made it seem more real).
The epilogue is what I thought the whole book was about (Golden State using stats to win), but was actually very brief (basically one bit about an assistant who subbed in someone). It's amazing story about how stats can alter an entire NBA finals, but goes out with a whimper.
Overall, it was a good book, but I confess I probably bumped my rating up to a 3-star simply due to my love of basketball. Some of the chapters just seem hodgepodge - as if a bunch of players were just thrown in to talk about stats with no rhyme or reason; it's interesting, but seems random and nonsensical. Are these the most perfected players we were promised? If so, it's not really made clear. The Kyle Korver story near the end of the book finally ties a lot of the book's themes together (analytics, P3, etc.) in a story form, which was interesting and compelling in its format and how I wish more of the book had been presented. Combine that with a little too many numbers for a casual sports fan and the jumping around in organization and there was definitely something lacking. Still, this well-researched novel will appeal to the rabid stats fans and those who want more history about how the burgeoning field of big data analytics is changing the NBA as we speak.
This book was not what I was looking for. That doesn't mean it was a bad book. It was actually fairly decent in covering how Analytics is being used by teams in the NBA, teams such as the Golden State Warriors.
This book talks about how methods are being used to improve players shots, their stances to prevent injury and how teams with the use of various applications can turn very good players in to even better ones. It also goes in to how Analysts have been able to identify how someone who may not be an elite player from a stats point of view is actually the primary contributor to a team's chemistry and therefore makes that player essential for success.
If you are looking for information on how to put together a strong Fantasy team you won't get what you are looking for in this book. If you are interested in how that mindset is being looked at and put in to play in today's NBA teams then this is the book for you.
Four stars because there is more that maybe could have been touched on, like perhaps more past references to the Jordan or Chamberlain era and reflections on how teams like Jordan's Bulls and Magic's Lakers worked so well although those subjects might be books in themselves I do feel it could have been touched on. Still this was an alright read.
If you are one of the rare families that have a true prospect in their midst , this a gift that will keep on giving , into college and beyond .
Informative and sharp, Glockner has created a must read for fans of the NBA and analytics
A good introduction to basketball analytics and an interesting read.
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