Upon its establishment in 1946 the NBA - via its forerunner the Basketball Association of America - became the 21st professional basketball league to be formed in the U.S., and the one that would outlast all the others. In addition, since 1896 when professional basketball began in Trenton, New Jersey thousands of players have competed in a pro game, and generated countless hours of debate as to who the best players are in the history of the sport. In fact, precisely 3572 players and 439 All-stars have graced the courts of the NBA and the American Basketball Association when it was in operation between 1967 and 1976. And until now there has never been a truly scientific method of evaluating their performances on a basketball court, and determining who is the all-time best. Finally, after 109 years, such a measure has been created.
This book, Heroes of the Hardcourt: Ranking Pro Basketball's 100 Greatest Players identifies and profiles the 100 greatest players to play professional basketball since 1946, and ranks them by utilizing a scientific methodology known as the Performance Efficiency Rating (PER) System developed by the author, a former economics professor. This is the most comprehensive measure ever devised to accurately measure basketball performance and answer the question of who is the greatest basketball player ever. This methodology has accurately forecasted the annual regular season MVP in three of the last four NBA seasons, and predicted which team is most likely to win the NBA championship (forecasted the eventual champion in seven of the last ten years).
This book will cause you to rethink your own top 50 greatest players; and the top 10 players, let's just say it's sure to raise a few eyebrows. Without doubt this is the most scientific basketball book ever written and should end all debates as to the game's all-time greats. Heroes of the Hardcourt, in addition to profiling the top 100 players also provides an historical summary of the one hundred-plus years of professional basketball in the U.S., and concludes with an explanation of how to better link productivity with pay among professional athletes. It shows that the PER can accurately forecast which rookies drafted in a particular year are indeed the best selections, and follows that up with an analysis of the 1984 NBA draft in which four of the best players to ever compete were drafted. It concludes that not only did the Portland Trailblazers make a poor decision in selecting Sam Bowie over Michael Jordan, but so did the Houston Rockets who also drafted Hakeem Olajuwon over MJ. A knowledge of the PER methodology, the author asserts, would have created a better draft selection then, as it clearly will do now. Heroes of the Hardcourt will finally lay to rest all the debates as to who the best players are in the history of professional basketball, and who is the all-time greatest.
Customer Review: Very Insightful
The author started with a history of professional basketball which includes a timeline of the major events, teams and players that played the game. The book also proposed an alternative way of evaluating the best professional basketball players for a team not just by using free agents, scouting,gut feelings, or draft picks but acutually using a scientific approach to anaylze the talents and athletic abilites of a player.This book is awesome and should be read basketball purists and fanatics-for the love of the game.
Customer Review: A good concept, poorly executed
I bought this book because I am a very avid basketball fan. I also am very interested in basketball statistics and what they mean and how they can and should be used. Mr. Thompson approaches the question of the greatest basketball player ever with a unique methodology that I found intriguing. Unfortunately, I also found it flawed, and was also dismayed and put off by Thompson's ignorance of the already-growing community of statistical analysts in basketball.
One very welcome and useful section of the book is Thompson's opening on the very early history of the game. He spends about 30 pages on the time period between the game's creation and the formation of the NBA. While it's not comprehensive, it's a good introduction to the key figures in basketball before the NBA was formed.
Mr. Thompson's methodology, in short, is terribly short-sighted. He attempts to quantify every meaningful accomplishment in basketball - statistical performance, most valuable player awards and other awards, championships and playoff performance, and also all-star selection and performance. His methods would be welcomed under other circumstances, but he felt compelled, for some reason, to not only trademark his term "Performance Efficiency Rating", but to withhold certain portions of his formulas because of a pending patent. He further states that his measure is the most comprehensive measure of player greatness ever developed. It certainly is comprehensive, but the flaws in the formulas he uses are evident to those who study the game on a deeper level. The flaws in his evaluation of player statistics - points, rebounds, assists, etc. - are the most evident of all, notwithstanding his taking the highly appropriate step of adjusting everything to a per-minute basis. I would also like to know how he knows how to weight every possible factor correctly, or even why he thinks non-statistical accomplishments are quantifiable.
Further, Thompson is either willfully dismissive or accidentally ignorant of the aforementioned community of statistical analysts already present and growing in influence. I don't know why he felt it necessary to keep his work proprietary, but it does him and his work a disservice by making him appear self-important, and by closing his formulas to mainstream evaluation and constructive feedback. If he felt that his work was worthy of widespread use, I believe he would have been better served to allow others who love and follow the game to see exactly what he was doing.
Finally, the book itself is not very well written. There are many, many errors in punctuation - such as a pronounced lack of question marks where they should be, and the word "though" repeatedly misspelled as "thou". Whether this is the publisher's fault or Mr. Thompson's, it certainly should never have happened. Other authors (such as John Hollinger, who was mentioned in one of the other reviews here) produce books that not only demonstrate that they know basketball, but that are entertaining and well-written. Much more importantly, other authors such as Hollinger haven't yet assumed that they've found the Holy Grail of analysis. They're constantly trying to improve upon what they've already done, and they seek the input of others - something that Thompson apparently didn't consider. They also know that "statistical analysis" means a lot more than mashing a bunch of numbers together and adding them up.
I mean no disrespect to Mr. Thompson. The project he undertook must have been extensive and time-consuming. But it doesn't offer any real advances in common knowledge, and the poor writing detracts from any attempt to take it seriously. As I mentioned to a colleague of mine, "I would have been better served checking this book out from the library instead of buying it."