Long stuck in the rut of points, assists, rebounds, and blocked shots, basketball stats are growing up, evolving just as baseball stats did twenty years ago. John Hollinger and the PRO BASKETBALL FORECAST team open a wide window of statistical analysis into pro hoops, with unique and useful discussions, scrutiny of all aspects of the game, and a breakdown of every player that saw time or hit the draft board.
Last year Hollinger evaluated the best clutch playoff performers, rebutted the NBA's official defensive rankings with an improved model that takes into account the pace at which each team plays, and predicted which players had a career year that was likely to be just a fluke. He also brought to basketball an extremely useful system that compares seasons of players ages twenty-four and younger to historical statistics in order to determine a "similarity score," allowing you to predict a player's continued development or, in some cases, lack thereof.
This year Hollinger brings back all that and more, with an in-depth look at rookies and how they're best utilized, plus the continued evolution of some of the best statistical analyses you'll find in a preseason forecast. For the true hoops fan, PRO BASKETBALL FORECAST is a lesson like no other and the only book you'll need for the upcoming season.
Customer Review: A Must for NBA Fantasy Fans
This book is a great resource for anyone involved in playing fantasy basketball. It provides insightful commentary along with per game statistics that let you know how even the most little-used bench warmer would perform if given a starting job in the NBA. Last year's book predicted great things for Zach Randolph and Michael Redd, and this year's book is packed with great articles and helpful info.
I wish I'd known about this book two years ago!
Customer Review: New Concept in Predicting the Pros
This is a detailed analysis of virtually every player (I can't think of any he missed, but there could have been one or two). Each team has a couple of pages describing where they are, what happened last year and what it expected next year.
Then it gets really interesting. Mr. Hollinger has developed a fairly sophisticated set of statistical standards that he then applies to each player on the team. This includes such things as analyzing the per-minute of play performance rather than the game performance. This says that a player getting ten points in ten minutes is better than a player getting 30 points a game (The results are something the NBA management should check out). Other statistics are likewise specially developed for this book. It makes you wonder if even the teams know this much about their players.
John Hollinger never played in the NBA, he never coached, he just has spearheaded this new more analytical approach to pro basketball.