Now that the Super Bowl is over, the next big sports event is the NBA All-Star Game. We believe that selection to the All-Star team should be based on how a player helps his team win. In 2000 my colleague Jeff Sagarin and I developed the Adjusted +/- Rating system...

The playoff picture in the NBA's Eastern Conference appears to be much clearer than in the NBA West. The top four teams will clearly be the Cavs, Celtics, Magic and Hawks, although the order of finish of these four teams is anybody's guess. The Heat seems to be securely ensconced...

The NBA's Western Conference is amazing. Only eight teams can make the playoffs, but it looks like 13 teams have a shot right now. To me the Lakers, Mavs, Nuggets, Suns, Spurs and Blazers look like playoff locks. Then Houston, Oklahoma City, Utah, New Orleans, Memphis and perhaps even Sacramento...

In a 2007 Gallup Poll, 85% of the American public disapproved of the Bowl Championship series. This year, undefeated Cincinnati, TCU, and Boise State did all they could to have a shot at the championship, but realistically, they never had a chance. It is unclear that Texas is more deserving...

All NBA fans know Kobe, LeBron, DWade, and Dirk are great players. In today’s post we want to put the spotlight on some of the NBA’s unsung heroes. As you probably know, we believe in evaluating players based on Adjusted +/-. An Adjusted +/- rating of +10 for Player A,...

The NBA season is less than 4 weeks old but analyzing the play by play data from each game enables us to obtain many interesting insights. Our approach (called Adjusted +/-) looks at how the movement of the game score depends on the 10 players on the court. After adjusting...

My colleague Jeff Sagarin of USA TODAY fame has come up with an elegant simplification of whether or not Belichick should had gone for it on 4^th down in Sunday night’s Colts-Patriots game. The decision hinges on your estimates of the following three parameters:

MAKE= chance you make first down

Bill Belichick is one of my least favorite people in sports. I love the Colts and do not like the Patriots. The announcers were unanimous in saying the Patriots were crazy to go for it on 4th down in the Colts-Patriots game. I hate to say it, but I think...

How can we evaluate NBA players? We can look at box scores, but much of the NBA game (especially defense) is not captured by the box score.  It seems obvious that defense and offense play equal roles in determining a team’s success. My colleague, Jeff Sagarin, and I prefer to...

Introduction

I am honored to be able to blog about the interface between math and sports on the Huffington Post's new sports section. In my day job I teach spreadsheet modeling at Indiana University's nationally ranked Kelley School of Business. I also teach spreadsheet modeling at organizations such as...