Why analytics/moneyball leads to more success but worse entertainment

[ISO]

There were actual problems with the league in 2000, but they were based on talent dilution from too much expansion recently (which was going to work its way out in time without needing to do anything about it), and too much iso play on offense (which was worked out by introducing the zone). Those issues were pretty easy to fix and the league fixed them, with the 2004-2016 run of the league being wildly entertaining.


I think the current issues of too many teams relying on analytics are tougher to fix. Because no matter what rule changes you make, everyone is still relying on analytics so they're still going to all react the same way. There will be individual differences based on the talent available on your roster, but I don't think we're ever going to have the same diversity of playing styles that we had 20-30 years ago.

Most people think all teams play the same way. They don’t. People don’t even watch their own home teams games like that in full yet they want to have opinions on what other teams are doing.

@Gil Scott-Heroin bodied this thread

 

[TheDarceKnight]

There were actual problems with the league in 2000, but they were based on talent dilution from too much expansion recently (which was going to work its way out in time without needing to do anything about it), and too much iso play on offense (which was worked out by introducing the zone). Those issues were pretty easy to fix and the league fixed them, with the 2004-2016 run of the league being wildly entertaining.


I think the current issues of too many teams relying on analytics are tougher to fix. Because no matter what rule changes you make, everyone is still relying on analytics so they're still going to all react the same way. There will be individual differences based on the talent available on your roster, but I don't think we're ever going to have the same diversity of playing styles that we had 20-30 years ago.

Great thread. Running into the same problem now in my sport (jiujitsu). Everyone has started looking at only the highest percentage techniques and plays, and the best players' games are all starting to look the same. The sport is becoming way more homogenous and less unique, despite the talent pool being larger than ever.

 

[mastermind]

I said this a few years ago:

Clyde Drexler averaged nearly 30 a game with one hand and dribbling with his head down.

I will say though, players being quirky in the old days was cool. Everybody looks and plays the same now.

This is what I said in an earlier post. The players now are an automated program. I liked the players who had weird quirks to their game. Those brehs who shot weird, who ran weird, etc. Everyone has similar skillsets now and it is very robotic. That does take away from the game, even though it wasn't perfect.

There is something wrong when we don't have variety in our sports, fashion, and culture.

 

[mastermind]

I don't think sports have become less entertaining through the similitude practice of doing what's best for winning.

It's more the fact that we find reasons on why something doesn't measure up to the era we grew up in because of rosy retrospection.

In general, nothing is ever going to match those same experiences you have as a child/teenager, as that's when we are at our most malleable. Because the truth is, someone's best experience is not someone else's. Basketball has always had folks contesting how good the product is in every era and comparing to the past; for someone who grew up around the 70s/80s, they're generally not going to look at the 90s/00s too fondly, and someone who grew up around the 90s/00s (and all the generations before them), they're generally not going to look at today's game too fondly.

Even if analytics/moneyball didn't exist, folks would only come up with another reason(s) for why today's sports aren't as entertaining as they once were.

This is before we even take into account that sports was once upon a time, one of the very few sources of entertainment, whereas now, the pastimes that we have are infinite. There are simply more options to occupy our free-time than ever before, and that affects our interest in sport.

I hear you, but its not about comparing it to the past in a "back-in-my-day" sense, its about not being variety and having different styles of play or strategy. Variety is fun. Homogeneity is not.

 

[KidJSoul]

Wrong

OP, this isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last.

What happens is that individually great athletes/talents come along and show a new way to win that wasn't thought possible, or a new coach with a crafty understanding of the rules changes things.

Everything you're saying was probably said in the past in regards to other trends. Sports leagues are inherently copycat leagues.

Every NFL team ran generic-ass run formations. Then Dun Hutson came along and teams copied suite with wide receivers. Bears used the T formation in 1943, then every team followed

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

I hear you, but its not about comparing it to the past in a "back-in-my-day" sense, its about not being variety and having different styles of play or strategy. Variety is fun. Homogeneity is not.

I don't think the game has ever had a vast spectrum of different styles of play, at any one point.

Yes, of course, the shot approach we have now is probably to more of an extreme, but variety of play is still relatively the same.

An era always has its default based on whatever influences shaped it into become what it is, compiled with the depth of talent pool, officiating and the natural progression of the game. Keeping in theme with the link I posted in my previous post, nobody can say that the late 90s/early 2000s NBA had any great diversification of gameplay; expansion had an effect, along with the introduction of more perimeter based ISO/street ball, which resulted in slow-paced, low-efficient 1v1 contests. That was the theme of gameplay during that time, as you have today with the 3-pt shot, as you did back in the 70s where it revolved around post-play.

I especially think it's unfair too to typecast today's game as being homogeneous as if we don't have stars from basically every walk of basketball life:

Jokic
Bron
KD
Luka
Steph
Giannis
Tatum
Morant
Kyrie
Embiid
AD
Zion
Kawhi
Harden
DeRozan
Klay
LaMelo
Westbrook

While there's certainly some crossover there (as there is with any stars from any era), just look at how different they all play. They all have their own style, and aren't carbon copies of one another.

I'd even argue that whatever homogeneity existence the league is now in due to analytics, that it's countered by the fact that because it's now in a positionless state, where its star players are more skilled, diverse and have have more freedom than ever before, they're not marginalized by what position they play. Previous eras, the point guard primarily ran the offense, the shooting guard simply relied on the PG to lay the table for him, and the big man operated on the block and didn't venture too far away from the paint.

 

[010101]

<<<<<$$$$$$$$$$>>>>>*

 

[ISO]

I hear you, but its not about comparing it to the past in a "back-in-my-day" sense, its about not being variety and having different styles of play or strategy. Variety is fun. Homogeneity is not.

I’m a Knicks fan. Last two games we faced were the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers.

I would like anyone to break down both teams playbooks and styles and how they are exactly the same.

No one here will be able to do it.

 

[CHICAGO]

I’m a Knicks fan. Last two games we faced were the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers.

YOU SURE YOU A KNICKS FAN?


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[ISO]

YOU SURE YOU A KNICKS FAN?


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Those wasn’t the last two games you right I’m wilding

I saw the games against CHA and MIL tho trust I was in the game thread we can use those teams too fukk it

Point still stands

 

[Professor Emeritus]

Wrong

OP, this isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last.

This is the first time in history that every organization has used mathematical analysis rather than their own brain trust to detemine the best strategy. It's just a fact that algorithms are more similar to each other than human minds. That's the unique historical situation that's being ignored.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

I’m a Knicks fan. Last two games we faced were the Orlando Magic and Cleveland Cavaliers.

I would like anyone to break down both teams playbooks and styles and how they are exactly the same.

No one here will be able to do it.

YOU SURE YOU A KNICKS FAN?


​

Those wasn’t the last two games you right I’m wilding

I saw the games against CHA and MIL tho trust I was in the game thread we can use those teams too fukk it

Point still stands

Teams are so similar that breh thought Hornets/Bucks were the Magic/Cavs.

 

[ISO]

Teams are so similar that breh thought Hornets/Bucks were the Magic/Cavs.

How do the Hornets, Bucks, Magic, Cavs, Knicks all play alike?

Break this down. Feel free to use any two teams in that selection instead of harping on me misspeaking.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

This is the first time in history that every organization has used mathematical analysis rather than their own brain trust to detemine the best strategy. It's just a fact that algorithms are more similar to each other than human minds. That's the unique historical situation that's being ignored.

I don't think it's as black and white as this.

There's more "brain trust" than ever before in sports, where you have the examination and addressing of the smallest details: injury management, nutrition, specific functioning body activities, rest/rehab, mental health etc. Those all play a part in winning/strategy that affects how a team plays, before we take into account the actual "mathematical analysis" that goes into winning that you see on the surface [on the field/court].

And then you take into account all the tape and specific game situations that teams study for, which again, is more detailed than ever before.

"Mathematical analysis" has always been present in sport, obviously, because the very nature of it is designed around numbers. The separation here is folks believing that playing more to the numbers in their approach of the game has affected the entertainment, when that's just a red herring. If analytics never grew into relevance, as I need to keep reiterating in here - there'll be something else that folks bring up for the game becoming less entertaining.

 

[Stone]

It’s just like everything else where we know too much about how the sausage is made