Hoops Hypothesis

I recently posted an article  about statistically identifying good trade and free agency acquisitions for the San Antonio Spurs. With this article, I am going to suggest how the Spurs are going to acquire the aforementioned players. For those who haven’t read the previous article yet, the eight players we will be trying to trade for are Aaron Gordon, Will Barton, Malik Monk, E’Twaun Moore, Otto Porter Jr., Dario Saric, Mo Bamba and Montrezl Harrell. Depending on their contracts, we might try to sign them in free agency. So, without further ado, let’s look at our first trade. 1.   Aaron Gordon and Khem Birch for DeMar DeRozan and a 2021 2 nd round pick This trade is one of the few that benefit both teams. The Orlando Magic have struggled to generate offense, ranking bottom 10 in the league over the last two seasons, and DeRozan, a 25 point per game scorer, would certainly help with that. His defensive limitations will be overshadowed by the rest of Orlando’s main 5, which ...

Every sports fan, diehard or casual, has watched Moneyball, the movie about the use of statistics in baseball. While sports has become more receptive to the use of statistics to identify players, many fans still do not like to use or misuse statistics to back up their opinions. As an avid NBA fan, I too love to concoct fictitious trades to help make my team better. Through the use of statistics, I am going to try to make well informed decisions regarding player acquisitions for the San Antonio Spurs, my favourite NBA team. To tackle this problem, I used a linear regression model. To create the model, I first collected box score data for the Spurs’ 2019-20 season. This data was then used to create a model that will give a composite score, which predicts a team’s record. According to the model, a score closer to 1 indicates a better record, while a score closer to 0 indicates a worse record. Using Basketball Reference, I identified 8 players who the Spurs could feasibly acquire and who...