In this episode of Sports Business Classroom Audio Experience “Professional Series,” host Howard Beck is joined by Ben Taylor, author of Thinking Basketball, and host of the Thinking Basketball podcast. Ben, creator of the popular YouTube channel Thinking Basketball uses his platform to go deeper on basketball analysis, history, philosophy, and theory with a variety of guests ranging from journalists to former players.
In this episode, Howard and Ben discuss:
- Defensive analytics
- Joel Embiid vs. Nikola Jokic
- Where does Jokic rank defensively
Ben’s expertise in translating advanced analytics to the fans shines through on his podcast, where he breaks down basketball analytics in an accessible manner. Through platforms like YouTube, Patreon, and Twitter, he consistently shares his knowledge and helps bridge the gap between analytics and the average basketball fan. By having Ben on the show, Sports Business Classroom is excited to provide a valuable opportunity for him to share his wealth of knowledge and further enhance our audience’s understanding of basketball analytics.
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SHOW NOTES
- Have fans underestimated Jokic’s defensive abilities? How do fans know if someone is good defensively? (4:30)
- How do we match eye tests to data defensively? (5:50)
- Play-by-play and tracking data for defense (12:00)
- What does the team environment do for defense? (16:30)
- Shot volume and shot efficiency (18:30)
- Mapping data with what fans are seeing (20:00)
- What are the best defensive metrics to give us the best evaluation of defense? (23:00)
- Embiid vs. Jokic (30:00)
- What are the defensive metrics we can throw out? (32:00)
- Where does Jokic rank defensively? (34:45)
- Can you build a good defense around an offense-minded center? (40:00)
