Category Archive

Statistics are everywhere, as integral to science as they are to business, and in the popular media hundreds of times a day. In this age of big data, a basic grasp of statistical literacy is more important than ever if we want to separate the fact from the fiction, the ostentatious embellishments from the raw evidence — and even more …

The Last Enforcer: Outrageous Stories From the Life and Times of One of the NBA’s Fiercest Competitors A memoir from Charles Oakley—one of the toughest and most loyal players in NBA history—featuring unfiltered stories about the journey that basketball has taken him on and his relationships with Michael Jordan, LeBron James, Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, James …

In the international bestseller, Thinking, Fast and Slow, Daniel Kahneman, the renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics, takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. The impact of …

Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week’s meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts’ predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study …

For decades, statisticians, social scientists, psychologists, and economists (among them Nobel Prize winners) have spent massive amounts of precious time thinking about whether streaks actually exist. After all, a substantial number of decisions that we make in our everyday lives are quietly rooted in this one question: If something happened before, will it happen again? Is there such a thing …

What does it take to create a winning sports betting model? Many people are interested in learning how to make smarter sports betting wagers. Not many of those same people are excited at the prospect of learning applied statistics to better inform their choices. You can’t entirely blame them. Statistics has a well-earned reputation for being somewhat inaccessible by non-academics. …

In this instant and tenacious New York Times bestseller, Nike founder and board chairman Phil Knight “offers a rare and revealing look at the notoriously media-shy man behind the swoosh”, illuminating his company’s early days as an intrepid start-up and its evolution into one of the world’s most iconic, game-changing, and profitable brands. Bill Gates named Shoe Dog one of …

Using NBA play-by-play data from one season of NBA games, Basketball Data Science: With Applications in R is the perfect book for anyone interested in learning and applying data analytics in basketball. Whether assessing the spatial performance of an NBA player’s shots or doing an analysis of the impact of high-pressure game situations on the probability of scoring, this book …

Antifragile is a standalone book in Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s landmark Incerto series, an investigation of opacity, luck, uncertainty, probability, human error, risk, and decision-making in a world we don’t understand. The other books in the series are Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Skin in the Game, and The Bed of Procrustes. Nassim Nicholas Taleb, the bestselling author of The …

The people behind the blogging collective FreeDarko present the entire history of pro basketball, from the Celtics of Red Auerbach to LeBron and Kobe, with a taxonomy of every fight in NBA history and a feature called The Mustache Index.

It’s the book in which America’s favorite sportswriter returns to the arena of his most successful bestseller, A Season on the Brink. It’s the book that takes us inside the intensely competitive Atlantic Coast Conference & paints a portrait of how college baskettball is coached & played at the highest level. It’s the book that takes us onto the courts, …

Foreword by Malcolm Gladwell Newly updated with fresh takes on LeBron, Kobe, the Celtics & more* Bill Simmons, the wildly opinionated and thoroughly entertaining basketball addict known to millions as ESPN.com’s The Sports Guy, has written the definitive book on the past, present, and future of the NBA. From the age-old question of who actually won the rivalry between Bill …

Are top scorers really the most valuable players? Are games decided in the final few minutes? Does the team with the best player usually win? Thinking Basketball challenges a number of common beliefs about the game by taking a deep dive into the patterns and history of the NBA. Explore how certain myths arose while using our own cognition as …

From the New York Times bestselling author of Return of the King comes the story of LeBron James’s incredible transformation from basketball star to sports and business mogul. With eight straight trips to the NBA Finals, LeBron James has proven himself one of the greatest basketball players of all time. And like Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan before him, LeBron …

SprawlBall: A Visual Tour of the New Era of the NBA From the leading expert in the exploding field of basketball analytics, a stunning infographic decoding of the modern NBA: who shoots where, and how. The field of basketball analytics has leaped to overdrive thanks to Kirk Goldsberry, whose visual maps of players, teams, and positions have helped teams understand …

How Wall Street Strategies Took a Major League Baseball Team from Worst to First by Jonah Keri What happens when three financial industry whiz kids and certified baseball nuts take over an ailing major league franchise and implement the same strategies that fueled their success on Wall Street? In the case of the 2008 Tampa Bay Rays, an American League …

Basketball (and Other Things): A Collection of Questions Asked, Answered, Illustrated Michael Jordan is the acknowledged greatest basketball player of all-time, but what season was Michael Jordan the best version of Michael Jordan? Who’s in The Disrespectful Dunk Hall of Fame? What’s allowed and absolutely not allowed in a game of pickup basketball? BASKETBALL (AND OTHER THINGS) presents readers with …

Golden Days: West’s Lakers, Steph’s Warriors, and the California Dreamers Who Reinvented Basketball In Golden Days, acclaimed sports journalist Jack McCallum uses two teams—today’s Golden State Warriors and the L.A. Lakers of the early 1970s—to trace the dynamic history of the National Basketball Association, which for much of the last half-century has marched memorably through the state of California. Tying …

The New Science of Creating Superathletes, and How You Can Train Like Them Publications as varied as Wired, Men’s Fitness, and The New Yorker are abuzz over the New York Times bestseller Faster, Higher, Stronger. In it, veteran journalist Mark McClusky explains how today’s top athletes are turning to advanced technology and savvy science to improve their performance. Sports buffs …

Harvey Penick wrote “The Little Red Book” to teach golf enthusiasts the world over, fans and players, the nuances of the game. He succeeded brilliantly, and in the process, he inspired David Thorpe to do the same thing for the sport he has spent a lifetime coaching. Coach Thorpe, an ESPN NBA Analyst for the past ten years, has spent …

Moneyball meets The City Game in this compelling look at how the world champion Golden State Warriors embraced savvy business practices, next-generation science, and Silicon Valley’s technocentric culture to not only produce the most talented basketball team ever assembled but revolutionize the modern NBA. Betaball is the definitive, inside account of how the Warriors — under the leadership of venture …

Eleven years ago, when Phil Jackson first wrote these words in Sacred Hoops, he was the triumphant head coach of the Chicago Bulls, known for his Zen approach to the game. He hadn’t yet moved to the Los Angeles Lakers, with whom he would bring his total to an astounding nine NBA titles. In his thought-provoking memoir, he revealed how …

Mathletics reveals the mathematical methods top coaches and managers use to evaluate players and improve team performance and gives math enthusiasts the practical skills they need to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of their favorite sports―and maybe even gain the outside edge to winning bets. This second edition features new data, new players and teams, and new chapters on soccer, …