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The Art of Statistics: How to Learn from Data

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 …

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The Last Enforcer

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 …

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Thinking, Fast and Slow

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 …

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Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction

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 …

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The Hot Hand: The Mystery and Science of Streaks

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 …

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Statistical Sports Models in Excel

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. …

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Shoe Dog: A Memoir by the Creator of Nike

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 …

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Basketball Data Science: With Applications in R

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 …

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Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder

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 …

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The Undisputed Guide to Pro Basketball History

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.

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A March to Madness

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, …

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The Book of Basketball

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 …

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Thinking Basketball

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 …

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LeBron, Inc.: The Making of a Billion-Dollar Athlete

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 …

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SprawlBall

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 …

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The Extra 2%

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 …

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Basketball (and Other Things)

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 …

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Golden Days

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 …

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Faster, Higher, Stronger

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 …

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Basketball is Jazz

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 …

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Betaball: How Silicon Valley and Science Built Basketball Teams

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 …

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Sacred Hoops: Spiritual Lessons of a Hardwood Warrior

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 …

Predictive Analytics

The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die An introduction for everyone. In this rich, fascinating — surprisingly accessible — introduction, leading expert Eric Siegel reveals how predictive analytics works, and how it affects everyone every day. Rather than a “how to” for hands-on techies, the book serves lay readers and experts alike by covering new case …

Predictably Irrational

Why do our headaches persist after we take a one-cent aspirin but disappear when we take a fifty-cent aspirin? Why do we splurge on a lavish meal but cut coupons to save twenty-five cents on a can of soup? When it comes to making decisions in our lives, we think we’re making smart, rational choices. But are we? In this …

Outliers

In this stunning new book, Malcolm Gladwell takes us on an intellectual journey through the world of “outliers”–the best and the brightest, the most famous and the most successful. He asks the question: what makes high-achievers different? His answer is that we pay too much attention to what successful people are like, and too little attention to where they are …

Naked Statistics

Stripping the Dread from the Data Once considered tedious, the field of statistics is rapidly evolving into a discipline Hal Varian, the chief economist at Google, has actually called “sexy.” From batting averages and political polls to game shows and medical research, the real-world application of statistics continues to grow by leaps and bounds. How can we catch schools that …

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Mathletics

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, …

Basketball on Paper

journey “inside the numbers” for an exceptional set of statistical tools and rules that can help explain the winning, or losing, ways of a basketball team. Basketball on Paper doesn’t diagram plays or explain how players get in shape but instead demonstrates how to interpret player and team performance. Dean Oliver highlights general strategies for teams when they’re winning or …

Microsoft Excel Data Analysis and Business Modeling

Master business modeling and analysis techniques with Microsoft Excel 2016, and transform data into bottom-line results. Written by award-winning educator Wayne Winston, this hands-on, scenario-focused guide helps you use Excel’s newest tools to ask the right questions and get accurate, actionable answers. This edition adds 150+ new problems with solutions, plus a chapter of basic spreadsheet models to make sure …

Moneyball

Moneyball is a quest for the secret of success in baseball. Following the low-budget Oakland Athletics, their larger-than-life general manger, Billy Beane, and the strange brotherhood of amateur baseball enthusiasts, Michael Lewis has written not only “the single most influential baseball book ever” (Rob Neyer, Slate) but also what “may be the best book ever written on business” (Weekly Standard). …