Kaposvár a Wired-benenön
Whenever sports and numbers meet, the Moneyball question inevitably arises: Is it possible to use big data sets to find undervalued players? Alagappan believes it is.
He isolated the 40 players in the “scoring rebounder” section who best epitomized that group. At the top were the stars you might expect: Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire of the New York Knicks, along with Nowitzki and the Los Angeles Lakers’ Paul Gasol. But lesser-known players like Marreese Speights of the Memphis Grizzlies and the Lakers’ Devin Ebanks produced statistically similar per-minute results. Even better, where Anthony’s salary averages around $18.5 million per year, the Lakers are paying Ebanks about $740,000.
Another inevitable question: Could Ayasdi’s software have predicted the success of Knicks rookie Jeremy Lin? Alagappan concedes Lin’s college stats wouldn’t have suggested or predicted Linsanity, but he did create a similarity network to identify those players most similar to Lin in college. Three names emerged from the 3,400 analyzed: DeMarcus Cousins, who the Sacramento Kings picked fifth overall in the 2010 NBA draft; Alec Burks, picked 12th in 2011 by the Utah Jazz; and Nik Raivio, a University of Portland guard currently playing ball in Kaposvar, Hungary.
The lesson? For teams who buy into this new classification of players, the next Jeremy Lin might be in Hungary, awaiting your call.