Textbook's Declaration

Dear Friends,

We are inactive since 31.05.2013.In fact, personally we are experiencing the most active period of our lives. We just want to keep on working our basketball analyses. There is nothing make us happier than that. If only we can just conduct new analyses and find new formulas in peace.

Yet, things are very tricky in here. Our country has been in a very deep sleep. No need to lie, we were also becoming more and more numb and nonresponsive. Yet, everything changed in a single night. There is a small park in Istanbul called Gezi Parkı. Some concerned citizens was trying to defend this park because government wanted to turned this park into yet another shopping mall. One night Turkish cops bombed people with tear gases and beat the peaceful demonstrators.

A Dangerous(!) Protester Reading A Book to Cops

Women in Red (Tear Gas)

We just had enough. We decided to stand up and speak up. We hit the streets in all over the country. (You can find photos and videos about streets in various websites , showdiscontent.com is one of them for example) We're in the streets since May,31. We are not some extremists, we are just ordinary engineering students. We didn't damage any public property. We've never thrown anything to cops. Yet, we are beaten, bombed with tear gases and blast bombs, repelled by water cannons and even shot with tear gas capsules.  We are resisting for our freedom. It's not about just the park anymore. It's about human rights and people's way of living. Because, our emperor wannabe prime minister is trying to limit our freedom. 

But, we are not death yet. We are resisting to violent government and its cops without damaging anything. There is four dead people and thousands of casualty so far. We are breathing more tear gases than oxygen these days. We're tired but determined. Streets of the country filled with brillant people. By the way,you can't imagine level of sense of humor in streets. We are also laughing to death while fighting against police violence. For example, in the picture below, some fellow protester put a Gandalf picture on a cardboard an write "Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day,at dawn look to the east" on it. And noted that, "He can join our resistance, you just can't know" next to it. 

To put in a nutshell, we are resisting against autocracy and we don't know how long we need to resist. I hope we see you soon. Please, if you have a chance, be our voice and say everyone around you that Turkish police slaughtering their own people. For those who are supporting our cause, God bless you. You are nothing but a brother/sister to us. United we stand!

Sincerely, 

Textbook Team

#direngezi #direnankara #resistTurkey #occupyTurkey

Personal Apology: If you're following my personal twitter account, I'm probably screwing your timeline.My apologies for that. But, I have to do that. Because our dishonarable media, didn't show anything to people. Their bosses have some other business with the government, so they are deliberately blinding the people.Hence, we are using every social media tools to share what's really happening. "You are the media, share it" is one of the most common motto of this resistance. So, you can imagine that sharing what's happening is an obligation for me, not a choice. Still, I'm sorry for your timelines , forgive me :)

Shoot Me Baby One More Time

Let's imagine that we are recruiting a team to dominate Euroleague. We would choose our maestro from the list here. Now,what's next? A solid big guy or a reliable shooter ? It depends on one's perspective for sure, on the other hand I analyzed the marksmen in this post.

There are several kinds of player in every team's rosters. Involving players with different types are considered essential for a team roster. It's easy to understand though, if you have players who can play at different roles then you have numerous offensive and defensive options to apply. Yet, there are some types of players indispensable for any team's roster. Spot shooters -aka snipers- are such kind of players. Every team needs a reliable shooter regardless of the system they choose to play. These players could be leader of their teams -like Kevin Durant or La Bomba- or could be a mediocre player -like Danny Green- who is only perfect for some well-defined,limited roles. As I said, every team needs a sniper,but how can you rate shooters? As you can guess, field goal percentages are not enough for us. What makes shooting hard? Could every two pointer attempt be considered as shooting position? Are there any differences between scoring two pointer and scoring three pointer ?

Let's get down to the business. There several elements which makes shooting hard. First of all, it's very important how your opponent's defense is. If they can defend shooters well, it would be much harder for your players to shoot. Also, volume of the shoots affects shooting percentage. Shooting percentage tends to decrease when number of shoots increases. It makes sense actually. It would much more harder to shoot 10 balls in a row with 100 % then shoot 2 balls in a row with 100%. So, we need to create a correlation function between field goal percentage and field goal attempt to get rid of that problem. After I've formed up correlation function, another question bumped in to my head; could every two pointer attempt be considered as shooting position.  Definitely, no! Remember, dunks and layups are also counted as two pointer attempts in boxscore. Yet, they cannot be counted as shooting positions. We need to eliminate these positions from real shooting positions to determine shooting percentage. After all adjustments, there was still a few more problems. One of them was, weighting two pointers and three pointers. Since it’s harder to score three  pointer than to score two pointer - even though some crazy guys look more confident behind the arc like Steve Novak, they are exceptions of the rule, and you know what they say about the expections, they prove the rule -, we need to reward three pointers slightly higher than two pointers. Actually, we don’t need to do anything at all. As the names implies, they can be easily weighted with the ratio of 2 to 3. Now, there is still one more problem; Free Throws. I couldn't decide if I should regard free throw attempts as shooting attempts. To be honest, either ways make sense to me, so I made two analysis.

The list above doesn't include free throw numbers. Opponent's Strength column represents how the opponent of the corresponding players' team defend shooting positions. As I mentioned before, 2-Pointer Rate doesn't include dunks and layups. Shooting Rates are final results of the adjusted numbers of difficulty of the shoots, shooting volumes and weighted shooting rates. 

This list on the other hand, also includes Free Throw Rates. There are no fantastical changes. Leader and the runner-up are still in the same place. We have some new comers like Sonny Weems,Vassilis Spanoulis,Curtis Jerrells,Milos Teodosic and Jason Kapono. Also, we have some players who is out of Top 20 list like Earl Colloway,Jaycee Carroll,Brion Rush,Bracey Wright and Devin Smith.

I couldn't decide which list is better, it's up to you now...

Thunder's Way

In these days every unsuccessfull teams trying to do Thunder's formula to become successfull. It is becoming more and more boring  to see tanking that much. Drafts are not always a gold mine. Thus we tried to remember how successfull teams (made Conferance Finals) built their team between 2000-2012. Between these years because before that there was an unfair league [1]. I'll write only selected teams made Conferance Final more than one. This post shows the team who reached Conferance Fibals between 2000 and 2006. Here are teams.

 LALx4:

We all know 2000's Lakers right. Kobe? Shaq? Ok. They were not good in Jordan era. They missed play-off '93-'94 first since '76. An then they looked around for the best center in the league like all years they did(Mikan-Wilt-Kareem-Shaq-Dwight). Shaq was available at '96 summer, well, got him. Same year draft night Mr.Logo did one of the best trades of all time and took Kobe. Result ; 2 MVP's 4 final and 3 rings. By the way they hired P-Jax as coach in these years.

DETx4:

They started to build championship roster after 2000(32-50 record). They missed play-off that year.But they not at the deep of league like these years. Joe Dumars made amazing moves after that not like these years(Darko Milicic broke his heart I guess.) They got 4 allstar 4! 3 of them was trade. Billups joined from FA. None of them came from draft.

SASx3:

'85 play-off
'86 28-54 = 1th pick=David Robinson
'96 Conference Semi-finals
'97 20-62 = 1th pick=Tim Duncan
'97 Greg Popovic hired as headcoach.
Also they selected two all-star from draft. '99 57th pick !!! '01 28th pick!!. BAM! Here is the dynasty. 15 consequent year play-off 4 rings.

NJNx2:

Look at these records.98-99= 16-34, 99-00=31-51, 00-01= 26-56 nice right! How about  that 02 Final - 03 Final!!. They selected Kenyon from 1st pick in '00 (I guess that draft was worst draft ever.). They sent Stephon Marbury for Jason Kidd. Great!! Also they took Jefferson in 01'draft night by sending 6th pick Eddie Griffin.

INDx2:

In '86-'87 they were at the last spot of play-off. 87' draft night Reggie Miller is selected from 11th pick. That was very suprising and unable to understand for Pacers fans not to select Steve Alford but Donnie Walsh was confident. Result? Ask jersey #31 at Banker Life Fieldhouse ceiling. Anyway, they got Rik Smith after that year form draft. Then, They made 16 play-offs in 18 years. 5 conferance final 1 final. In 2000 Jalen Rose became a Pacer and he was scorer of the Finalist team that year. Besides, they were successfull indeed with Jermaine, Ron Artest, Al Harington. But c'mon Ron Ron.

DALx2:

A conversation from 90's in Dallas.
+ What did Mavs last night?
-Mavs Who?The band one?

Dallas was totally loser in 90's. 0 "zero" play-offs. '98 Draft night  was breaking point  for franchise. Don Nelson wanted a German guy and Suns back-up guard Steve Nash. They had 6th pick for weird-haired blond German. Besides Buck desired Robert Traylor from draft and Suns wanted Pat Garrity. What Mavs did ? Selected Traylor from 6th pick-sent Bucks, took 9th pick Dirk- Pat Garrity from 19th pick-sent Suns got Nash-. Result? 1 MVP 2 Allstar. 2 Final 1 Ring. 12 consequent years play-offs.

PHOx2:

They were not bad in 90's, they lost one time against His Airness, made all play-offs between '89-'01. In '01-'02 team had Marbury-Hardaway-Marion trio but they had gone out of play-offs after 82 games. '02 draft Suns selected Amare Stoudemire from 9th overall. But team was going nowhere. In the mid of '03 they sent Marbury and Hardaway for pieces which means nothing. But they got FA Steve Nash future 2 times MVP. D'antoni's system suited playerss like Nash, Amare and Marion excellently. Nearly all players in these year made their carrer numbers. But that wasn't enough for ring. They needed luck also.

MIAx2:

Early 2000's the hot-blooded '90s Miami's roster was seperated. After 25-57 '02-'03 season Pat Riley gave up, too and left the coaching spot to Stan Van Gundy to take 2 and a half years later. '03 draft night they were waiting Chris Bosh or some thing but special thanks to Joe Dumars they selected Dwayne Wade from 5th overall. One year later, Lakers made a choice between Shaq and Kobe. Shaq was the packing up one. Miami sent a package for  'really' Big-man(Odom-Butler- 10th pick of '02 draft Grant). Wade-Shaq duo lost against Pistons '05 conference finals after that year won rings from 0-2 against Dallas Mavericks.

Wild Card - SAC:

Sacremento Kings was really nice buddy with Dallas Maverick in 90s. Between '87 and '98 seasons they made only one play-off and never won 40 games or more. Again same faith with Mavs in '98 summer(retirement of Jordan and Lock-out '98 summer was milestone for many teams) everything changed for Sacremento -at least for awhile. They made Chris Webber a King and sent all-star guard Mitch Richmond and Otis Thorpe for him to Wizards. Their 14th pick in '96 draft Predrag Stojakovic joined to the team and Rick Adelman-2 time WC champion with Blazers- hired as a head coach. Following years they captured respectively Vlade Divac, Doug Chirstie and Mike Bibby. And 61-21 overalled, Western Conference Finalist, very lovely team was built. But we all know Big Shot Rob right?

[1] Michael Jordan era.
[2]Traded with 4th round pick Stephon Marbury
[3] Peja joined league in 1998
[4] Mavs traded No. 6 pick and a future pick  to the Celtics for Eric Montross and a No. 9 pick
[5] Nets traded 7th round pick Eddie Griffin for 13th round pick Jefferson and pieces
[6]Mavs sent 6th pick  Robert Traylor for 9th pick Nowitzki and 19th pick  Pat Garrity on draft night
[7] Rights from Dallas

PM Ranking of the Season

We did a lot of play making analyses so far. Since the season has ended -sadly- , we decided to prepare all season rankings for a few stat that we've created. A few days ago Mehmet shared  T-Con ranking. Now,I'll share the play making rankings for all Euroleague players***.

Here is the first 25 play maker of the Euroleague.

Names at top are not surprising. We all know about play making abilities of them. Also, Saski Baskonia shines out with two player at top 5. That's just rich. 

Players from 25 to 50 is shown below.

There were only 55 player eligible player for this list by the way. So, the worst play makers in the list are also one of the worst play makers in all Euroleague. That doesn't suppose to mean too much of course. Not every point guard has to have same style. Some of them prefer to set more plays for their teammates while others prefer scoring as primary option. This list shows the point guard ranking at the first category,that doesn't have to show the "BEST" point guards at all.

_____________________________________________________________________________

*: Points

**: Possessions

***: Only players who played at least 15 minutes per a game and played at least 5 game were eligible  for the evaluation. 

T-CON Season Ranking

We are starting summary of Euroleague Textbook's own child T-CON (Tangible Contribution) which works to measure players' contribution. T-CON involves play adjusted points, FG, FT, assist, steal, block, turnover,rebound all team stats and opponents stats. However I wouldn't explain the formula here. Doğuş wrote it before with all details. If you want to look at here is the T-CON.

Now I will present first 50 players of Euroleague who has the highest T-CON rank. The table is shown below involve players played +15 minutes. Please click on pics for bigger view.

first 25

second 25

To make some inferences like which country has more reps or which team or which position has more player in first 50, I prepared some additional rankings.

      

United States ( what did you expected?) and PG dominations are the notable results. Also having 3 players from Elan Chalon and Union Olimpija is interesting. It can be explained with that teams playing style and regular season's defensive toughness. Pages of analyses can written about these results but this post presents only results, comments are belonging to you.

Epilogue - Let It Started Already!

This is the final post of the our Final Four Analysis Series. We analyzed the every F4 team separately. Now we'll make a final review. As previous posts, there will be results of the T-Con,Play Makers,Shooters,Rebounders and Play Oriented Winning Analysis in this post. I'll show you Top 10 players for every category.  Let's start with the T-Con;

CSKA Moscow is dominating the list with 4 player while other teams have equally 2 players. Possible MVP candidates for each team ;

Vassilis Spanoulis,Olympiacos
Viktor Khryapa,CSKA Moscow
Rudy Fernandez,Real Madrid
Ante Tomic,Barcelona  

That doesn't mean that one of these four players should definitely win the MVP Award. It just shows how these players made tangible contributions so far. For example, can anyone bet against Navarro ? If Barcelona could fulfill their dreams, he would definitely be a strong candidate.

As always, second analysis is about play making skills ;

We have a Master at the top of the list. Maybe he got old and not the same player he used to be. Yet, he didn't lost any of his basketball IQ for sure. That's what makes Papaloukas one of the greatest players. At the second place, we have Mantzaris. It would be a great misfortune that we couldn't see him in the Final Four. Yet,he is only 23 years old and if everthing progresses as expected, we'll see a lot more of him. It seems that he is taking firm steps forward. Last of all, Greek domination at the list is very remarkable.

Now,it's time to look at snipers of the Final Four;

Jaycee Carroll - personal favorite - is at the top of the list. Both Real Madrid and CSKA Moscow with 4 players.However, the ones from the Barcelona and Olympiacos are players you can never risk to shot. Yet, they can easily score anywhere they want when they are in winning mode even if you defend them. This list shows the combination of the middle range shots and 3-pointers by the way. If we want to look at only 3-pointer the list would be like ;

We have a new comer,Papanikolaou and a goner,Rodriguez. The order of list is also changed of course. But, it seems no one can move the Carroll from the top of the list.

Let's focus on the big guys a little more. Here is the Top 10 rebounders of the Final Four;

Remember, because of the problems to obtain some detailed data in Euroleague, we made some estimations on players' rebound rates. If we could gather them, there would be slight changes in the list possibly. We can say that Barcelona and Olympiacos are dominating the list with 3 players. CSKA Moscow's T-Con leader Khryapa is leading the rebounding list also.

Last of all, Play Oriented Winning Functions;

Table above shows the winning functions of all teams. Also, I've evaluated the every possible scenario and found the Optimal Number of Play (ONoP) for each team to win all possible games. As expected, in a low pace game Olympiacos has great chance to defend his championship. Contrarily, if the pace goes up, it would help Real Madrid. If CSKA and Barcelona want to win, they should adjust the game pace so good that neither Olympiacos nor Real Madrid get the advantage. Between Barcelona and CSKA, optimal number of plays are so close.

This was the last Final For analysis. Because the nature of format, F4 is always open to surprises. Everyone has personal candidates for the championship and we all know that even teams who appear strongest can be easily beaten at the very first day. That's what makes Final Four thrilling. It's time to enjoy greatest stage of the European Basketball.

_____________________________________________________________________________

*: Points

**: Possessions

***: Shooting Value 1; combination of middle range shots and 3-pointers

****: Shooting Value 2; value of only 3-pointers

Note: Every analysis ,which is conducted for all players of the Euroleague, is applied for the players who had played at least 15 game in the Euroleague this season.

#4 Real Madrid - Speed up Royals

Like Barcelona, Real's roster nearly same with last years' Top 16 Real. Tomic out Slaughter in was major switch of pre-season. Interestingly, the key matchup of first step of F4 can Tomic vs Slaughter. Slaughter should stand behind Tomic solid otherwise he will defend one two size bigger than him,Jawai.

Like Barca and Oly, Real has 2 player in top 10 T-con Rank. However not like the other F4 teams, Real's first 5 players in T-Con are originally like to play outside. It reflects Real's offense exactly. But nonbeing Bigman threat will their soft spot in El clasico.

When you look play-maker analyze, There is a big difference between Real and other F4 teams

Azerbaijan Airlines is number one hot-shooter so far according our shooter analyze. And real shooters will their main power in F4. Against Barca with no Pete Mikael, Real can play more minutes with 3 guard that means Pascual can hold Sada in game and we all know what will happen in the other side of court right?

Real has one of best rebounders of all time Euroleage, Reyes. He still best man in Real at this age. They have also Mirotic in top 10. They have to struggle against Barca's big boys to balance rebound.

Real's TDR rates are amazing like Barca. If you consider Real's pace, their defense stats are impressive. They can bite opponents when they want.Here is their TDR progress round by round.

Real's TOR number are decreasing while Euroleague progresses. That can be explained by opponents strength and sharpened defenses. And also you can check out Real's TOR progress against EL average.

And, Play Oriented Winning Function analysis;

Against fierce rival Barca, 83 magic number. Over 83 number of play odds will return to Real Madrid. As for potential match-up against Russians they should increase the game pace even more because 83 would probably not enough. However against Oly, 80 number of play will be enough in favor of Real.

Real started Top 16 with 9-1 record but they didn't look like 9-1 team. They won 2xZalgiris, Alba, Pana, Brose games with less than 5 margin.So and so they lost 3 game streak and lost first spot and again luckly they matched up Maccabi (If Pablo Laso had selected opponent he would select Maccabi I think). They swept Maccabi as all we know with average 16 margin!. Under consideration of all circumstances Barca look like half of a step ahead in El Clasico.