Modeling an NBA Expansion Starting Five (A Case Study)

With rumors circulating about the benefits and possibility of the NBA expanding due to circumstances from the pandemic, this project aims to demonstrate how data science can be used to help the expansion process. In particular, this relates to the need of a new team to structure a roster. Instead of relying on gut and intuition that is used too often, and is frequently focused on characteristics that do not have the greatest effect on team performance, I used predictive modeling and optimization to structure the starting five roster spots. This presented a more targeted, analytical approach a team should use to both meet their winning objectives, and gain efficiency in decision making.