Capstone Projects

Evaluating NBA Players Based on Player Movement Data (A Case Study)

Program: Data Science Master's
Location: Not Specified (remote)
Student: Jared Fread

The purpose of this Case Study is to shine light on how powerful player tracking data can be to get talent evaluators closer to the source of truth on how performant and valuable a player truly is. Any insights found and methods of analyzing this data in this study that focuses on basketball may also be applicable in other sports that also gather this type of data (i.e. football, hockey, soccer, and baseball among others). 

Executives and managers of sports teams have a need to understand the sport their players perform in as well as understand how effective their players or potential players are at executing while performing in that sport. This case study will provide that level of analysis and look to play the role of a talent evaluator as well as a team executive to assemble a potential team going forward (post 2015-2016 season). 

The project will look to provide a more in-depth analysis than that of typical box score summary statistics creating a novel metric that brings more context and insight than the typical NBA metrics.