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ALLEYOOP.COM
The Basketball Page for Thinking Fans
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ABOUT ALLEYOOP.COM
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My name is John Hollinger, and I created this site in 1996 to help transform the way we think about the NBA. I realized that by analyazing the numbers, we could glean insights that would never appear to us from watching the games, no matter how often or how intently we watched.
One of the inspirations for me in creating this site was the transformation in thought that has gone on in baseball over the last 20 years. Thanks to the work of people like Bill James and Rob Neyer - guys who never played the game but nonetheless asked lots of questions - people don't blindly accept what they're told by coaches and announcers anymore. It's reverberated to the point that it's actually changed how teams operate - from pitch counts to drawing walks to free agency to probably
50 other ideas that came out of the research done in the last 20 years by dedicated, intelligent fans.
Basketball has yet to have that transformation, but we're getting there. The past several years have been an interesting ride as I've worked to popularize some fo the tools used in the basketball analyst community. The fourth edition of Pro Basketball Forecast will come out this fall with even more analysis for hardcore fans to chew on. I've also gotten a bigger soapbox this year, as I left SI.com and have begun writing for ESPN.com's Insider section.
Now we're seeing basketball stats pop up in new and interesting places. The Sonics, for instance, hired a full-time stats guy, which never would have happened even five years ago. We're hearing more coaches and announces refer to concepts like
"Offensive Efficiency," "Points per shot attempt" and the like. And of course, sites like 82games.com have done the work that the NBA should have been doing years ago, collecting missing data that is massively beneficial in analyzing the game.
Of course, basketball's stat revolution still lags well behind baseball's. We're still at the tip of the iceberg, so hopefully the next decade of Alleyoop.com will be as exciting as the past one. Thanks for joining me on the ride.
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