'Take that for data': Coverage of NBA playoffs raises analytics debate
Only David Fizdale knows exactly what he meant during his “Take that for data” mic drop moment.
The first-year Memphis Grizzlies coach ended his postgame press conference with that classic line Monday night and a pound on the table. By spending the previous 78 seconds eviscerating the officiating and sharing the unbalanced free throw numbers from his team’s Game 2 loss to the San Antonio Spurs, he did more than star in a viral video so popular it even inspired a T-shirt. He came up with the perfect slogan for this era of NBA information overload.
For all the benefits of the analytics age and the new methods we use to more accurately judge the performance of players and their teams, there is a gap to be bridged between statistics and the smell test. This league-wide challenge already has become a subplot in the early stages of these playoffs, with coaches and commentators alike trying to make sense of what they’re seeing by combining the eyeball test with data that has never been more available.
Case in point: TNT analyst Brent Barry.
Barry is a fascinating mixture of old school and new. The son of Hall of Famer Rick Barry won titles with the San Antonio Spurs, played 14 seasons in all and evolved into one of the most studious broadcasters in the business. He geeks out with the numbers more than ever on game days, holing up in his hotel room for six or seven hours to compile research that might come in handy on that night’s call.
Barry’s process is driven partly by his passion for the game, a deep desire to have the best possible understanding of what’s happening on the floor. Part of it is his way of vetting his own views, making sure that the opinions and perspectives being shared with millions of basketball fans are actually rooted in reality.
There’s a value to this approach that should not be underappreciated. When fellow TNT analyst and Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal and even yours truly said Paul George should have had the last shot instead of C.J. Miles in Game 1, a look at the data would have shown the Pacers star is 0-for-15 on potential go-ahead shots in the last 20 seconds of games since entering the league. TNT’s Kenny Smith says Oklahoma City's Russell Westbrook is a two-way player, but the data show he ranked 42nd among point guards in ESPN’s defensive real plus-minus stat, which estimates a player’s on-court impact on defensive performance.
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For Barry’s part, he never loses sight of the subtle stuff, either. The human component, those hard-to-quantify factors that so often lead to trends and results, always will play a pivotal part. On Monday night, for example, Barry didn’t need to look at the numbers to know the Cavs’ defense was still as bad as ever.
Even with a 2-0 series lead against the Indiana Pacers, the question of Cleveland’s ability to stop better teams deeper in the playoffs will remain. It’s one thing to highlight how Cleveland (entering Tuesday) had the 12th-worst defensive rating among the 16 playoff teams, or to recycle the stat about how the Cavs were the 29th-ranked defense from March 1 until April 12, but it’s another to try and explain why it’s happening.
“Here’s the thing that I’m seeing, and again it certainly goes beyond what’s being spewed out with the calculators,” Barry told USA TODAY Sports during a visit on the NBA A to Z podcast. “It's the fact that there's something in what the Cleveland team is doing in their body language and in moments in the game — the slight bickering, or the effect that it has on guys with the way that they play.
“There's (defensive) stops that don't happen, and guys are … getting to the point where they're slow to get back into an offensive play. They're absolutely slow on turnovers or when there's a couple of isolation plays, (and) guys aren't touching the ball. They're slow to get back into their defensive plays. There's just something about the spirit of their competitive drive right now that's not there.”
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The irony of Fizdale delivering this message was not lost on those who follow the league closely. The Grizzlies have a front office full of analytics-minded basketball men. General manager Chris Wallace was once a trailblazer on the data front. When he was 23 in the 1980s, he started the famed Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook during downtime from a job as a change maker at Reno casinos. He eventually found his way into the NBA. Vice president of basketball operations John Hollinger had a similar story in more modern times, having served as the analytics leader and respected basketball writer for ESPN before joining the Grizzlies in December 2012.
The data won’t show if Fizdale’s impassioned speech might inspire his players even more in Game 3, nor will it reveal if the referees who didn’t take kindly to the criticism might see certain plays differently as a result. But if nothing else, at least this NBA phenomenon has a name now.
Take that for data? Take that to the bank.
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick.
