DoDo on the rise: Who's better than RoCo?

[vfromlmf]

I'm an "eye test" guy who uses the box score when I can't watch. (I read Luka's stat line first, then look at KP's rebounds, then it's on to Maxi vs Powell.) Charles Barkley told me to ignore analytics, let alone the dreaded 'advanced analytics."

Love your post. And generally speaking, I'm in the same camp. I watch the games, then I check the boxscore. Not so much for "player evaluation" though. Boxscores are fun. Sort of a game within a game. I like Luka triple doubles. I like KP rebounding well. I like when our role players shoot well. I like when we out-rebound the opponent and get more than 25 assists.

In fact -- and not to derail this thread further -- but one of the best parlor games in sport is to guess which version of THJ will show up on any given night. It's a total crap shoot. Try it.

But back to the point, I do occasionally like to dive into the advanced analytics ...though I would never rely on stats alone to do player evaluation. 

The idea that analytics can be used to capture value from data is not controversial. It's well proven across every industry. New sources of data and new methods like ML/DL are enabling insights-based value creation models to drive top-line revenue & enhance activities like pricing, churn-prevention, cross- and up-selling; bottom-line activies like predictive maintenance, supply chain optimization, fraud prevention; and wholly new business models. Of course Moneyball taught us analytics can be applied to help identified undervalued assets in sports, for example players who a likely to outplay their contract.

So there's some value in checking to see what analytics has to say about DoDo. Is he scoring efficiently with his limited chances? Is he really rebounding well or is he just getting boards because he's playing the four in a small lineup? The Mavs switch a ton so is DoDo really defending the opponent's best scorer more often than, say THJ? The advanced stats can help with this.

Quite honestly it surprised me ... DoDo looks really good according to advanced analytics.