*ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski had an update on the Wizards' search for a head of basketball operations, reporting that Clippers GM Michael Winger and New Orleans GM Trajan Langdon have met with Washington. Here are four other things to know today: ![]() If you prefer the harder-nosed game of bygone eras, you would bristle at the idea that the modern NFL is more entertaining.īut I would argue that on balance, changes to the way the game is played have had a more positive impact on watching football than on basketball or baseball.Īnd that's one big advantage for what is already the most popular league in America. ![]() Some of that, as noted, is a matter of taste. "Some of these concepts that we can really see on the field - not the ones that are deep in the weeds like how you're blocking in certain run schemes - but ones we sitting at home on our coach can just watch. "Pushing the ball down the field, throwing more often, going for it on fourth down, to some extent going for (a two-point conversion)," Coller said, citing some things that analytics have led teams to do more. Though it is a matter of taste in some cases, the argument can be made that baseball and basketball have suffered in part because of advances in what we know is efficient.īaseball's dependence on walks and extra-base hits - and conversely strikeouts - has led to fewer balls put in play and longer games, negatives that MLB is finally addressing with rule changes in 2023.īasketball's efficiency evolution created a surge in three-pointers - too many of them for some, like TNT's Charles Barkley, who groused in that it's no longer fun to watch basketball.įootball, though, has become in many ways more exciting and fun because of advanced data. One interesting topic that Coller and I got into toward the end of the segment is the impact of data on how football isn't just played but how it is watched by fans. I talked about that on Friday's Daily Delivery podcast with Matthew Coller, a local Vikings writer who recently finished writing a book about PFF called "Football Is a Numbers Game." Old-school thinking made new ideas seem too wild, and the fluid nature of each play made gathering meaningful data difficult.īut NFL teams increasingly have bought into new ideas in recent years - spurred along in part by the rise of Pro Football Focus. The NFL, meanwhile, lagged significantly behind. The NBA arguably was the league that next followed MLB in the data revolution. Influenced not only by cost-saving moves but the efficiencies they revealed, teams started copying the A's pursuit of on-base percentage and home runs. And given how well the sport lends itself to statistics, it shouldn't be a surprise that baseball was the first sport in which teams embraced and tried to gain edges with advanced data.īilly Beane's "Moneyball" A's were among the first stories told, and that was two decades ago. ![]() Baseball, with its ability to isolate individual events, has always been a numbers game.
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