How do basketball teams win championships? A quantitative analysis on factors determining wins

Abstract

Since its appearance in the late fifties, evaluation of sport performance represents a growing field of research, and quantitative analysis has established as a useful and efficient instrument in order to assess and evaluate performance of both teams and players. Numerous sports are subject of analysis (baseball, basketball, football, hockey etc.), as well as numerous techniques have been developed to study them, creating a significant body of literature. For instance, analysis of performance within basketball has been carried on from different perspectives, implementing various ways of thinking, which are different both in the subject of evaluation and in the method these evaluations are driven. This research introduce a new approach of team assessment through the use of traditional instruments. In this context, Dean Oliver’s work on measuring performance in the NBA represents a useful method to evaluate a team’s strengths and weaknesses and to analyze its efficiency, while Rough Set Theory is used as innovative approach for basketball analysis. The aim of this research is to quantitatively analyze which are the factors that led to success (or failure) some Italian basketball teams during specific seasons of Legabasket (from 2009/2010 to 2013/2014), in order to obtain certain rules, known as decision rules. Given the cause-effect relationship of the factors involved, a decision table will be set up, presenting a simple method of drawing consistent conclusions from the statistics collected on court and giving explanation of obtained results.