Ben Taylor

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Ben Taylor posts

Posts: 196 Files: 173

Post show: The best players to never make All-NBA 1st team (Jan. 23 #96)

Cody and I wonder whether Joel Embiid is the best player to never make an All-NBA first team. Neither of us can remember our 75th Anniversary ballot.

Do superstars influence defensive shooting luck?

New post following up the discussion of shooting luck for defenses like the Nets: https://backpicks.com/2022/01/15/do-superstars-like-harden-and-durant-influence-opponent-shooting-luck/

Darius Garland director's cut

Early look at an extended Garland profile that's coming later this week on YouTube.

Sorry I forgot to post an announcement for this Q&A that we snuck in before the holidays. We also didn't get to a question about forecasting that we'll save for next time. Lots of really interesting conversation around Klay Thompson, portability, feel, the ideal body type for basketball, int...

WOWY stats update | top teams

Latest post on Backpicks here: https://backpicks.com/2021/12/15/wowy-stats-update-the-top-teams-in-the-league/

Warriors defense extras

Some director's cut stuff that didn't make the main video on GP2, switching concepts and help positioning.

Suns-Warriors extras

From their November 30th meeting in Phoenix, a few extras that didn't make the main YouTube video.I also forgot to mention on the last play that it's pretty clear the Suns scouted that action closely (as well as many others) and had likely discussed that exact look for the weakside defenders...

Live Q&A Audio Nov. 20, 2021

Some interesting questions this time about defense, development and aesthetics.

Rubio's game-winning pass

I'm experimenting with a segment on "the best plays of the week" or "plays that caught my attention." It would be a handful of plays like this one, and since I usually have a bunch of these at the end of a week/month that doesn't always make videos, it wouldn't take time ...

Teammate effects | WOWY Stats

Follow up on this week's video and podcast with some 2022 WOWY stats I'm eyeing: https://backpicks.com/2021/11/13/teammate-effects-early-season-wowy-stats/

Patreon pod: 2022 League Pass Rankings

You asked for it, you got it. The teams I'm watching most in the 2022 season so far, where I also panic when realizing I've never said Ayo Dosunmu's name out loud before, then call Stacey King "Neil Funk" (who retired 2 years ago) because of said panic.

Getting to the Nets — Rim pressure and perimeter player decline

Quick post on rim attempts and FTA as an indicator of decline, and what that means for Harden, Durant and even LeBron this year: https://backpicks.com/2021/10/28/getting-to-the-nets-rim-pressure-and-perimeter-player-decline/Drop any thoughts or comments below!

75th Anniversary Team Ballot

I could never really find a list I liked in this exercise -- the first 50 or 55 were fairly easy, the next 10 or so feel manageable, but then finding a final 75 that felt "good" was impossible. Someone was either too flawed, too injured, didn't play long enough or lacked a super high pea...

Dave DuFour Post show (2022 NBA preview)

Dave asks me who my favorite players were, and naturally that leads to baseball batting stances and Jaren Jackson's 3-point rate.

Mini Pod - Reggie Miller's scoring

One thought hit me after recording: Do we psychological give guys more credit for higher volume and lower efficiency because they take so many more difficult attempts?eg 25/75 on on 65% TS vs. 30/58%The second player takes 25.9 scoring attempts, the first player only 19.3. I imagine a lot of those d...

Live Q&A Audio Oct. 9, 2021

Is Michael Jordan an outlier among GOAT candidates? What are future directions of analytics? Does portability change based on the era? Who had the best single series and more...

Live Q&A Tomorrow Oct. 9 3pm pst + database update

1. Some of you have asked about weird values still showing up in the historical player tables -- these will slowly be updated as they're uncovered. For instance, some of the 2020 and 2021 players in the latest update were off because of an issue with player heights. (eg Luka Doncic's BPM was...

The best of the Backpicks Box

New compendium to the historical stats shared on the site, looking at a ton of leaderboards and comparing data by type, season and era: https://backpicks.com/2021/09/28/the-best-of-the-backpicks-box/

NBA 75 team predictions

From the latest podcast, here's the list of NBA at 75 predictions by draft class. Looking at 5-year periods since the beginning of the league, the breakdown is as follows: 1949-55: 5 (*Including Mikan in '49) 1956-60: 5 1961-65: 4 1966-70: 6 1971-75: 7 1976-80: 4 1981-85: 9 1986-90: 6 1991-9...

Database error fix

Thanks to BBall-Index's Krishna Narsu (creator of the LEBRON metric), I've discovered an error generated recently for 2020 and 2021 values. This is great news for any subscribers who happen to be huge Nikola Jokic fans, as his correct BPM is now +8.6 for the 2021 season, which ranks 4th all-...

Q&A Audio for Aug. 28, 2021

Audio from last week's Q&A!

3-year player seasons updated

For insiders or above, the historical player seasons are now updated through 2021. As mentioned in the last post, the old database has been split into a 1-year and 3-year table:1-year (since 1955): https://backpicks.com/metrics/player-seasons/3-year (since 1955): https://backpicks.com/metrics/3-year...

Player database updated

For insiders, the "player seasons" historical page now includes the 2020 and 2021 seasons, along with some additional metrics (ie single-year playoff data). All players are back on a single page. https://backpicks.com/metrics/player-seasons/3-year data will be published separately.

Scalability curves and Greatest Peaks CORP

Many of you have asked questions about portability and scalability -- this answers just about all them. https://backpicks.com/2021/06/23/scalability-curves-and-greatest-peaks-corp/

2016 Draft grades (podcast #87)

Kyle and I only hit the top-10 grades, but using CBSSports, Forbes, USA Today and Bleacher-Report, here's a full list of relevant draft grades 5 years later. Note the Pascal Siakam grades: (1st pick) Simmons A-, A, A, A (2) Ingram A+, A, A, A (3) Brown B+, B+, B-, B- (4) Bender A, B+, C+, B+ [gr...

Patreon pod: Playoff plus-minus thoughts

I look back at some of the additional key takeaways from the playoff plus-minus series. AKA The "please use the box score wisely" series.

Playoff plus-minus Part V

A ton of contextualization in the final installment in this series. I also realized I forgot to create a Patreon post for Part IV (supporting casts and ensembles), so here you go:Part IV: https://backpicks.com/2021/07/15/playoff-plus-minus-part-iv-supporting-casts-ensembles/Part V: https://backpicks...