The Whip of the God of Basketball

On June 6th, at 6:00 p.m. western time, the 2000-2001 NBA Finals will officially start at the Staples Center, home of the Los Angeles Lakers. Their opponent will be the former rival Philadelphia 76ers.

Of the first four NBA Finals in the 1980s, three were between the 76ers and the Lakers. When Allen Iverson led the team to defeat the Bucks in the seventh game of the Eastern Conference finals and advance to the finals, this time the battle of rivals that has passed through 20 years will start again on the floor of the finals.

This game is so eye-catching, not only because of the brilliant confrontation experience of the two teams in history, but also because they are also the two most watched teams in the East and West this season. One is the defending champion, who was a bit dormant in the regular season, but was invincible in the playoffs, smashed all the way, and rushed to the finals with an unprecedented record of sweeping three rounds; the other shined in the regular season, their leading Became the most dazzling star of the pair, but walked on thin ice in the playoffs, playing very hard and tenaciously all the way, and finally returned to the finals with the double help of strength and luck.

The first game of the Finals was in Los Angeles, and the Lakers were in full swing. They might create the myth of being undefeated in the playoffs. In particular, their opponent is the Philadelphia 76ers, the creator of the best playoff results in NBA history. In the 1983 Finals, the Lakers shaved a bald head and lost only one playoff game. It will be of great significance to the Lakers if they can win this honor by sweeping the 76ers.

In the Staples Center, many fans brought painted brooms or placards with the word "Sweep" on them. They shook these objects recklessly, shouting and shouting at the weak Philadelphia 76ers. exert pressure. The entire arena was filled with a frenzied restlessness that almost toppled the roof of the arena.

In the box above the arena, the Celtics' trusted assistant coach Fox Leon was quietly drinking ice-cold beer with the team's deputy general manager Daryl Morey.

Morey is a very tall guy, about 6 feet 6, he has a chubby face and a baby's smile. He studied at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where his interest was mathematics. After graduation, he created a company that provides operational data analysis and sports information consulting for professional teams. The Celtics are one of his clients.

Chris Wallace once worked with Darryl Morey because of the team's management and operational data problems. When Leon came to the Celtics, Pitino was forced to dismiss get out of class and the use of basketball data was first exposed. Next, Morey was hired by Wallace to become the team's deputy general manager, responsible for data theory and data integration.

According to Chris Wallace's idea, scouts like Leon are responsible for data collection and preliminary processing, CFO Weisslander provides technical support, and Morey conducts final data collation and theoretical support. Find the direction of the team's development in the vast numbers.

After a season of hard work, data theory has successfully become an important basis for the coaching, selection and management of the Celtics coach, but it is far from reaching the point of guiding ideology. Experience, intuition and connections still occupy a dominant position in the team's operation . This is already a good start for Morey. At least many things prove that the application of mathematics in sports competitions still has great potential.

"The data show that the probability of the Lakers winning this game...should be between... 70% and 80%." Morey took a sip of beer, took out his small notebook and said to Leon .

The two came to Los Angeles together the day before yesterday, with the purpose of investigating the Celtics' favorite draft picks. They hold three first-round picks in this year's draft, and they have ample opportunities to choose.

"Which model did you use?" Leon lay casually on the seat, looking at the beer in the glass without taking a sip.

"I used the Porbit regression model," Morey replied, continuing to sip his beer and scribble in his notebook.

"The premise of the Porbit model is that the hidden element residuals are assumed to obey the standard normal distribution, which is not a very good way to predict the outcome of a game, especially for a special game like the finals. If it is used to calculate the regular The winning rate of the game is good. And are your assumptions set strictly? If it is not strict enough, it will be meaningless. There are too many variables. To be honest, I am not sure to make a good setting. Of course, if you can’t calculate the result If so, I can calculate it for you." Leon drank the wine in the glass in one gulp, then took the notebook from Morey's hand, tore off a piece of paper and drew on it with a pen for a while.

Porbit is solved by using the method of finding the extreme value of the maximum likelihood function. This is a piece of cake for Leon. After a while, he figured out the answer. According to Morey’s model, the probability of the Lakers winning the game is 100%. Seventy-four point five.

"Seventy-four point five, the probability of the Lakers winning, but who knows, I think the 76ers will win. So many people think that the Lakers will sweep, if it were me, I would kill the Lakers with my mouth , even if it’s only one game.” In his one-year scouting career, Leon has become more and more aware of combining data and intuition to look at basketball. It is undoubtedly stupid to use data in isolation, and relying on intuition alone is nothing but relying on the sky. .

At this time, the game has already started. Under the law enforcement of Joe Crawford, the huge Shaquille O'Neal and the tree-like Mutombo jumped the ball in the middle circle, and the battle between David and Goliath started.

Morey seems to be more interested in Leon's calculation process on the notebook. His eyes stay on the notebook most of the time, and he is indifferent to the game itself.

This is Morey's first business trip with Leon. He has heard about Leon's digital talent, which is one of the reasons why he is willing to join the Celtics.

However, he soon discovered that Leon was much busier as a scout than he was as the deputy general manager, and the two were not involved in the scope of their duties, so there was no opportunity to work together. After Leon became an assistant coach, the scout position was vacant again. Chris Wallace decided to let Morey start to be responsible for player signing, not just stay on the paperwork. Leon will continue to be responsible for the selection of rookies, and the inspection of free agents has been announced to stop, which means that except for March to June, he no longer has to fly around the world.

The process of the first game of the finals was beyond most people's expectations. The Lakers with super insider O'Neal and star outsider Kobe Bryant did not directly tear the 76ers apart in Staples. On the contrary, Iverson Under the leadership of the team, this lack of talent, relying on tough defense and ugly offensive positions, even maintained a 6-point lead in the first half.

In the second half, the tenacious 76ers and the Lakers entered into hand-to-hand combat, especially in the fourth quarter when the offense of both sides stagnated, and the two teams unexpectedly entered overtime. In these five minutes full of uncertainty, Iverson, who had already scored 41 points in regular time, scored 7 points in a row. With 48 points in the game, he single-handedly knocked out the invincible Lakers. , causing the entire Staples to fall into silence, and the sound of sweeping will never appear in people's ears again.

Leon and Morey witnessed this miracle in the box. At the end of the game, Leon said to Morey: "Before the game starts, I should make a bet with you, or make a bet with the ** company, so I am sure Can make a lot of money."

"I heard that almost all major casinos in the United States have banned you from entering. I wonder if casino companies will prohibit you from placing bets?" Morey joked.

"The casino is really boring, even if you invite me to go, I will not go again. After all, there is no gambling that is more fun and exciting than the annual draft. Well, the game is over, let's go Look at our bets."

…………………

More than half a month ago, Auerbach officially announced on the Boston media in his capacity as the honorary president of the Celtics that the team's former scout Fox Leon would become the assistant coach of the Celtics. Special person's third assistant coach. The release of this news did not attract too many surprises, because before that, the media in New York had already reported that the Celtics' talented scout Fox Leon was very likely to be the team's assistant coach, and eventually News of becoming Auerbach's successor.

The main whistleblower, of course, was Pete Vickersey, and Wojnarowski, as a good friend of Leon, also played a role in fueling the flames. Overnight, Leon appeared on the headlines of the sports edition, and various rumors and anecdotes about him also appeared in small articles and sports reviews of Tofu Cube, especially when Vickers wrote that "he is The only person who can stop Auerbach from smoking cigars" made Leon arousing the curiosity of many people and became "important proof that Leon would be Auerbach's successor."

However, with the playoffs in full swing and the official start of the finals with a lot of topics, the news of the birth of an assistant coach was quickly forgotten in the pile of waste papers. Leon's life does not seem to be too big at present Change, he still has to travel around for the draft just like a year ago.

After coming out of Staples with Morey, both of them were slightly drunk, and they went to a coffee shop not far from the arena together, where they made an appointment with the person they wanted to meet.

It is a violation of league regulations to contact a rookie or a rookie's family in advance in the NBA. Once such private contact is discovered, the team will face severe penalties. So Leon and Morey arrived in Los Angeles this time in the name of watching the finals, and now it is coffee time after watching the game.

In the box of the coffee shop, Leon finally met face to face with the young man he had been observing and liked, the guard from the University of Arizona, Gilbert Arenas.

"In fact, we didn't have to take risks to arrange such an early meeting." Leon said the first sentence when he saw Arenas. "Why?" "Because not many teams are optimistic about you." "So?" "To express our sincerity."