This R Shiny interactive NBA app was designed to build upon the first interactive app I created which revolved around the New Orleans Pelicans’ January 20th debacle against the Brooklyn Nets. We discussed the percentage chance that the Nets scored more than 135 points against the Pelicans that night.
This version is much more refined and has more predictive power. I used over 5200 observations from the past 4 NBA seasons to improve the accuracy and included five models that predict the likelihood of different scenarios.
Among the probabilities, we can find the chances that Team A:
- Wins over Team B
- Scores 110+ and Surrenders 110+ to Team B
- Surrenders 110+ to Team B
- Surrenders 120+ to Team B
- Surrenders 135+ to Team B
For example, on Thursday Night, the Cleveland Cavaliers hosted the New York Knicks. Given the Offensive and Defensive Ratings for each team as of Thursday morning and the fact that Cavaliers had homecourt, Cleveland had an 81.8% chance of winning this particular matchup against New York.
It becomes more difficult to make prognostications when there’s been a recent blockbuster trade. New Orleans Pelicans’ Offensive Rating as of 2/22/17 will likely not represent their future offensive production after the trade for DeMarcus Cousins. Other teams who undergo significant roster turnover will have similar issues with ironing out these predictive quirks.
Test this out. There’s an abundance of possible outcomes, and you can even compare current teams with reference to past NBA teams, as I included tables of historic team’s ratings and pace statistics.
Pick the prompt you want, adjust the sliders as you please, and watch the change of probability and commentary.
You can scroll up or down within the application below by clicking on its empty areas and using your arrow keys to scroll (or– if you’re on mobile– by dragging your finger across the screen to adjust the focus).
But if you’d rather avoid the boundaries in this embedded version, then you can simply follow this link to the fullscreen, published version. The layout is a little constricted on this page.