Lev Akabas
@LevAkabas
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#SportsBiz and NBA 🏀 data viz 📊. Data Reporter at @Sportico , previously @nytimes and @SLAMonline , all opinions are my own
Manhattan, NY
Joined October 2012
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If you like data visualization on sports 🏀🏈⚾️,
#SportsBiz
💵💰📈, or other interesting topics, give me a follow on Instagram!
Sneak preview: 👀👇
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82 NFL games in the top 100 most-watched TV shows of 2022
That football emoji at
#35
is the 4-10 Broncos losing to the 4-10 Rams by 37 points on xmas... which got more viewers than any NBA game, any MLB game, any World Cup Game, the Oscars, or any scripted TV show
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Here's how the NBA Eastern Conference standings changed over the course of the season 👇
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3-part hypothesis for why we're seeing so many insane stat lines in the NBA:
1) More heliocentrism ==> stars' usage rates are higher than ever
Would love to open up [gulp] discourse as to why the NBA is seeing these insane stat lines seemingly every night now
- Pace (99.3) has remained stagnant
- FT attempts are up a bit, but relatively stable
- ORTG Efficiency is up 3 full points since 2020
What's your hypothesis?
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If the Raiders & Chargers tie tonight, they both make the playoffs. If either team wins, only that team makes the playoffs
There are two Nash equilibria in this situation. One of them is a normal football game. The other would be the most awesome event in the history of sports
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Jokic, Embiid, & Giannis are all worthy of the 2023 NBA MVP, and imo it's reasonable to factor in who has/hasn't won previous awards...
But I find it extremely hard to not lean towards Jokic after seeing this chart:
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This chart is a joke. Domination in a sport is not supposed to last this long 🎾🏆
🇷🇸 Djokovic - 22
🇪🇸 Nadal - 22
🇨🇭 Federer - 20
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Here's a 🧵 of 5 graphs showing how far ahead of his peers Patrick Mahomes is 🐐🏈📊
Mahomes’ career playoff EPA/play of 0.312 is not only higher than any other QB with >100 plays since 1999, but also higher than his own regular season mark, despite facing stronger defenses
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3) More parity ==> every team has a competent offense and most have a player (or two) capable of exploding on any given night
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@rodger
I took a stab at answering here. Two theories:
(1) Selective breeding has reached its limit due to reduction of genetic variation
(2) People care about breaking records. Horses don't
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The Miami Heat hit 58% of their wide open 3s in the Eastern Conference Finals versus the Celtics
That's easily the highest percentage any team has shot on wide open threes in any series in the past 10 years!
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And here's how the NBA Western Conference standings changed over the course of the season 👇
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Incredible fact: The West has had more All-NBA players in every single one of the past 25 seasons
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If there's one stat to validate Nikola Jokic's MVP, it's this:
The
@nuggets
were significantly worse with Jokic off the court than any team without its MVP candidate, but still slightly better with Jokic on the court than the 76ers with Embiid and the Bucks with Giannis
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2) More smallball lineups and fewer rim protectors ==> easier finishing at the rim (and stars can get to the rim better than anyone else to take advantage)
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Fascinating trend this NBA regular season
All 16 teams that shot league-average or better on 3s won at least 46 games
Nearly every team that shot below league-average on 3s finished below .500
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No school in the west half of the United States has won men's March Madness since 1997
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Shohei Ohtani appreciation
#dataviz
🧵
He has more than 2x as many Instagram followers as any other baseball player (1/4)
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In the NBA playoffs, if you don't have a former MVP or the current MVP on your team... don't get your hopes up
"Can't win with xyz"
You can't win if you
1) Don't have an MVP/Top 3 player on your team
2) Don't pay the tax.
That's it. Those are the prerequisites.
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And thus ends the Atlanta Hawks' spooky Season of Symmetry:
41-41 record
26-26 vs. the East
15-15 vs. the West
8-8 vs. their division
24-17 at home, 17-24 on the road
116.3 offensive rating, 116.3 defensive rating
🤯🤯🤯
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I'm not weighing in on the Aaron Judge vs. Shohei Ohtani MVP debate, I'm just reminding everyone that Ohtani is also doing things nobody has done in baseball for 100 years!
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Patrick Mahomes' EPA/play of 0.458 on 3rd or 4th down is so much better than any other QB in any situation that I had to triple check the numbers to make sure they were real
This chart is a joke
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James Harden got the trade he wanted, but playing for the Brooklyn Nets will cost him a small fortune in taxes.
@McCannSportsLaw
and
@SportsTaxMan
explain for
@Sportico
:
James Harden might win a title with the Brooklyn Nets--and the value of that would be "priceless"--but his trade to New York will cost him as much as $13.6 million in new income taxes.
@SportsTaxMan
and I break down the numbers in a new
@Sportico
story:
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5 ways that NBA playoff basketball is different from the regular season... a data viz thread 🏀📊🧵
(1) Pace slows down
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I present this data without comment
Net free-throw attempts since the start of last season (including the playoffs)...
1. Lakers (+1,017)
2. Knicks (+358)
3. Bucks (+344)
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I think officiating hasn't been mentioned enough as a factor in the NBA's offensive explosion this season
16.6% of all 2-point shot attempts drew fouls this year, a massive increase from 15.2% last season, which was already the highest mark of the 21st century
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"The NFL is the monoculture—so much so that TV is now merely a delivery system for the league. Manufacturers may as well start slapping the Shield on the back of every TV set that’s bound for the U.S. market" -
@crupicrupicrupi
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Every single NBA player on Sportico's Top 100 Highest Paid Athletes in 2021 list has at least 500,000 Instagram followers and made at least $1M from endorsements last year... except Khris Middleton
He's the NBA's invisible star
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Ohtani is the only baseball player of the last 100 years to have elite WAR from both batting and pitching (4/4)
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The insane individual stat lines is its own trend worth pondering, but I wrote a few weeks ago for
@Sportico
about why overall NBA offensive efficiency is up this year over last year, and why it will almost certainly continue to go up:
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Of the 100 highest-paid athletes in 2023...
• 90 make more from salary/winnings
• 9 make more from endorsements
• Messi straddles the line
• Ohtani is the first baseball player to cross the line
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In case you're not a fan of these "advanced" stats, how about this one:
Patrick Mahomes has thrown 41 career playoff touchdowns. No other player had thrown more than 23 by this age
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Mahomes’ career EPA/play when his team faces a win probability of 5-25% is 0.323 — he plays significantly better when his back is to the wall
Most QBs' EPA/play is much higher when their teams are winning
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The amount of contact that offensive players are allowed to initiate now relative to prior eras is astounding
Here’s Jayson Tatum uppercutting his stationary defender and getting *rewarded* with a free throw (also that moving screen by Smart 🤦♂️)
(2/6)
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NBA-wide offensive rating is 115.6 this season, on pace to break the all-time record yet again
🔗:
The way officials call the game has never been more advantageous towards offensive players
A 🧵... (1/6)
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Klay Thompson has made 3 of his last 31 shots in the play-in / playoffs for the Warriors
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@WorldWideWob
he's already body checked Garland to the ground by the time he even makes contact with the ball... crazy no call
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UConn is the only FBS public school in
@Sportico
's database that spends more money on basketball than football 💵🏀 > 💵🏈
✍️
@epjackson
:
It's also the only school to win both DI basketball titles in the same year—which it did in 2004 and 2014 🏆🏆
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Teams that shoot a higher 3PT% are 27-9 so far in the NBA Playoffs
Teams that simply attempt more 3s are 27-8 so far in the NBA Playoffs
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Mahomes’ career EPA/play in the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter and OT is 0.391, meaning he plays his absolute best when under the most pressure
Among QBs with >250 qualifying plays since 1999, Derek Carr's 0.240 is the second best and Josh Allen’s 0.239 is the third best
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Ohtani’s estimated off-field earnings are nearly 6x what anyone else in baseball makes ⚾️💰
Michael Jordan was 3x to 4x ahead of every other basketball player in the 90s. Tiger and Federer earned ~2x what anyone else in their sports made (2/4)
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NBA team offenses in 2022-23 are better than ever (and also more bunched together)
• 2023 Celtics' recent slump has dropped them below several 2020-21 teams
• 2020-21 Nets are still the best offense of all time
• Shoutout to The Process
@sixers
What jumps out to you?
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Ohtani has the highest WAR of any MLB player over the last two seasons
He leads MLB again in 2023, and is on pace for the highest season of his career so far (3/4)
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@ryenarussillo
Nearly 6000 calories of pure junk food. No way
(the chip section looks the most daunting in the picture, but it's the candies that really add up)
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Here are three charts putting the 18.9M viewers for the women's March Madness final into context 🧵🏀📺👀📊
(1) It was the most-watched basketball game, period, in 5 years
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Shohei Ohtani leads all MLB players with $9M annual endorsement earnings. He's the most popular athlete in the U.S. among those familiar with him...
But only 13% are familiar with him
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*taps the sign*
Jimmy sitting was predictable. Take the split and let him get ready for 3 and 4 in Miami.
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Corey Seager got a $325M/10yr deal from the
@Rangers
, but the
@Dodgers
would've had to pay $401M for Seager to earn the same amount after taxes
Taxes are wild
@McCannSportsLaw
and
@SportsTaxMan
have more details:
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.
@Sportico
's top 100 most valuable sports teams in the world 👇
Where's your favorite team on the list?
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@emilio_returns
I think it's less about what was happening in 2008-2014 and more that 2001-2007 had a lot of Michael Jordan wannabes dominating their teams' offenses
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Andy Murray's 2016 tennis season remains remarkably underrated
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With the
@MiamiHEAT
retiring their Vice uniforms last night after a colorful 4-year run during which they sold more jerseys than during the 4 years of the LeBron/Wade/Bosh era (!!!), I wrote about the NBA's alternate jersey boom
Story:
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Crypto exchange platform FTX was recently valued at $32 billion. On Friday, it filed for bankruptcy 🪙📉
A lot of sports sponsorship deals are about to go poof:
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3-point shooting % and winning % have never been more correlated in NBA history than in 2023-24
Correlation between 3PT% and wins (0.86) was higher this season than wins vs. total 3s made (0.44), total points scored (0.61), or even true shooting % (0.80)
h/t
@statcenter
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The NBA averaged a record 114.2 points per 100 possessions during the first month of the season, and that number is only going to get higher from here
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Final Four teams' women's basketball budgets:
South Carolina - $10.8M
Iowa - $8.2M
UConn - $6.6M
NC State - $4.9M
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@majinzeke
they're both up from ~37 to ~38, but yeah it seems like a small jump to cause such crazy outlier stat lines... that's why there are likely many reasons at play
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“Experience is just a data set" - Ella Papanek on why analytics and experience-based decision making shouldn't be at odds in sports... I wish more people had this mindset
@Sportico
story from
@randalIwilliams
on the
@Browns
' intern from
@Harvard_Sports
:
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For the highest-paid female athletes in the world, it's ALL about endorsements 💵
No woman earned more this past year on the court/field, however, than Iga Swiatek ($5.6M) 🎾
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@knarsu3
Across all six seasons the Warriors made the Finals combined, they're 34-36 without Steph
Literally turns a below .500 team into a dynasty
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There are 18 clubs from the world's 15th-ranked soccer league based on on-field quality (MLS) in
@Sportico
's top 50 most valuable soccer clubs in the world
Why is this the case? 🧵 (1/5)
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Tom Brady is back in the playoffs tonight, so it's a good time to bump this insane stat
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How unlikely is a perfect game?
It's happened in just 1 in ~10,000 MLB games, but still slightly more often than a batter hitting 4 home runs
Read more:
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Nikola Jokic is rightfully praised for his passing, but his real superpower is his shot-making from the short mid-range
Since entering the NBA, Jokic has hit 58.1% of shots from 5-9 feet... The next highest percentage is Kevin Durant at 53.3%... NBA average is 41.0%
🤯🤯🤯
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The most valuable franchise in each of the 4 major U.S. sports:
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At least it's a comforting thought that the last Larry O'Brien Trophy in human history will be lifted by Nikola Jokic or Jimmy Butler
Smoke so thick Manhattan is barely visible from Brooklyn…
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@WorldWideWob
Also notable that Booker and Beal are both missing an away game for the Suns
The new NBA load management policy states that teams should maintain a "preference" for resting stars in home games, trying to combat the fact that most rest in recent years has occurred on the road
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Of the four major sports leagues...
• NFL 🏈 is most reliant on national media revenue
• MLB ⚾️ is most reliant on local media revenue
• NHL 🏒 is most reliant on ticketing revenue
(h/t
@kbadenhausen
for the data via
@Sportico
)
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No team ranked outside the top 8 in preseason title odds had ever won the NBA championship, until the 2023 Denver Nuggets who came into the season with just the 9th best odds
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Tom Brady went from under $1M in on-field earnings over his first three seasons to a record $293M over his full career
Add in over $180M from endorsements and such and he's at ~$475M in total earnings upon retiring
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🚨 Full top 25 highest-paid athletes of all-time 🚨
- 9 different countries
- 8 different sports
- Those alive range from age 29 (Neymar) to 81 (Nicklaus)
Read more details on each athlete from
@kbadenhausen
:
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The Knicks allow 12.0 fewer points per 100 possessions when
@IQ_GodSon
is on the floor versus when he is on the bench
Statistics like this can be noisy, but New York’s defense was also 6.1 points better with him in the game last year
Read more:
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As football dominates your family's TV on Thanksgiving tomorrow, here's a reminder that football basically dominates everyone's TVs throughout the entire year 🏈📺
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Top 10 most valuable sports franchises in the world:
• 6 out of 10 are NFL teams 🏈
• 7 out of 10 play in New York or California 🗽🏄
• 10 out of 10 worth more than the record sale price of $6.05B 💰
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NBA leaders in successful coach's challenges per game:
Joe Mazzulla - 0.31
Mark Daigneault - 0.27
Will Hardy - 0.25
Jason Kidd - 0.24
Nick Nurse - 0.23
Chris Finch - 0.23
🔗:
Mazzulla also leads with a 69% success rate
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Before the 2021-22 season, the NBA announced a crackdown on “non-basketball moves'' by offensive players to draw fouls. The new guidelines were strictly enforced at first, but then frequency of shooting fouls started to go WAY up, and that trend carried into 2022-23
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Scoring volume and efficiency from tonight's women's college hoops stars 👇
Caitlin Clark is in her own universe 🔥
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@jackfrank_jjf
Not as bad as the 1956 Lakers losing a Best of 3 series despite outscoring their opponents by 56 points
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Stanford is the only western school to win women's March Madness in the last 30 years!
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