Ben Taylor > Quotes

“All told, championship rings are no more a measure of a player's performance than his jersey sales. They often correlate with good players, but they are about as unrelated to an individual's player on-court performance as his ring count.”
― Ben Taylor, Thinking Basketball

“At the same time, the 3-point line starts to look more and more inviting. In the opening five minutes of the average NBA game, 17 percent of attempts are 3-pointers. In the clutch, 27 percent are 3-pointers. Accuracy plummets on those shots from 38% down to 31%, dropping from 1.15 points per shot to 0.93 points per shot. This is not a function of desperation 3-pointers or high-variance strategy – teams simply switch their tactics at the end of games. And they probably aren't even aware of this.117”
― Ben Taylor, Thinking Basketball

“In the Spurs 16 postseason wins that year, Duncan led the team in scoring 50 percent of the time. By comparison, in Michael Jordan's six championship seasons, he led the Bulls in scoring in 93 percent of playoff games.”
― Ben Taylor, Thinking Basketball

“Most of the “differentiating stuff” happens early in an NBA game; ninety-five percent of 50-win teams have a positive 1st-quarter differential, but not a single 30-win team has one. Of all the quarters, the 4th quarter actually features the least amount of differentiation in an NBA game.”
― Ben Taylor, Thinking Basketball