Pro Basketball Forecast 2004-05

by John Hollinger

Provides statistics, predictions, and projections for players in the National Basketball Association, and includes brief overviews of each team, discussing recent issues affecting their performance.

313 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2004

Reviews

[Brad Burnett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t know exactly which versions I read, I just know before he took a front office job with the Memphis Grizzlies, John Hollinger’s columns and these books were the most cherished of my life. Introduced me to the concept of pace and points per 100 possessions and really analytics in basketball period. He wrote a PER DIEM daily on ESPN insider, had a playoff forecaster, and a draft forecaster. Though Bill James was not someone I widely read, I can only imagine, well for me at least, what Bill James was for Baseball John Hollinger was for basketball. The times when he wrote for ESPN are some of my life’s fondest memories. I’d probably be more in awe of this author than any player.

[Mikey · Rating 5 out of 5]

With a year of writing under his belt, Hollinger makes some serious improvement the 2004 edition of the Prospectus. Gone are the team-inspired essays before every chapter. He moves those to the front of the book, and instead gives a detailed summary of everything the team went through during the season, and he looks ahead to the future. Hollinger also provides other stats, like a defensive PER, and projects players' performance for the next season using similarity scores. A worthy improvement.