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Archive for the 'Tips and Tricks' Category

Hockey-Reference and Pro-Football-Reference Add Team Gamelogs

9th July 2018

On Baseball-Reference and Basketball-Reference, we've offered an option to see game logs on a team basis. If you wanted to take a look at the averages of the Miami Heat's 27-game winning streak in 2013, or how the Cardinals did in 2016 when they hit multiple home runs in 9 consecutive games, summable game logs allow you to check the averages during your specified span (done by clicking on two rows to highlight the group of games you're interested in).

Now, we've gone ahead and made that an option for Hockey-Reference and Pro-Football-Reference as well. Want to add up the goal differential during the Columbus Blue Jackets' 16-game winning streak in December 2016? Or maybe take a look at how many yards the Browns gave up in just the second half of 2017? That can now be done with the addition of summable game logs to team pages. Similarly to team game logs on Baseball-Reference and Basketball-Reference, just click on two rows and the site will sum and average the rows highlighted in that range.

If you have any questions or suggestions, feel free to contact us through our feedback form.

Posted in Announcement, Features, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | 5 Comments »

A New Chapter at Sports Reference

1st April 2018

I've been at this for 18 years now. Baseball-Reference.com launched in early April of 2000, and 18 years is a long time. We've gone from pre-formatted plain text tables to html tables, through various logos, and several redesigns involving mobile designs. Along the way, the only consideration has been what would work best for the user. That's why, after months of extensive research, I'm very pleased to announce:
Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Ridiculousness, Tips and Tricks, Tout, Uncategorized | 25 Comments »

How to Get More Manageable URLs in the Play Index

24th July 2017

Heavy Play Index users, especially those who try to share their findings, may have noticed that the URLs for Play Index queries tend to be very long and unwieldy. Here, for example, is the URL for a simple query of most HRs in a season:

As many an infomercial host has suggested, there simply has to be a better way. Fortunately, there is! Every Play Index tool has a button in the top right that says "Make Tiny URL" Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | 5 Comments »

Random Page Search Added to Sports Reference Sites

9th May 2017

We have rolled out an update to our search function on Baseball Reference, Basketball Reference, Pro Football Reference and Hockey Reference. If you type "random" or "zz" into our search forms on those sites, you will be taken to a random page. We have also added a random page tool to the frivolities menus on those four sites (Baseball, Basketball, Football, Hockey).

Read the rest of this entry

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, Features, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | 1 Comment »

Site Redesign: Making Copying and Pasting to a Spreadsheet a Bit Easier

17th March 2017

We know that a lot of you are interested in grabbing data from our site and reusing it in excel and generating reports on your own. We got our start doing that.

The redesign complicates that because we add some helper elements to the page that are relevant for the vast majority of users and helpful in their use of the site. I'll call this material Mobile Formatting. It includes the frozen left column on wide tables, the max width of the page and side scrolling, the use of interior table header rows and sort direction indicators. So to make sorting easier, I've added an option to the "Share & more" menu to strip this content out in one click.
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Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »

Easy Access to the Site Search Box, Press Tab

15th March 2017

On the old version of the site on the front page, we placed the cursor into the search box automatically which could cause some issues if you had already scrolled down the page. Your browser would then be jerked back to the top of the page. On the site redesign, all you have to do is (once the page has loaded) hit the tab key one time and you'll be put into the search box. Lickety Split.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, FBref, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Easy Access to the Site Search Box, Press Tab

Automatic Excel Export Added Back to Tables

14th March 2017

In November, we announced that we were no longer able to support automatic export of our tables to Excel. This was due to newer browsers not behaving in ways we expected, making it difficult to support the feature. We're happy to announce that we've figured this out, however.

Today, the automatic Excel export feature has returned to all of our sites. To export any of our tables to Excel, please hover over "Share & more" above the table you'd like to export. Once you hover, you'll see a dropdown where you can select "Get as Excel Workbook (experimental)", which will download the table into an xls file you can open with Excel.

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Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, Data, Features, Hockey-Reference.com, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Redesign, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Automatic Excel Export Added Back to Tables

Play Index Subscribers can now use the Tiny feature to share their reports with others & re-run reports daily

9th March 2017

We added support for the Make Tiny Url in the play index. Previously, you would not be able to fully share those reports, but this has been fixed and works easy as pie. Just create your report and click on the "Make Tiny Url" and share the url.

An added perk of this is that this could be used to re-run reports daily. Just bookmark the link and re-use it.

Posted in Announcement, Baseball-Reference.com, Play Index, Play Index 101, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Play Index Subscribers can now use the Tiny feature to share their reports with others & re-run reports daily

Exporting Data

7th November 2016

UPDATE: As of March 14, 2017, we figured out how to once again allow for automatic export to Excel

As you may have noticed, on our re-designed sites we recently disabled the feature allowing you to export our tables directly to Excel. This was because updated browsers were no longer supporting the function and it was becoming problematic to keep up. However, this doesn't mean that you can't still easily export our tables into spreadsheets. There's just an extra step or two, now.

First, look for the "Share & more" tab atop the table you'd like to export. If you don't see this tab, it means the particular table you're looking at isn't exportable. Otherwise, hover over it and options will drop down (see image). Select "Get table as CSV (for Excel)", which will convert the table to comma-separated values.

csv-descrip

Once the table has been converted to CSV, copy and paste the entirety of the table (or whatever section of it you want) into Excel, as text. You will now have an unintelligible, single-column mess in your spreadsheet, but that's fine. The commas are there for a reason and Excel will help us easily convert those commas into nice, readable columns of data. This next step is sometimes variable depending on the version of Excel you're working with, but what you want to find is the "text to columns" function. In my Excel for Mac 2011, this can be found under the "Data" tab. If you can't find it on your version, a google search for "Excel text to columns" with your Excel version number should yield useful results.

Once you have located the "text to columns" function, you will choose a file type that best describes your data. You will want to choose "delimited" since the fields are separated by commas. Next, you will choose the delimiter. Check the box next to "comma." Once you make that selection, you can finish up with the text to columns wizard and you should then have a nicely formatted spreadsheet.

We realize this is not quite as quick or simple as the old export function, but unfortunately we can no longer support that function. Once you get the hang of this method, you'll see it's also quite simple.

Posted in Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, CBB at Sports Reference, CFB at Sports Reference, Data, Features, Hockey-Reference.com, HowTo, Pro-Football-Reference.com, Redesign, Tips and Tricks | Comments Off on Exporting Data

Lessons From the 14 Biggest NBA Deadline Trades

18th February 2016

The 2016 NBA Trade Deadline has, is, or will be passing as you read this. The long term consequences will shake out over the next few months and even years, but we can look back at past deadlines to determine just how important deadline deals tend to be.

Last year's Trade Deadline shows that it takes a few years to be able to truly evaluate the impact of a trade. At the time, the best deal of the day seemed to be the Goran Dragic Trade. Miami picked up Dragic, the reigning MIP who had been worth nearly 23 NBA Win Shares in his career with Phoenix up to that point, for two 1st rounders and mostly filler players.

Since the trade, Goran Dragic has contributed 5 WS to Miami, but he's also signed a big new contract. His scoring and his efficiency have plummeted this season and, as Miami's roster ages, those two draft picks are starting to look more valuable.

Compare that to another trade involving a Phoenix Suns PG. In a 3-teamer, the Celtics acquired Isaiah Thomas and Jonas Jerebko for a Cavaliers' 1st rounder and not much else. Most agreed at the time that Dragic was the more valuable player, but Thomas has outperformed him. Since the trade, Thomas has been worth 9 WS and his scoring has leapt up 6 PPG. Even Jerebko has been worth 3 WS, not much less than what Miami has received from Dragic.

So let's take a look back at some of the biggest NBA trade deadline deals, using the benefit of hindsight to see who really gained the most from making them. It's not necessarily fair to say one team or the other "won", since, as you'll see, a lot of these trades rely on things that the front offices making them couldn't have possibly known at the time. But, perhaps, there are lessons here that GMs can take into future dealings.

A couple of notes before we start. I'm using a generous definition of the Trade Deadline to include any trade that happened in mid-January, February, or March, because it's my column and I can do what I want. To quantify value, I'm using Win Shares, a metric that Basketball Reference adapted from the baseball stat devised by Bill James. WS is a stat that awards portions of every team win to every player on the team, based on how much they contributed (positively or negatively) to said win.

The biggest trades, as defined on this list, are the ones with 100 or more Win Shares in past or future value. In other words, every trade on this list is one where all the players involved had contributed 100 WS to the teams trading them or where they would go on to contribute 100 WS to the teams that acquired them. These are trades where franchise players moved on, where teams acquired a new franchise player, or where both happened.

For each trade, we'll show the past WS of all the players in the trade for the team that traded them (so, for example, the number for Rasheed Wallace doesn't include his WS in Portland) and the future WS the player would accumulate for the team that traded for them (so, for example, Seattle's WS in the Ray Allen trade won't reflect his time in Boston). I've also included, in parentheses, the percentage of past WS each team sent and the percentage of future WS each team acquired. You can think of that as a rough measure of who "won" the trade.

Got it? Then let's get started.

Lesson 1: Selling a legend is tricky

Los Angeles Clippers Receive: Dominique Wilkins, 1994 1st Round Pick (Greg Minor). 31 Past WS sent (22.4%), 2.6 Future WS received (66.7%)

Atlanta Hawks Receive: Danny Manning.  107.4 Past WS sent (77.6%), 1.3 Future WS received (33.3%)

Houston Rockets Receive: Clyde Drexler and Tracy Murray54.5 Past WS sent (32.8%), 26.9 Future WS received (89.4%)

Portland Trail Blazers Receive: Otis Thorpe, Marcelo Nicola, 1995 1st Round Pick (Randolph Childress). 111.9 Past WS sent (67.2%), 3.2 Future WS received (10.6%)

Dominique Wilkins was in his 12th year with the Atlanta Hawks when the franchise decided they'd rather trade him than give him a massive new contract. Unfortunately, because of that impending new contract, and Wilkins' age, the Hawks couldn't get back more than a Win Share. This trade makes the list because of Wilkins' lengthy tenure, but in terms of return, it left much to be desired.

Still, given that Wilkins's career was nearly over, the Hawks got a better share of the overall WS pie than the Trail Blazers did, when they traded Clyde Drexler. Drexler is still the Blazers' all-time Win Shares leader and in return they got Thorpe, who would be gone months later, Nicola, who never came to the US, and a pick that would go to a player who logged 375 total minutes for Portland. At least Clyde got a ring, though!

Lesson 2: But if you get it right, it's worth it

Milwaukee Bucks Receive: Desmond Mason, Gary Payton56.1 Past WS sent (29.6%), 16.3 Future WS received (22.9%)

Seattle Supersonics Receive: Ray Allen, Ronald Murray, Kevin Ollie, 2003 1st Round Pick (Luke Ridnour). 133.4 Past WS sent (70.4%), 54.9 Future WS received (77.1%)

Gary Payton was having an All-Star year when Seattle, apparently concerned about re-signing him, shipped him to Milwaukee. In exchange, they got the best shooter of his generation. Ray Allen would go on to chip in 38.2 WS as a Sonic before being sent to Boston, while GP would leave for LA in free agency, contributing just 2.9 WS to the Bucks.

Lesson 3: Good drafting can make a trade

Atlanta Hawks Receive: Tom Henderson, 1977 1st Round Pick (Greg Ballard). 6.6 Past WS sent (39.5%), 62.9 Future WS received (51.7%)

Washington Bullets Receive: Truck Robinson, 1977 1st Round Pick (Tree Rollins). 10.1 Past WS sent (60.5%), 58.8 Future WS received (48.3%)

Milwaukee Bucks Receive: Sam Cassell, Chris Gatling, Paul Grant10.7 Past WS sent (27.8%), 36.7 Future WS received (30.4%)

New Jersey Nets Receive: Elliot Perry, Chris Carr, Stephon Marbury, Bill Curley13.9 Past WS sent (36.0%), 20.0 Future WS received (16.6%)

Minnesota Timberwolves Receive: Terrell Brandon, Brian Evans, 1999 1st Round Pick (Wally Szczerbiak). 14.0 Past WS sent (36.2%), 64.0 Future WS received (53.0%)

Detroit Pistons Receive: Rasheed Wallace, Mike James41.7 Past WS sent (91.9%), 38.7 Future WS received (37.7%)

Atlanta Hawks Receive: Chris Mills, Zeljko Rebraca, Bob Sura, 2004 1st Round Pick (Josh Smith). -0.1 Past WS sent (-0.3%), 50.2 Future WS received (48.9%)

Boston Celtics Receive: Chucky Atkins, Lindsey Hunter, 2004 1st Round Pick (Tony Allen). 3.8 Past WS sent (8.4%), 13.8 Future WS received (13.4%)

If you ask any fan who remembers the 2004 Trade Deadline who the biggest acquisition that year was, they'd say Sheed and Sheed a 2nd time. And, from a historic perspective, they'd be right, since Wallace helped the Detroit Pistons win a title. However, the player who had the biggest on-court impact for the team that traded for him in 2004 wasn't even in the NBA at the time.

Although the players who travelled to Atlanta in the Sheed trade didn't amount to much, they did make the most of the draft pick they got. While Josh Smith has fallen on tough times, he contributed 47.6 WS to the Hawks, more than the 37.3 Sheed racked up as a Piston. Thanks to the pick, and their smart use of it, the Hawks actually won the largest percentage of future WS in the Rasheed Wallace trade (of course, it doesn't look quite as good if you factor in the 14 WS they gave up to acquire Wallace for one game).

None of the trades in this section would have made the list based on the players who were actually in the trade. Instead, smart drafting helped some of these teams turn average-seeming trades into big wins.

4. You can't really predict how a trade will impact you

Washington Wizards Receive: Drew Gooden, Josh Howard, Quinton Ross and James Singleton67.4 Past WS sent (60.7%), 4.6 Future WS received (27.4%)

Dallas Mavericks Receive: Caron Butler, Brendan Haywood and DeShawn Stevenson43.6 Past WS sent (39.3%), 12.2 Future WS received (72.6%)

On paper, this move seemed to bring Dallas the missing piece they needed to win a championship: Caron Butler. Yet, one year after this trade, when the Mavericks made their Finals run, Butler was in a suit, injured and unable to play. On paper, DeShawn Stevenson was a throw-in. Yet, in the 2011 NBA Finals, it was Stevenson whose 3s and D helped lead to the Mavs' upset victory over the Miami Heat. The Mavericks wouldn't have won the Finals without this trade, just not for the reason they were expecting when they made it.

5. The Rudy Gay Trade was weird

Toronto Raptors Receive: Rudy Gay, Hamed Haddadi. 56.1 Past WS sent (39.0%), 1.9 Future WS received (12.9%)

Memphis Grizzlies Receive: Austin Daye, Tayshaun Prince, Ed Davis, 2013 2nd Round Pick (Jamaal Franklin). 30.8 Past WS sent (21.4%), 9.8 Future WS received (66.7%) 

Detroit Pistons Receive: Jose Calderon60.3 Past WS sent (42.0%), 3 Future WS received (20.4%)

This trade makes our list because it involved 3 players who amassed over 25 WS for their respective franchises changing teams. However, it serves as a warning that, in the NBA, your past accomplishments can fade very quickly. Prince and Calderon, who accounted for over 98 of the past Win Shares in this trade, were basically just salary figures used to match the money on Rudy Gay's monster contract.

The Grizzlies "win" this trade, by virtue of the fact that Prince stayed in town till 2014 and averaged 27 MPG for a playoff team and by virtue of the fact that Rudy Gay would spend less than a year in The True North. However, it's tough to argue anyone here really won.

6. It's very, very tough to get good value back for a superstar

Philadelphia 76ers Receive: Wilt Chamberlain26.3 Past WS sent (19.0%), 71.2 Future WS received (84.6%)

San Francisco Warriors Receive: Connie Dierking, Paul Neumann, Lee Shaffer, cash. 112.4 Past WS sent (81.0%), 13 Future WS received (15.4%)

Honestly, the most amazing part of this trade may be that Wilt accumulated 71.2 WS in just 3 and a half years as a 76er. Things had gotten bad for Wilt in San Francisco, but that's a tough return for one of the greatest to ever play the game

7. But it's not impossible

Los Angeles Lakers Receive: Pau Gasol, 2010 2nd Round Pick (Devin Ebanks). 6.2 Past WS sent (10.3%), 59.7 Future WS received (48.7%)

Memphis Grizzlies Receive: Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton, Marc Gasol, Aaron McKie, 2008 1st Round Pick (Donte Greene), 2010 1st Round Pick (Greivis Vasquez). 53.8 Past WS sent (89.7%), 62.8 Future WS received (51.3%)

New York Knicks Receive: Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups, Anthony Carter, Renaldo Balkman, Shelden Williams, Corey Brewer34.8 Past WS sent (27.1%), 40.2 Future WS received (42.9%)

Denver Nuggets Receive: Wilson Chandler, Raymond Felton, Danilo Gallinari, Timofey Mozgov, Kosta Koufos cash, 2012 2nd Round Pick (Quincy Miller), 2013 2nd Round Pick (Romero Osby) and a 2014 1st Round Pick (traded). 91.5 Past WS sent (71.4%), 51.8 Future WS received (55.3%)

Minnesota Timberwolves Receive: Anthony Randolph, Eddy Curry1.9 Past WS sent (1.5%), 1.7 Future WS received (1.8%)

The Pau Gasol trade, at the time, seemed like one of the biggest steals in NBA history. Now, almost a decade later, by percentage of future Win Shares, Memphis actually won the trade. Lakers fans probably won't complain too much about a trade that convinced Kobe to stay and got them 2 rings, but Pau's 59.2 WS as a Laker are a little behind Marc's 62.2 in Memphis. In fact, the younger Gasol has been worth more WS as Grizzly than the older one was, making this the rare trade where a team dealt a superstar and improved their long-term situation.

The jury is actually still out on the Melo Trade, since Anthony, Gallinari, and Chandler remain on the teams that acquired them, but, at this point, Denver has an over-10 WS lead. At the time, the conventional wisdom was that the Knicks may have given up too much for a player they'd be able to sign as a free agent over the summer. Unlike the Gasol trade, the Win Shares seem to bear that out in this case.

8. Being a Cavs fan sucks 

Phoenix Suns Receive: Tyrone Corbin, Kevin Johnson, Mark West, 1988 1st Round Pick (Dan Majerle), 1988 2nd Round Pick (Dean Garrett), and a 1989 2nd Round Pick (Greg Grant). 62.1 Past WS sent (85.2%), 179.8 Future WS received (73.7%)

Cleveland Cavaliers Receive: Larry Nance, Mike Sanders, 1988 1st Round Pick (Randolph Keys). 10.8 Past WS sent (14.8%), 64.3 Future WS received (26.3%)

Detroit Pistons Receive: Kenny Carr and Bill Laimbeer. 10 Past WS sent (34.4%), 99 Future WS received (74.9%)

Cleveland Cavaliers Receive: Phil Hubbard, Paul Mokeski, 1982 1st Round Pick (John Bagley), 1982 2nd Round Pick (Dave Magley). 19.1 Past WS Sent (65.6%), 33.2 Future WS Received (25.1%)

Cleveland Cavaliers Receive: Antawn Jamison, Sebastian Telfair63.4 Past WS sent (58.3%), 7.8 Future WS received (67.8%)

Washington Wizards Receive: Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Emir Preldzic, Al Thornton, 2010 1st Round Pick (Lazar Hayward). 41.4 Past WS sent (38.1%), 2 Future WS received (17.4%)

Los Angeles Clippers Receive: Drew Gooden. 4 Past WS sent (3.7%), 1.7 Future WS received (14.8%)

There are three trades on this list that involve the Cavs. Two of them are trades that the Cavs soundly lost, including the Kevin Johnson trade, where Cleveland gave up the largest total future value of any trade on this list. You know a trade is bad, when it cost you more Win Shares than trading away Wilt Chamberlain.

Then there's the Jamison trade, a win for the Cavs, but one that only calls to mind 2010-2012, a period where Cleveland lost in a 2nd-round shocker, watched LeBron James announce he was leaving on live TV, and spent the next 2 years as one of the worst teams in the league.

Is there a trade you think is missing from the list? Or are you just interested in reading more about past trade deadlines? Either way, make sure to check out the Trade Tool at Basketball-Reference.com, where you can explore every trade in NBA history.

Posted in Advanced Stats, Announcement, Basketball-Reference.com, Data, Tips and Tricks | 2 Comments »