Customer Reviews

Pro Basketball Forecast: 2004-05 Edition (Pro Basketball Prospectus)

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I have read a lot of this book and gained a lot of knowledge into how some of the statistical analysis is formulated by John Hollinger. Basketball is my passion, and I love statistics, so this book combined everything I wanted. I have ran basketball leagues before and I wanted to have a better way of rating players with the stats that we kept rather than just the basic ppg, rpg, etc. Sometimes the person who scores the most isn't really the best player in the league (or even the game) statistically. And John Hollinger shows how he came up with his formulas. I really appreciate the depth he goes into on each player in the NBA as well. I wish there was an updated Summer 2009 version out or coming out. This book is something I would probably buy yearly if it kept being published. I would like to see how it predicts some of today's best players and some of the rookies even coming in.

This is a detailed analysis of virtually every player (I can't think of any he missed, but there could have been one or two). Each team has a couple of pages describing where they are, what happened last year and what it expected next year.

Then it gets really interesting. Mr. Hollinger has developed a fairly sophisticated set of statistical standards that he then applies to each player on the team. This includes such things as analyzing the per-minute of play performance rather than the game performance. This says that a player getting ten points in ten minutes is better than a player getting 30 points a game (The results are something the NBA management should check out). Other statistics are likewise specially developed for this book. It makes you wonder if even the teams know this much about their players.

John Hollinger never played in the NBA, he never coached, he just has spearheaded this new more analytical approach to pro basketball.

This book is a great resource for anyone involved in playing fantasy basketball. It provides insightful commentary along with per game statistics that let you know how even the most little-used bench warmer would perform if given a starting job in the NBA. Last year's book predicted great things for Zach Randolph and Michael Redd, and this year's book is packed with great articles and helpful info.

I wish I'd known about this book two years ago!