Analytics have become a major part of basketball. Through categories such as offensive and defensive efficiency and players' net rating, data analysts have made their mark in the NBA.
This season the Mavericks might be applying their data — intentionally — to work the opposite of how they should.
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ESPN NBA reporter Brian Windhorst said Monday on "Outside the Lines" that the Mavs, among other teams, are using "inverse analytics" to perfect tanking.
Are we seeing a new way to tank in the @NBA ? pic.twitter.com/dQTsyuajqe
— Outside The Lines (@OTLonESPN) February 26, 2018
"There are entire analytics departments that are established out there to find ways to get the best five players on the court in any situation and the coaches are given reams of data on this to help them prepare," Windhorst said. "And what NBA executives have detailed to me is that there is some inverse analytics going on where coaches are potentially being given data on what lineups to play may be not be successful and we're certainly seeing that with the Dallas Mavericks."
Windhorst added that teams were finding ways to disguise their losing tactics.
"It's being hidden under the guise of, quote, 'player development,' which is another way of saying we're going to put our young less good players out there as opposed to our better older players," he said.
Dallas was 18-42 and 14th in the Western Conference entering its home game Monday vs. Indiana. Its minutes leaders are Harrison Barnes, Wesley Matthews, Dennis Smith Jr., Yogi Ferrell and Dirk Nowitzki.
The NBA fined Mavericks owner Mark Cuban $600,000 last week for openly discussing tanking. It seems clear the process of tanking in the NBA has gone to entirely new heights, and if Windhorst is right, the league might have a tough time trying to prevent it.