Nylon Calculus 202

As you might have seen by now, the founding editor of Nylon Calculus and really the motivating force behind its creation, Ian Levy has moved on to a better place. By which I mean he is now Editor-in-Chief of the entire Hardwood Paroxysm Basketball Network. With those increasing responsibilities, he’s done me the honor of allowing me to take over for him as Editor of Nylon Calculus to handle the day-to-day of this website. Both this site and I personally owe him a great deal for the opportunities he has created for us first with the late, lamented Hickory High and now by establishing this website.

My main hope upon assuming stewardship from him is that I can help continue fulfil the tenets Ian set forth in our intentionally grandiose founding mission statements:

"The Nylon Calculus is a digital community dedicated to exploring basketball analytics through a mix of research, discussion, storytelling and education."

Just over one year in, I think we’ve hit those marks pretty well, if I may be so bold. We weren’t always perfect or even close to, and certainly some of those priorities were covered more fully than others. But for a bunch of folks who didn’t really know what we were getting into, we’ve charted a pretty decent course. Still, much like in an academic calendar, a year is a good time to stop and evaluate achievement with a little more specificity, and in exploring our collective adherence to our founding “Guiding Beliefs”, I think I can both address how we’ve done and what we are planning to do over the next basketball season and beyond.

• We are led by curiosity.

• We use analytics to explore trends, tell stories, deepen knowledge and answer questions.

• We don’t have all the answers.

• We welcome feedback, both corrective and constructive.

• We reserve the right to make mistakes and will do our best to fix them.

• We believe in transparency. There is little value in secret methods performed with secret data.

• We believe that analytics is bigger than statistics. Analytics is not the search for better formulas it is a way of thinking that scaffolds beliefs with evidence.

• We believe that it is our responsibility to meet anyone who is interested in basketball analytics at their level.

• We reject the claim that there is one, best way to enjoy basketball. We celebrate our basketball brethren who have no interest in statistics and appreciate their right to enjoy basketball in whatever way they see fit.

I’d give us a passing grade, though not an A+.  There are some things we can and will do better, such as bringing more of our discussion behind the scenes onto the front page. The study of basketball through statistical means is as much about the trial and error and finding the right questions as it is the answers. By illuminating our process of vetting those questions, of debating and refining technique, I hope we can capture some of what made the old APBR forum so exciting before most of the leading lights got hired by teams or larger media organizations.[1. Speaking of APBR, I’m going to tease something by saying Ian will still be involved heavily with the site as a writer and advisor and has a doozy of story working as we speak.]

Other things we plan to do include a better solution for hosting and displaying the stats we’ve come up with such as Kevin’s DRE or my Rim Protection numbers. It’s no good to introduce metrics which help guide understanding of the game and then making them impossible to find. We hope to have something in place by the start of the season.

And of course, we’re looking for new writers to help improve and expand our coverage of the NBA and move into more content on other high levels of basketball.

So thanks for your readership and support, and I hope to ensure that The Nylon Calculus continues to provide the quality of insight and analysis we have provided over our first season.