Geeks Use Data to Win at Basketball数据分析助勇士崛起

文/本·霍伊尔 译/高洋 审订/任东升

By Ben Hoyle

金州勇士队成为了美国体育界的传奇，而将球队带向成功的方案，如同所有绝妙的计划，初看有些疯狂。

[2] 6年前，众位高管在一位硅谷风险投资人的带领下，以4.5亿美元的历史高价收购了一支曾有着联盟第二差战绩的加州球队。

[3]完成收购后，新管理层卖掉明星球员，以一名能力尚未得到认可的球员为核心重建球队。这名球员高中毕业后被所有著名大学的球探所忽视，他脚踝易伤，而且1.91米的身高在篮球巨星面前也显得矮小。

[4]经过数据分析后，勇士队管理层认为目前球队的打法不合理。几十年来，灌篮是篮球的招牌投法，球员猛然一跃，直升篮边，灌球入篮，精彩刺激，但却只得两分。

[5]勇士队管理层于是重新设计了球队的战术打法——采取远投策略，从三分线外，即距篮框大约24英尺（约7.3米）处投篮。

[6]这一战术变化所取得的效果非同凡响，《华尔街日报》称，勇士队开创了“一种至今无人能破的篮球打法”。

[7]去年6月，勇士队40年来首次赢得美国男子职业篮球联赛（NBA）总冠军，但真正让美国球迷对勇士队刮目相看的还是勇士队本赛季的战绩。

[8]勇士队离创造历史仅一步之遥。如果勇士队明天晚上在奥克兰主场对阵孟菲斯灰熊队的最后一场常规赛中取得第73场胜利，他们将超越1995—1996赛季迈克尔·乔丹所效力的芝加哥公牛队，成为单赛季获胜场次最多的球队。能离创造历史如此之近，勇士队凭借的是命中了1000多个三分球，这是迄今为止NBA史上之最。

[9]斯蒂芬·库里，作为勇士队身材不高的球队核心，现已家喻户晓，并被广泛认可为最佳球员。库里还是广告商心中梦寐以求的球员：他打球时面带笑容，与大多数身材高大的NBA球员相比更像一个普通人，他还是一位称职的父亲，14岁时便与妻子在教会的一个青少年团体中相识。

[10]库里有望在本赛季命中超过400个三分球，除他之外，还从未有人命中超过270个。28岁的库里投篮命中率惊人，他在距篮框30至40英尺（约9至12米）处投球比普通NBA球员距篮框3至4英尺（约1米）投球还要准。他场均得分近30，命中率50%，其中三分命中率竟达到惊人的45%。

[11]球迷已经开始热衷于观看库里的赛前热身训练，包括从球场内部过道和球员通道投篮。

[12]库里的作用日益扩大，其他球队随之试图加强对他的防守，这样做则给库里的队友们创造空当，也会减少本方内线的人员投入。

[13]而这也意味着两分球投篮的机会更多，但勇士队专注于三分球出手，经常忽略这样的机会。

[14]去年，勇士队的第二远投手克雷·汤普森成为除库里外第一个单赛季命中270个三分球的球员。

[15]勇士队主教练史蒂夫·科尔，曾5次随所在球队夺冠，其中包括创纪录的公牛队。他退役时的三分命中率为45.4%，为联盟史上最高。

[16]科尔于2014年第一次受聘担任NBA球队主教练。这一聘用虽然对美国职业体育界来说不同寻常，但对具有前瞻性的风险投资界来说却是家常便饭。勇士队的大老板乔·拉科布正是来自风险投资领域。

[17]这是勇士队管理层出奇招的又一案例，他们还曾拆除球队总部建筑所有的内墙。夏威夷大学篮球队前主教练吉布·阿诺德去年考察勇士队的运营后，将其称为“NBA中的谷歌”。 □

Like all the best plans, the scheme that turned the Golden State Warriors into the most compelling story in American sport looked a little crazy at first.

[2] Six years ago1本文发表于2016年4月12日。a group of executives led by a Silicon Valley venture capitalist paid a record $450 million to buy a Californian basketball team that had the second-worst record in the league.

[3] The new management then sold their star player and rebuilt the team around an unproven player who was ignored by all the major university recruiters when he left school, had a suspect ankle and, at 6ft 3in was dwarfed by the biggest names in the sport.

[4] Their guiding insight, driven by data, was that basketball was being played the wrong way. The slam dunk,where a player soars above the rim of the basket and plants the ball through the net, had for decades been the sport’s signature shot. But it is worth only two points.

[5] The executives at the Warriors redesigned their team to shoot from distance, from beyond the line, about 24ft from the basket, where shots count for three points.

[6] The results have been spectacular,with the team pioneering “a basketball style no one has yet figured out how to defeat”, according to The Wall Street Journal.

[7] Last June the Warriors became National Basketball Association (NBA)champions for the first time in 40 years,but it is this season’s results that has really made sports fans across America sit up and take notice.

[8] The team stands on the verge of making history. If they win for a 73rd time in their final regular season game against the Memphis Grizzlies at home in Oakland tomorrow night they will overtake Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls team of 1995-96 as winning the most victories in a season. The team has done it by sinking more than 1,000 three-point baskets, by far the most in NBA history.

[9] Stephen Curry, their diminutive playmaker, is now a household name and is widely acknowledged as the best player in the game. He is also an advertisers’ dream—he plays with a smile,looks more like a normal human being than most of the giants who hold sway in the NBA, and is a devoted father who met his wife at a church youth group when he was 14.

[10] Curry is on course to score more than 400 three-pointers this season.Nobody else has ever made more than 270. And his accuracy is astonishing:Curry, 28, shoots better from 30 to 40ft than the average NBA player does from three to four feet. He averages almost 30 points a game and scores with 50 per cent of his shots, including an astonishing 45 per cent of three-point attempts.

[11] Fans have begun turning up in droves to watch his warm-up routines,which include shooting from inside the corridor to the players’ tunnel.

[12] As Curry’s effectiveness has grown, teams have attempted to mark him more heavily, but doing so creates space for others and reduces congestion around the basket itself.

[13] That means that opportunities for two-point scores are also more frequent,although the team’s total commitment to three-pointers means that they often snub them anyway.

[14] Last year, Klay Thompson, the team’s second-best long-distance shooter, became the first person other than Mr Curry to score 270 three-pointers in a season.

[15] Their coach is Steve Kerr, a member of five NBA championship teams including the record-setting Bulls, who had retired with a 45.4 per cent shooting rate on three-pointers, the highest in league history.

[16] When he was hired in 2014 it was his first NBA coaching job, an appointment that was seen as extraordinary in professional US sports but would be routine in the forward-looking venture capitalism world from which Joe Lacob,the team’s main owner, comes.

[17] It was one more example of the management team’s unconventional approach, which has also included knocking down all the walls inside the team’s headquarters. Gib Arnold, a former University of Hawaii head coach, who spent time observing the Warriors operation last year,called them “Google in the NBA”. ■