Applications of machine learning : basketball strategy

This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. === Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019 === Cataloged from student-sub...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Narayan, Santhosh.
Other Authors: Anette 'Peko' Hosoi.
Format: Others
Language:English
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2019
Subjects:
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/123043
Description
Summary:This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections. === Thesis: M. Eng., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2019 === Cataloged from student-submitted PDF version of thesis. === Includes bibliographical references (pages 72-74). === While basketball has begun to rapidly evolve in recent years with the popularization of the three-point shot, the way we understand the game has lagged behind. Players are still forced into the characterization of the traditional five positions: point guard, shooting guard, small forward, power forward, and center, and metrics such as True Shooting Percentage and Expected Shot Quality are just beginning to become well-known. In this paper, we show how to apply Principal Component Analysis to better understand traits of current player positions and create relevant player features based on in-game spatial event data. We also apply unsupervised machine learning techniques in clustering to discover new player categorizations and apply neural networks to create improved models of effective field goal percentage and effective shot quality. === by Santhosh Narayan. === M. Eng. === M.Eng. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science