Closing Ceremony
11/09/2018
Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide
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The All-Star Fives of the 2018 European youth summer - with a robotic twist

NEWCASTLE (Paul Nilsen's Women's Basketball Worldwide) - We're all going to get overrun by robots one day, even FIBA basketball tournaments had better just accept that inevitability.  

In a sport that already relies heavily on numbers and statistics, we're low hanging fruit to those advancing technological development across all areas. Like most people, I am both a little bit scared and yet also a little bit excited by this and what it means for the sport - while of course rather selfishly worrying about myself. But hey, that's natural in every area of society. Right? Well, except if you're the one developing the robots of course. 

Anyway, each summer in Europe, I spend the last couple of days at each youth tournament largely shrugging my shoulders and raising my eyebrows at the MVP and All-Star Five voting forms which are submitted by each nation. It is an aloof reaction on my part and I admit and I should be better about the whole thing. I tend to take each rebuke of my own choices rather personally. 

My instinct is always to wonder if some of them have actually been watching the same tournament as me. Recently I came to the conclusion that  perhaps some teams have actually cast their vote according to the statistics alone.  So ,maybe I should not shoot the messenger any more.

That got me thinking about whether we could cut out all of the paperwork and rely only on the numbers in future- instead of this subjective opinion that can cause some angst.  Would we be smarter to now determine the All-Star Fives around the efficiency  category of the final statistics? I mean surely it is the best measure of any tournament and the respective performance of players?

Are the raw efficiency numbers actually less controversial and more black and white than many of us using our judgement - one which is at the mercy of our possible prejudices, personal preferences. Basketball beauty is very much in the eye of the beholder.

I suppose you have to add into the mix that like a lot of technology out there, it does still rely on some human input and modifications - in this case, the imperfect nature of even the very best statisticians. Perhaps only when they are also replaced by robots (or another technological form) will we truly be able to measure efficiency with the kind of 99.9% plus accuracy that some people might need to stop relying on human opinion.

Not deterred,  I went off and looked at the actual All-Star Fives that were chosen by that well-known fusion of opinions and statistics. Then, as  an alternative, I came up with a list of  how it would have went down based  solely on efficiency (incidentally, a measure and statistic I do rather love).

So without any further delay - congratulations to the following players who the robots would have deemed to be 2018 All-Star Five members based on efficiency.

U20 Sopron - Satou Sabally (GER), Nikola Kovacikova (SVK), Zala Friskovec (SLO), Ivana Raca (SRB), Livia Gereben (HUN)

U18 Udine - Lucija Kostic (CRO), Nyara Sabally (GER), Jelena Mitrovic (SRB), Laura Meldere (LAT), Nika Muhl (CRO)

U16 Kaunas - Eszter Madar (HUN), Simona Visockaite (LTU), Serena Kessler (FRA), Sude Yilmaz (TUR), Reka Dombai (HUN)

I have to say these lists contain some truly fine players and several of whom did make the actual All-Star Fives of these competitions. It is an interesting set of names and I would probably argue it has ignored those usual All-Star Five prejudices of which teams didn't perform well for example and as a result, has pulled out some great talking points.

 So what is the point of me doing it? Well, I guess that as we usher in more and more technological advances, we have to think about how we look at the more advanced statistics and especially those outside of the fundamental and traditional ones such as points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks for example. These will always be the most important for obvious reasons.

Many leagues have already moved beyond efficiency by implementing a raft of new statistical performance measurements. What is interesting is that while new categories are constantly evolving, it throws up several fascinating questions. Are we actually using them at all? Are we using them in the right way? Should we put more faith in them? Are we in danger of losing sight of the intangibles that you don't see in the box-score?

On the flip-side, what really does excite me is that if we are eventually overrun by 'robots' (as I stated rather tongue in cheek at the start) we will be able to analyse every last detail to our heart's content.

In theory, this means better accuracy, no more players whining they didn't get that missing assist or steal (by the way, why do players never check their turnovers are correct ?) and as the next step, an All-Star Five that possibly nobody can  really argue with. (You will hopefully realize at this point, I am merely using the narrow example of All-Star Fives to illustrate the wider point.)

Maybe the important thing is that if the robots keep on rolling towards us all, we make sure that we still leave a small space to debate even the most accurate set of advanced efficiency data.

In reality, I love chewing over these All-Star Fives (there will be another one incoming at #FIBAWWC) and I probably need to remember it is not an exact science and actually be a little bit thankful for that.

Especially as moving forward, it might quickly become a near-perfect science. But is that a good or bad thing?

Paul Nilsen

FIBA

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Paul Nilsen

Paul Nilsen

As a women's basketball specialist for FIBA and FIBA Europe, Paul Nilsen eats, sleeps and breathes women’s hoops and is incredibly passionate about promoting the women’s game - especially at youth level. In Women’s Basketball Worldwide, Paul scours the globe for the very latest from his beloved women’s basketball family.