European Basketball Analytics – Case Study
While traveling in Portugal, I was afforded the pleasure of meeting one of our European clients in Porto: SC Vasco de Gama. Nuno Martinez coaches the U18 club team, and he was gracious enough to spend some time with me talking about how they use the analytics Hoopsalytics provides, and letting me watch a practice.
Coach Nuno has been coaching for 30 years, and is analytically-minded like many of our coaches. The practice I attended was a “light” practice the day after a game, and was a little different than what I have experienced in the USA. The rough format was:
- 15 minutes warmup
- 1v0 Finishing moves (same-hand same-foot one-handed layups, Eurosteps, floaters)
- 1v1 advantage game using one of the above three moves.
- 10 minutes of 3-point shooting.
- 4v4 full (with rotating teams and 19 players). Emphasis on transition defense.
- 4v4 half, with an advantage built in to encourage drive-and-kick
- Some cleanup of their offense, and 5v5 full
Like my teams, on offense they use an action-based read-and-react approach rather than play-calling. Coach Nuno tracks these actions as a part of his post-game breakdowns, and can he see how effective each action is on a points-per-possession basis. He also uses this to impress upon his players the value of creating advantages based upon the actions they run, as the players have access to all of the analytics as well.
European basketball is on the rise, and it was great to see how the basketball analytics revolution is making players, coaches and teams better across the globe.