Back II to The System: An Updated Analysis on Which NBA Teams and Players Fit Best into the Grinnell System

Abstract

As a follow-up to our first paper that looked at which teams in the 2018-19 NBA season could best-adapt the Grinnell System, we sought to broaden the scope of analysis both in terms of length and depth. The itself is a fast-paced basketball playstyle that emphasizes a massive amount of high-value shots, stifling full-court defense, and full lineup substitutions in order to both force opponents into a high-octane shootout and to provide a non-stop spectacle for anyone watching. The quantitative portion consisted of a factor model built off of five key components of The and transforming them via normalization and vectorization. This resulted in an all-encompassing System in order to see which NBA teams fared best with The System. The Factor was applied to ten seasons of NBA team data to find the best and worst candidates over the seasons and overall decade. After observing some interesting shifts season-to-season, we sought to find out how much players themselves contributed to team adaptability to The System. A straight transposition of the factor model to player data led to an over-emphasis on All-Star talent, so we adjusted the measure based on expected performance derived from the Player Impact Estimate (PIE) metric. These adjusted factors saw a multi-faced selection of candidates that removed the emphasis on top-tier players. These player ranks were then used to project 2021-22 team rosters and their readiness. Eight teams emerged at the top end, with five of them being strong candidates based on additional qualitative factors.