Chapter 13 Further Reading: Win Shares

Annotated Bibliography

Foundational Documentation

Basketball-Reference. "About Win Shares." Basketball-Reference.com.

Summary: Official methodology documentation for Win Shares as implemented on Basketball-Reference, the primary source for historical Win Shares data.

Link: https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html

Kubatko, J., Oliver, D., Pelton, K., & Rosenbaum, D. T. (2007). "A Starting Point for Analyzing Basketball Statistics." Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.

Summary: Collaborative paper establishing basketball analytics foundations including possessions, ratings, and the conceptual framework underlying Win Shares.

Dean Oliver's Work

Oliver, D. (2004). Basketball on Paper: Rules and Tools for Performance Analysis. Potomac Books.

Summary: The foundational basketball analytics text introducing Points Produced, the four factors, and the conceptual basis for Win Shares.

Key Chapters: - Individual offense analysis - Team offense construction - Statistical building blocks

Berri, D. J., Schmidt, M. B., & Brook, S. L. (2006). The Wages of Wins. Stanford University Press.

Summary: Introduces Wins Produced, an alternative to Win Shares with different methodology and results.

Comparison: Win Shares and Wins Produced sometimes diverge significantly, providing useful cross-validation.

Hollinger, J. (2005). Pro Basketball Forecast. Potomac Books.

Summary: Introduction of PER and related efficiency metrics that complement Win Shares analysis.

Data Sources

Basketball-Reference.com

  • Historical Win Shares data for all players since 1973-74
  • Searchable, sortable databases
  • Career and season leaderboards

NBA Stats (stats.nba.com)

  • Current season advanced statistics
  • Play-by-play data for custom calculations

For Beginners

  1. Basketball-Reference Win Shares documentation
  2. Oliver (2004) - selected chapters
  3. Example analyses on Cleaning the Glass

For Intermediate

  1. Full Oliver (2004) methodology chapters
  2. Kubatko et al. (2007)
  3. Comparative analyses with other metrics

For Advanced

  1. Original calculation spreadsheets
  2. Academic papers on credit allocation
  3. Era adjustment methodologies