Articles
Original analysis, explainers, and arguments about the numbers behind the games. New pieces are added regularly — recent essays at the top.
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NBA
Analytics
On/off ratings confuse the player with the lineup
On/off net rating looks like it isolates a player’s impact by comparing the team with and without him, but it hands one man the entire gap between two different five-man lineups, benches, and schedules.
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NFL
Analytics
Quarterback wins are a team stat, not a quarterback stat
The quarterback win-loss record gets used to end arguments, but a win takes a defense, a running game, special teams, and coaching — it credits one player for an outcome produced by the whole roster.
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MLB
Analytics
wRC+ isn't as context-free as it looks
wRC+ is the best single hitting number we have, but the clean plus sign hides park factors and league baselines, and it is a rate that says nothing about volume or durability.
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NHL
Analytics
Individual points percentage is a linemate stat
IPP reads like a measure of how involved a player is in his team’s offense, but it is driven by linemates, deployment, and the randomness of secondary assists — and it regresses hard.
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EPL
Analytics
Interceptions measure positioning, not work rate
Interception counts get read as proof of a busy, aggressive defender, but the number depends on a team’s pressing scheme, its possession share, and where a player is asked to stand.
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NBA
Analytics
Points per game is a volume stat, not a value stat
Points per game still decides scoring titles and anchors MVP debates, but it bundles minutes, pace, and shot volume into one number that never asks how efficiently the points arrived.
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NFL
Analytics
Completion percentage over expected still isn't all quarterback
CPOE fixed raw completion percentage by pricing in throw difficulty, but it still credits the quarterback for his receivers, his scheme, and the modeling choices behind the number.
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MLB
Analytics
Chase rate isn't pure plate discipline
Chase rate is quoted as a clean readout of plate discipline, but you can only chase the pitches you are thrown — and the count, the pitcher, and the scouting report shape it as much as the hitter’s eye.
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NHL
Analytics
Penalty minutes are a role stat, not a discipline stat
Penalty minutes get read as toughness or discipline, but the total is driven by role and the five-minute major, and it weights a harmless fight above the trip that actually put the team down a man.
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EPL
Analytics
Goals per 90 isn't pure finishing
Goals per 90 looks like the fair way to rank strikers, but it folds penalties, small-minute samples, finishing variance, and the quality of a player’s service into a single rate.
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NBA
Analytics
Free throw rate measures whistles, not aggression
Free throw rate gets read as proof a player attacks the rim, but it counts how often a referee blew the whistle — a joint product of style, star treatment, and the season’s officiating climate.
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NFL
Analytics
Pressure rate is a charting opinion, not a fact
Pressure rate looks like a hard count of pass-rush disruption, but pressures are charted by human graders applying a judgment call — which is why two respected services never agree on the same player.
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MLB
Analytics
Spin rate is a means, not an outcome
Spin rate gets quoted as if more revolutions are automatically better, but spin is only a means to movement — and without efficiency and axis, much of it can be doing nothing at all.
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NHL
Analytics
High-danger chances are a location model, not a danger meter
High-danger chances sound like a count of dangerous plays, but they’re a location model — shots sorted by where they came from, blind to the pass, screen, and goalie movement that made them dangerous.
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EPL
Analytics
Expected assists is a shot-quality stat, not a passing stat
Expected assists fixes the finishing luck in raw assists, but it grades the shot a pass created rather than the pass itself — rewarding proximity to goal and volume of service more than passing skill.
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NBA
Analytics
Contested shots measure activity, not defense
Contested-shot totals get read as defensive effort, but the number counts how often a defender stood near a shot — not whether the contest changed it.
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NFL
Analytics
Turnover margin is half luck
Turnover margin is quoted as a repeatable team skill, but fumble recoveries are near a coin flip and interception totals swing year to year. Half of it is luck.
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MLB
Analytics
Slugging percentage uses the wrong weights
Slugging’s neat 1-2-3-4 weights aren’t the run values those hits produce — it overpays the homer, underpays the single, and erases the walk.
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NHL
Analytics
Power-play percentage is an opportunity stat
Power-play percentage reads as special-teams skill, but it’s a conversion rate blind to volume, chance quality, and the shorthanded goals it gives back.
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EPL
Analytics
Shots on target is a volume stat
Shots on target sounds like a threat stat, but it counts a tap-in and a tame 30-yard effort the same and ignores where shots come from. It’s volume, not danger.
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NBA
Analytics
Assist-to-turnover ratio rewards caution
A high assist-to-turnover ratio reads as playmaking IQ, but it quietly rewards the guard who takes the fewest risks. Why the safest passer tops the leaderboard.
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NFL
Analytics
Total QBR is a black-box stat
QBR really is better than passer rating, but the clean 0-100 score hides opinionated choices about clutch weighting, credit-splitting, and defense you can’t audit.
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MLB
Analytics
WHIP counts baserunners, not damage
WHIP treats a walk and a double as one thing, nearly ignores the home run, and inherits the defense behind the pitcher. What it captures and what it misses.
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NHL
Analytics
Zone starts are a deployment stat
A low zone-start number gets read as proof of a shutdown role, but zone starts record a coach’s decisions and distort the possession stats built on top of them.
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EPL
Analytics
Expected goals against is a team stat, not a keeper stat
xGA is built from the chances a whole team concedes and is finished measuring before the keeper moves. The shot-stopping metric to read instead.
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NBA
Analytics
Points in the paint is a location stat, not a toughness stat
A high paint total reads as proof a team imposed its will, but it is a shot-location count that rewards pace and system far more than physicality. What the number records and how to read it honestly.
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NFL
Analytics
Time to throw is a scheme stat, not a processing stat
A quick release looks like a fast mind, but the stopwatch mostly times route depth, protection, and play design. Why both fast and slow numbers describe the scheme before the quarterback.
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MLB
Analytics
Exit velocity is a ceiling, not an outcome
A 117-mph rocket says what a hitter can do, not what he does. Why launch angle, contact rate, and consistency decide whether that raw power ever becomes runs.
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NHL
Analytics
Goals-against average is a team stat wearing a goalie’s name
GAA sits beside one man’s name and gets read as his rating, but shot volume, defensive structure, and deployment decide it more than the goalie does.
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EPL
Analytics
Progressive carries reward space, not skill
A big carry total reads as dynamic ball-carrying, but the count rewards the space a team’s system hands a player as much as anything he does with the ball.
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NBA
Analytics
The double-double is a counting-stat illusion
Ten and ten reads as a complete game, but the double-double is a threshold trick built on two of basketball’s noisiest counting stats. What the milestone rewards and what it quietly ignores.
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NFL
Analytics
Sack totals are an opportunity stat
Sack totals define pass rushers, but the number rides on coverage, game script, and how often offenses drop back. Why the column ranks opportunity as much as the rusher.
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MLB
Analytics
The save rewards the easiest inning
The save made the closer a star, but the rule rewards pitching the safest, lowest-leverage inning of the game. Why the highest-stakes outs rarely belong to the man getting the save.
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NHL
Analytics
Shooting percentage is a sample-size mirage
A hot shooting percentage looks like finishing skill, but for skaters it swings on tiny samples and regresses hard. Why a career-best rate is usually puck luck, not a new gear.
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EPL
Analytics
Crosses completed measure intent, not threat
Crosses completed sound like a creation stat, but a completed cross is one of football’s least valuable actions. Why the count rewards volume and intent over genuine threat.
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NBA
Analytics
Steals measure gambling, not defense
Steals read as elite defense, but the leaderboard rewards gambling for the ball and is blind to the positional work that actually keeps points off the board. What the steal counts and what it ignores.
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NFL
Analytics
Yards after catch is a scheme stat
YAC gets filed as a receiver skill, but scheme, throw placement, and defensive leverage manufacture most of it. Why the leaderboard tracks offenses more than the players running the routes.
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MLB
Analytics
BABIP is luck wearing a skill label
BABIP reads like a contact-quality stat, but for pitchers it’s mostly noise and for hitters it stabilizes painfully slowly. Usually it’s a regression flag, not a verdict on talent.
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NHL
Analytics
Blocked shots are a zone-time stat
Blocked shots get read as sacrifice and grit, but the leaderboard mostly tracks teams that spend the night defending. More blocks often means worse possession, not better defense.
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EPL
Analytics
Clearances measure pressure, not defending
Clearances look like proof of a commanding defender, but the count climbs when a team is pinned back. Why the leaderboard favors relegation-threatened clubs, not elite defenders.
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NBA
Analytics
Player Efficiency Rating is a scoring stat in disguise
PER promises a single-number verdict on a player, but its formula is dominated by scoring volume and efficiency and is nearly blind to defense. It’s a scoring rate wearing a value stat’s clothes.
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NFL
Analytics
Red-zone efficiency is a small-sample stat
Red-zone touchdown rate gets read as a fixed team trait, but it’s computed over a few dozen high-variance trips and regresses hard year to year. How often you reach the red zone is the real signal.
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MLB
Analytics
The quality start sets a low bar
The quality start sounds like a badge of excellence, but its qualifying floor is a 4.50 ERA and it scores a six-inning grind the same as a shutout. It certifies adequacy, not quality.
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NHL
Analytics
Giveaways and takeaways are scorekeeper calls
Giveaways and takeaways look like a clean turnover ledger, but they’re subjective judgments made live by an arena scorekeeper, with heavy home bias and no consistency between buildings.
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EPL
Analytics
Duels won is a volume stat
Duels won reads as physical dominance, but it bundles unlike contests, ignores what the duel was for, and rewards players a deep-defending team forces into more of them. Won the header, conceded the chance.
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NBA · Analytics
Rebounds per game doesn’t measure rebounding
The per-game leaderboard mostly tracks minutes, pace, and missed shots. Rebound rate — and the contested share underneath it — is where the actual glass-work shows up.
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NFL · Analytics
Interceptions are a quarterback’s noisiest stat
Picks get treated as a verdict on decision-making, but tipped balls, dropped interceptions, and tiny samples make the single-season total one of football’s least repeatable numbers.
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MLB · Analytics
Stolen base totals ignore the break-even point
Forty steals can help a team or quietly cost it runs. The total hides the only figure that decides which: the success rate, measured against the three-in-four break-even point.
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NHL · Analytics
The secondary assist is hockey’s luckiest point
Goals and primary assists repeat; the second assist barely does. Why the loosest credit in the box score behaves like a lottery ticket — and inflates point totals before regressing.
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EPL · Analytics
Distance covered is a role stat, not an effort stat
The broadcast calls 12 kilometres proof of effort. It’s mostly proof of position and system — and the smartest players run less because they think faster.
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NBA
Analytics
Blocks measure risk, not rim protection
The block looks like the cleanest measure of rim protection, but it rewards the gamble and ignores the shots a defender deletes by just standing there. Why the swat leaders aren’t the best protectors.
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NFL
Analytics
Third-down conversion rate is a distance stat
Third-down percentage gets read as clutch execution, but it mostly records how far a team had to go — and that was decided two downs earlier. Read it by distance, not as a verdict.
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MLB
Analytics
The RBI measures lineup spot, not hitting
A hundred RBI reads like a great season, but the total mostly records how many runners were on base when a hitter came up — a function of lineup spot and teammates, not hitting.
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NHL
Analytics
The game-winning goal is hockey’s emptiest stat
The game-winning goal sounds clutch, but it’s assigned by counting up from the loser’s total — often a meaningless early goal. Strip the label and it’s just goals with a better name.
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EPL
Analytics
Key passes inherit the finisher’s luck
Chances created feels like a clean creativity stat, but the count depends on whoever receives the ball choosing to shoot, and treats a tap-in setup like a hopeful half-chance. Expected assists fixes it.
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EPL
Analytics
Pass completion rewards the safest pass
Completion percentage pays players for declining difficult passes. Why centre-backs top the leaderboard, creators sit at the bottom, and volume stats reveal what the percentage hides.
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EPL
Analytics
Goal contributions add two different skills
G+A welds a skill a player controls to one he only half controls, ignores minutes, and prices a penalty like a wonder goal. Split the sum back apart and read the profile instead.
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EPL
Analytics
The appearance is football’s emptiest counting stat
A full ninety and a stoppage-time cameo both count as one appearance. In the five-sub era the column no longer measures playing time — minutes do, and the division rewrites most durability narratives.
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EPL
Analytics
Yellow cards measure reputation as much as fouls
A booking is a referee's judgment shaped by position, tactical assignment, reputation, and suspension math. The card column is an eyewitness account, not a character record.
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EPL
Analytics
Five-game form is noise wearing a trend line
The form strip shows five results and gets read as momentum. Five matches in a low-scoring sport mostly display variance and fixture luck — season-long numbers beat the badges every week.
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NBA
Analytics
The assist is a scorekeeper's opinion
Every other box-score stat has a hard trigger. The assist is awarded by a human scorer making a judgment call in real time — which is why arena bias and the hockey-assist blind spot are baked in. How to read playmaking without leaning on it.
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NFL
Analytics
Completion percentage is a depth-of-target stat
71% completions sounds accurate. Mostly it means he threw short. Why a checkdown artist and a vertical gunslinger can't be compared on the same number — and what completion percentage over expected actually measures.
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MLB
Analytics
OPS adds two numbers that don't belong together
Baseball's favorite advanced stat sums two fractions with different denominators and weights them as equals when on-base is worth nearly twice as much. What OPS gets right, what the addition distorts, and why wOBA fixes it.
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NHL
Analytics
PDO is regression wearing a jersey
Shooting percentage plus save percentage gets cited as a pure luck dial. It mostly regresses to 100 — but not always. How to tell real finishing and goaltending talent from variance.
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EPL
Analytics
The big chance is a subjective stat
"Big chances missed" looks like hard data sitting next to xG. It's a human analyst's judgment call that double-counts the model and discards the gradation xG was built to keep. How to read finishing fairly.
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NBA
Analytics
Usage rate is a workload stat, not a skill stat
A 32% usage rate sounds like a star. It's often a description of the supporting cast's poverty as much as the lead guard's gravity. Here's why usage measures role and roster context, not player skill — and what to pair it with when reading a player's offensive impact.
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NFL
Explainer
Passer rating was built for 1973 football
The NFL passer rating ignores sacks, ignores rushing, caps its inputs, and weights yards the same regardless of down and distance. The formula was the right answer in 1973. Here's why the broadcast number no longer matches the game being played underneath it.
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MLB
Analytics
ERA is half a pitching stat
The pitcher's name sits on top of earned run average, but 40-50% of the variance in any season's ERA comes from defense, park, and sequencing. Here's why FIP and SIERA predict next-year ERA better than current-year ERA does, and what that says about who's really on the leaderboard.
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NHL
Defense
Hits don't measure defense in hockey
You can only hit a player who has the puck. Teams with the highest hit totals are usually the teams that don't have it. Here's why the broadcast graphic praising physicality is mostly logging a possession deficit, and what actually predicts run prevention on a hockey rink.
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EPL
Tactics
Tackles are a positioning failure stat
Van Dijk and Rodri win individual honors with tackle counts that look pedestrian. The league's high-tackle defenders are mostly the ones whose teams' structure repeatedly forces duels. Here's why a low tackle count is often the signature of an elite defender, not a disengaged one.
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NBA
Methodology
The 3-and-D archetype is the most overvalued role in basketball
Every front office wants three or four 3-and-D wings. Most of the players who get the label don't actually deliver both halves of the package at the level their contract assumes. Here's why the market keeps overpaying for an archetype built more on body type and one hot shooting season than on sustained two-way performance.
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NFL
Methodology
The 40-yard dash has stopped predicting NFL careers
For fifty years the 40 was the headline number of the combine. The correlation between 40 time and NFL career success has been declining for two decades, and across most positions is now statistically zero. Smart front offices have moved to the 10-yard split and tracking data. The broadcast hasn't caught up.
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MLB
Methodology
Defensive WAR is the noisiest part of WAR
WAR is the closest baseball has to a single-number player evaluation. Its defensive component has 2-3x the standard error of its batting component. Most MVP-by-WAR arguments rest on gaps smaller than that error. Here's why the WAR totals you see quoted deserve much wider uncertainty bars than they get.
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NHL
Methodology
Time on ice is a coaching alibi, not a stat
Top defensemen are credited with workload based on TOI totals their coaches engineered. The same player under a balanced-rotation coach would post 3-4 fewer minutes a night and look like a lesser horse. Here's why TOI is closer to a coaching deployment log than a player skill measurement.
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EPL
Methodology
The 'big six' label is statistically incoherent
The gap inside the big six is now six times the gap between its bottom edge and seventh place. The label survives as a brand convention, not a statistical category, and it's been miscalibrating fixture-difficulty analyses and transfer-market pricing for years. Here's what replaces it.
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Cross-sport
Big picture
The dynasty is dead, and the math killed it
No MLB team has repeated as champion since 2000. No NBA team since 2018. The Chiefs back-to-backed and lost their three-peat bid. The Lightning back-to-backed and stopped. The drought across every major sport isn't a coincidence — it's the structural output of salary caps, free agency, the analytics floor, and the variance of multi-round playoffs.
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NBA
Defense
Defensive rating doesn't measure defense
The cleanest-looking advanced defensive stat in basketball is mostly a team rating with a single player's name attached. A defender who gets traded loses 8 points off his rating without changing his defensive play. Here's why the column on the back of the card is a team stat in disguise.
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NFL
Methodology
Time of possession is the most misleading stat in football
TOP correlates with winning — but as a downstream effect, not a cause. Teams that lead run more clock; teams that trail throw incompletions that stop it. Once you control for who led at any point, the TOP-to-winning correlation collapses to zero. The graphic is recording the consequence of having already played well.
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MLB
Methodology
The save is a structurally broken stat
A sportswriter invented the save in 1969 to give relievers some recognition. The rule, as written, rewards the wrong inning and the wrong leverage, and it has reshaped bullpen deployment in ways that demonstrably cost teams wins. Here's why the structure itself is the problem.
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EPL
Methodology
Pressing intensity stats are coaching marketing
PPDA, high turnovers, and counter-press recoveries are the analytics-flavored framing for a generation of fashionable managers. Most of these stats count attempts, not successes, and several of the most-cited "pressing sides" finish in the bottom half on xG against. Here's what the headline stats are hiding.
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NBA
Methodology
Clutch stats are the smallest sample size in sports
The "clutch" graphic that appears on every late-game broadcast is computed off roughly 60 field-goal attempts — about two full games of basketball spread over six months. The math says it should swing 13 percentage points season to season for the same player. The discourse has been ignoring that for forty years.
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NFL
Methodology
Yards per carry is a trap for evaluating running backs
A 5.0 yards-per-carry average reads as obviously good. A 3.4 reads as obviously bad. Both numbers tell you almost nothing about the back. Here's how the stat is confounded by long-run variance, blocking, and game script — and which numbers actually predict.
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MLB
Defense
Fielding percentage hides what defenders actually do
The oldest defensive stat in baseball still appears on broadcast graphics, still decides Gold Gloves, and still rewards passivity. A defender who never attempts a tough chance posts a better fielding percentage than one who attempts everything — and is worse at defense. Here's what replaced it for serious evaluation.
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NHL
Methodology
Faceoff percentage is the most overrated number in hockey
Coaches obsess over it. Broadcasters open every period with it. Contracts get partially justified by it. A faceoff win is actually worth about 0.015 expected goals — real value, but a tiny fraction of what the airtime implies. Here's what the stat is and isn't doing for your team.
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EPL
Defense
The clean sheet is mostly a defender alibi
A clean sheet against an opponent that took three open-net chances and skied all three looks identical, on the box score, to one earned against a defense that allowed zero. Both produce the same defender reputation. Here's why the headline stat hides the most important defensive information in the match.
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NBA
Defense
The closeout is modern basketball's defense
The three-point revolution didn't just change offense. It turned the entire NBA defense into one repeated action — the closeout — and made the players who do it well the most undervalued defenders in the league.
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NFL
Roster building
The draft trade value chart needs a rewrite
The Jimmy Johnson chart has governed NFL draft trades for thirty years. The economics literature has known it's wrong for almost as long. Here's how it's wrong, why it survives, and what the teams that actually understand the math have started doing instead.
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MLB
Analytics
Why early-season ERA tells you almost nothing
Every May, baseball broadcasts overflow with Cy Young narratives built on six or seven starts of data. Almost none of those ERAs will survive August. Here's why early-season ERA is mostly noise — and the small set of pitching numbers that actually mean something this early.
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NHL
Methodology
Stanley Cup overtime is the most random format in sports
Sudden-death, full-strength, no-shootout playoff hockey is the most dramatic format in North American sports. It's also the highest-variance championship format we have. Here's the math on how much of an OT result is luck — and how to read playoff overtime without being fooled by the narratives.
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EPL
Analytics
The Premier League run-in is mostly a story we tell ourselves
The "run-in" is one of the most pundit-favored framings in soccer broadcasting and one of the least informative. Most of the late-season form people credit to mental strength is fixture difficulty plus small-sample variance. Here's what actually decides the table in May.
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Cross-sport
Methodology
Every analytics revolution is a per-possession revolution
Every major sport went through the same analytical shift: from counting stats per game to rate stats per opportunity. Per-100 in basketball, per-drive in football, per-60 in hockey, per-plate-appearance in baseball, per-90 in soccer. The same idea, the same resistance, the same outcome.
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MLB
Analytics
Pitcher wins are a useless stat (and what to use instead)
The pitcher win is the oldest individual stat in baseball and one of the worst. Here's why it survived a century of obvious flaws, what it actually measures, and what to use instead when evaluating a starting pitcher.
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NBA
Game evolution
Why every NBA team plays faster now
NBA pace bottomed out in the late 1990s and has been climbing ever since. Today every team plays faster than the fastest team of the early 2000s. Here's what drove the revolution, what it changed, and what it cost.
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NHL
Analytics
Plus-minus is the worst widely used stat in hockey
Plus-minus is the most-cited individual hockey stat that survives in the modern game and the noisiest one we have. Here's why it's almost useless on its own, what it's actually measuring, and what to look at instead.
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EPL
Tactics
Why possession stats lie
Possession percentage is the most-cited team stat in soccer broadcasts and the most misleading. Here's why the team with more of the ball is often losing on purpose, what possession actually correlates with, and what to look at instead.
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NBA
Explainer
True shooting percentage and the death of FG%
Field goal percentage was the gold standard for scoring efficiency for fifty years. Then the three-pointer broke it. Here's how true shooting took over, what it actually measures, and where it still falls short.
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NBA
Analytics
The mid-range jumper isn't dead. It just got expensive.
The story that analytics killed the mid-range jumper is half right. It collapsed for most players, but the league's best scorers still hunt it — because they understand a piece of the math the league-average version misses.
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NBA
Awards
How load management broke the All-NBA vote
The 65-game threshold was supposed to fix load management. It mostly just changed who got snubbed. Here's what the data shows about rest, awards, and what the rule actually optimized for.
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NFL
Analytics
The QB stat that actually predicts winning
Passer rating is everywhere. Wins-as-a-starter is everywhere. Both tell you very little. Here's the quarterback metric that actually correlates with team success — and why the broadcasts still won't lead with it.
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NFL
Tactics
Why every NFL team scripts the first 15 plays
Bill Walsh started scripting the first 15 plays of his offensive game plans in the 1970s. By the 2020s, every NFL team did it. Here's why the script works — and why it isn't really about the plays it calls.
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NFL
Defense
The best defensive linemen never get sacks
The interior defensive line is the most undervalued position group in the NFL because the box score doesn't have a column for what it does. Here's why pressure rate and run-stop win rate matter more than sack totals.
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MLB
Analytics
Why batting average refuses to die
Sabermetrics has spent thirty years explaining why batting average is the wrong way to evaluate a hitter. The stat keeps showing up on every broadcast anyway. Here's why it survives — and what it actually does and doesn't tell you.
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MLB
Rule changes
What one full year of the shift ban actually proved
The shift ban was supposed to revive batting averages and bring back base hits. What actually happened is more subtle and a useful case study in how rule changes interact with optimization.
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NHL
Analytics
Corsi, Fenwick, and the shot quality revolution
Corsi was the stat that taught a generation of hockey fans to think about possession instead of scoring. Fenwick was the refinement. Expected goals replaced both. Here's how the shot-quality revolution worked, and what's coming next.
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NHL
Methodology
Why goalies are the hardest position in sports to evaluate
Goaltenders are the most leveraged position in hockey and the hardest one to evaluate. Their performance is a confounding mix of skill, defense quality, sample size, and equipment trends. Here's why every public goalie stat is somewhat broken.
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EPL
Tactics
What xG misses about set pieces
xG revolutionized soccer analytics but has always struggled with set pieces. Here's why corners, free kicks, and penalties confound the model, and how the smartest teams have built whole tactical philosophies around exploiting the gap.
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EPL
Analytics
The relegation six-pointer is a myth
The "six-pointer" between two relegation-threatened sides is a cliche so embedded in broadcast vocabulary that nobody questions whether it makes mathematical sense. It mostly doesn't. Here's what the math actually says about late-season survival.
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NFL
Analytics
Going for it on fourth down: how the math finally won
For most of NFL history, fourth down was a cultural decision, not a mathematical one. The math had been screaming the opposite answer since the 1970s. Here's why coaches resisted, what changed, and what the analytics still don't capture.
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NBA
Explainer
How to actually read an NBA box score
Every column on the box score is supposed to tell you something. Most of them are also lying to you, or at least withholding important context. Here's what each number is really saying — and what to look at first when you only have ten seconds.
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NHL
Analytics
Save percentage is the most-quoted, least-useful goalie stat
Every NHL broadcast leans on save percentage like it's a verdict. It isn't. It's a ratio that treats every shot as the same, which is the one thing every shot definitely is not. Here's the case against it, and what to use instead.
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EPL
Analytics
Why expected goals outgrew the sport that invented it
xG started as a niche stat football traditionalists rolled their eyes at. A decade later it's on every broadcast graphic and every recruiting board. What it does well, what it still misses, and why it spread to every sport that lets you take a shot.