Learning Basketball Analytics - Week 0 - Introduction

November 21, 2021   

Welcome!

Welcome to my first blog, blog post, and journey into the learning of basketball analytics.

About Me

I am a data analyst based out of Seattle. I grew up in the Chicagoland area and am a huge Chicago sports fan. I recently switched up my career from infrastructure/cybersecurity and have moved into a data analytics team at lululemon. I love the idea (and have loved the experience thus far) of working with data, but I want to continue to get so much better through outside, continuous learning and side projects.

Purpose

The purpose of this blog is share my basketball analytics learning journey. I know some things about basketball like most (some?) rules, the popular players, and basic strategy of the game, but there is SO much more that I want to learn. On top of learning the game of basketball at a deeper level, this blog will give me a reason to continue to learn data analytics, data science, and communicating about my findings outside of my day-to-day job.

Goals

What are my goals for this blog?

  • Consistency
    I will be the first to admit that I have a problem with getting excited about things, starting them, and then never finishing. I want to break that habit with a consistent posting schedule.
  • Confidence
    I totally consider myself a perfectionist and I regularly let that be a deterrent because I want everything to look polished and I especially don’t want to look silly. I need to overcome that hurdle and just share what I think and if it is wrong, so be it.
  • Continuous Learning
    I think learning should be a constant journey. I recently (and still am) participating in the 66 Days of Data Challenge and it has been eye opening in how much you can learn outside of the classroom or your day-to-day work.

What can you expect?

Great question! The answer is that I’m not exactly sure. I have a few ideas for the first few weeks, but you should be able to expect at least one blog post a week about basketball and data. It may not be pretty or even correct, but there will be some ramblings, tutorials, and analysis from me. My priority is getting the blog up and I’m hoping the formatting, style, and quality will increase over time naturally.

Tools

I think this will evolve, but initially:

See you next week! In the meantime, follow me at @aaronpetryio for updates and more ramblings.