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5 NBA stars who lost their shine because of analytics

Daryl Morey - General Manager of the  Houston Rockets
Daryl Morey - General Manager of the Houston Rockets

As the NBA moves forward into the future, analytics are becoming a very integral part of team building and roster management. Now, you may ask, what are analytics and how does it apply to basketball?

In the simplest form, analytics, in general, involves teams diving into many different numbers and calculations to find out the most efficient way to score the basketball and defend the other team.

A good example of a team going all-in on the analytics movement is the modern day Houston Rockets. In the 2016-2017 regular season, they took 88% of their shots from the rim or the 3-point line. They pretty much abandoned the least efficient mid-range shots. As a result, they had the 2nd most efficient offense in the league (behind the Golden State Warriors).

As more and more teams have started using analytics, 5 former NBA stars have found that their style of play has become more and more undesirable. Let's find out who they are.

#5 Jeremy Lin

Miami Heat v Brooklyn Nets
#7 Jeremy Lin

On February 10th, 2012, an undrafted free agent from Harvard University by the name of Jeremy Lin, dropped 38 points on Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers. That day marked the birth of Linsanity. The world went crazy for Jeremy Lin and he didn't disappoint for a month. On March 31st, 2012, Lin hurt his meniscus and as abruptly as it had begun, Linsanity had ended.

What happened next?

At the end of the season, the Houston Rockets, blinded by the brief flash of Linsanity, signed Lin to a 'poison pill' 3 years, $25 million contract. Aside from getting matching haircuts with Dwight Howard, Lin didn't do much in a Rockets uniform. He had 38 points against the San Antonio Spurs though. However, James Harden was out of that game, proving that Jeremy Lin can't be effective unless he is the primary ball handler. Analytics draw an even clearer picture of Jeremy Lin's inefficiency as a basketball player.

For a player with almost zero athleticism, Lin has shot a dreadful 43.3% from the field and an even worse 35% from the 3-point range over his career. On top of that, in 26 minutes per game, he has 2.4 turnovers with only 4.5 assists. He just can't move to his left and has only made 29% of the shots from the left side of the court.

He is even worse on defense and most of today's top guards can replace him with a turnstile and the result will be the same. His minutes have steadily declined and the former phenom is just another player on the Brooklyn Nets squad now.

So, what do you think about the steep decline in the value of these NBA players?

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