IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/jqsprt/v5y2009i1n7.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Predicting NBA Games Using Neural Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Loeffelholz Bernard

    (Air Force Institute of Technology)

  • Bednar Earl

    (Air Force Institute of Technology)

  • Bauer Kenneth W

    (Air Force Institute of Technology)

Abstract

In this paper we examine the use of neural networks as a tool for predicting the success of basketball teams in the National Basketball Association (NBA). Statistics for 620 NBA games were collected and used to train a variety of neural networks such as feed-forward, radial basis, probabilistic and generalized regression neural networks. Fusion of the neural networks is also examined using Bayes belief networks and probabilistic neural network fusion. Further, we investigate which subset of features input to the neural nets are the most salient features for prediction. We explored subsets obtained from signal-to-noise ratios and expert opinions to identify a subset of features input to the neural nets. Results obtained from these networks were compared to predictions made by numerous experts in the field of basketball. The best networks were able to correctly predict the winning team 74.33 percent of the time (on average) as compared to the experts who were correct 68.67 percent of the time.

Suggested Citation

  • Loeffelholz Bernard & Bednar Earl & Bauer Kenneth W, 2009. "Predicting NBA Games Using Neural Networks," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 5(1), pages 1-17, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:5:y:2009:i:1:n:7
    DOI: 10.2202/1559-0410.1156
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1559-0410.1156
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1559-0410.1156?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Page Garritt L & Fellingham Gilbert W & Reese C. Shane, 2007. "Using Box-Scores to Determine a Position's Contribution to Winning Basketball Games," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 3(4), pages 1-18, October.
    2. Van Calster Ben & Smits Tim & Van Huffel Sabine, 2008. "The Curse of Scoreless Draws in Soccer: The Relationship with a Team's Offensive, Defensive, and Overall Performance," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 4(1), pages 1-24, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Wei Gu & Thomas L. Saaty & Rozann Whitaker, 2016. "Expert System for Ice Hockey Game Prediction: Data Mining with Human Judgment," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 15(04), pages 763-789, July.
    2. Sumit Sarkar & Sooraj Kamath, 2023. "Does luck play a role in the determination of the rank positions in football leagues? A study of Europe’s ‘big five’," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 245-260, June.
    3. David John A. & Pasteur R. Drew & Ahmad M. Saif & Janning Michael C., 2011. "NFL Prediction using Committees of Artificial Neural Networks," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(2), pages 1-15, May.
    4. Galli, L. & Galvan, G. & Levato, T. & Liti, C. & Piccialli, V. & Sciandrone, M., 2021. "Football: Discovering elapsing-time bias in the science of success," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 152(C).
    5. Vincenzo Candila & Lucio Palazzo, 2020. "Neural Networks and Betting Strategies for Tennis," Risks, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-19, June.
    6. Fadi Thabtah & Li Zhang & Neda Abdelhamid, 2019. "NBA Game Result Prediction Using Feature Analysis and Machine Learning," Annals of Data Science, Springer, vol. 6(1), pages 103-116, March.
    7. Rodolfo Metulini & Giorgio Gnecco, 2023. "Measuring players’ importance in basketball using the generalized Shapley value," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 441-465, June.
    8. Hubáček, Ondřej & Šourek, Gustav & Železný, Filip, 2019. "Exploiting sports-betting market using machine learning," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(2), pages 783-796.
    9. Manlio Migliorati & Marica Manisera & Paola Zuccolotto, 2023. "Integration of model-based recursive partitioning with bias reduction estimation: a case study assessing the impact of Oliver’s four factors on the probability of winning a basketball game," AStA Advances in Statistical Analysis, Springer;German Statistical Society, vol. 107(1), pages 271-293, March.
    10. Pierpalo D’Urso & Livia Giovanni & Vincenzina Vitale, 2023. "A Bayesian network to analyse basketball players’ performances: a multivariate copula-based approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 419-440, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. João Vítor Rocha da Silva & Paulo Canas Rodrigues, 2022. "All-NBA Teams’ Selection Based on Unsupervised Learning," Stats, MDPI, vol. 5(1), pages 1-18, February.
    2. Pierpalo D’Urso & Livia Giovanni & Vincenzina Vitale, 2023. "A Bayesian network to analyse basketball players’ performances: a multivariate copula-based approach," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 325(1), pages 419-440, June.
    3. Manner Hans, 2016. "Modeling and forecasting the outcomes of NBA basketball games," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 12(1), pages 31-41, March.
    4. Jan C. van Ours & Martin A. van Tuijl, 2011. "Country-Specific Goal-Scoring in the ‘Dying Seconds’ of International Football Matches," International Journal of Sport Finance, Fitness Information Technology, vol. 6(2), pages 138-154, May.
    5. Page Garritt L. & Barney Bradley J. & McGuire Aaron T., 2013. "Effect of position, usage rate, and per game minutes played on NBA player production curves," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 9(4), pages 337-345, December.
    6. Marco Sandri & Paola Zuccolotto & Marica Manisera, 2020. "Markov switching modelling of shooting performance variability and teammate interactions in basketball," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 69(5), pages 1337-1356, November.
    7. van Ours, Jan C. & van Tuijl, Martin, 2010. "Country-specific goal-scoring in the "dying-seconds" of international football matches," CEPR Discussion Papers 7873, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    8. Jackson P. Lautier, 2023. "A New Framework to Estimate Return on Investment for Player Salaries in the National Basketball Association," Papers 2309.05783, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:jqsprt:v:5:y:2009:i:1:n:7. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.