The Dunc'd On audience is into the details. Whether the nuances of creating cap flexibility, the difficulty in completing a trade when one or more parties are obsessed about the fine details of pick swaps - looking at you, Dan - or evaluating which players are likely to hold up in the postseason and which will become liabilities, the crew strives to bring those details to life. Though Nate and Danny are more than conversant in the world of NBA metrics, and Hollinger is an OG in the field, there hasn't been a focus on the kind of in-depth, context-specific numbers that teams (sometimes) use to assist in these sorts of decisions and evaluations.
Until now.
For those who don't know me, I ran the analytics department of the Milwaukee Bucks from 2016-2019 as the Director of Basketball Research. I also wrote a book, "The Midrange Theory" - you should buy it or at least read it, it's good - discussing concepts and applications of statistical analysis to the NBA. While I still contribute occasionally to The Athletic, in the course of digging into the numbers one often finds little nuggets of interest that maybe don't justify a full 800+ word article to examine, but are worth sharing for purposes of discussion.
While I've usually just turned these thoughts into Twitter or other social media threads, the cacophony of that form of media makes them easy to miss, even if you're looking for them. I've been looking for a more stable home for this bite-sized work, and since Nate, Danny and I have been good friends since before any of us made our livings either in or around professional basketball, Dunc'd On was the natural landing spot.
The initial plan is to drop a few of these nuggets into the Daily Duncs per week. But beyond that, professional sports organizations live on regular reporting and NBA teams are no exceptions. To that end, we'll also include daily updates, starting with daily standings and two-week tracking updates. But we won't end there and are eager to hear what other daily stats and insights would bring more enjoyment and understanding to your NBA fandom. Finally, I'll drop semi-regular "explainer" notes to help navigate the increasingly crowded world of NBA metrics, stats and analytical resources.
I'm looking forward to connecting with this great audience, and I welcome your feedback and suggestions as we go.
-Seth Partnow