NBA Analytics Shapes Awards Voting — But Not for Rookies
Part 2 of my analysis covers the evolution of All-NBA, All-Defensive, and All-Rookie voting
This column by Dean Oliver — author of Basketball on Paper and the upcoming Basketball Beyond Paper — is part of our series on making NBA analytics easy.
Not long ago, I broke down the changes we’ve seen in recent years in how NBA All-Stars are selected.
In particular, the analytical metrics that barely existed 20 years ago now have such prominence that they have become more correlated with who gets voted into the All-Star Game. These metrics have encouraged changes in the way that players play, too, probably persuading Jayson Tatum, for instance, to shift his game away from the midrange and more towards layups and 3s, helping to turn him into a perennial All-Star.
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Twenty years ago, the NBA All-Star Game had legends — Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O’Neal, Kevin Garnett, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Kidd, Vince Carter. They didn’t play all that hard, though it was harder than the All-Stars of 2024 did.
While the All-Star voting electorate is broad, the three other major awards of this type — the All-NBA, All-Rookie, and All-Defensive teams — are determined by the media. Has the media voting on these awards been affected by the most relevant analytical metrics?
To answer that question, let’s look at the various — and quite different — ways that these NBA awards are shaped by analytics.
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