Okay, so I’ve been wanting to get better at tracking NBA game data, specifically player stats. I decided to focus on a recent Lakers versus Pacers game. Here’s how I went about it, and it got a little messy, but I learned a lot!
Getting Started
First, I needed to find the data. Initially I just went for box score from some websites. I figured that would be the easiest place to grab the basic stuff like points, rebounds, assists, etc.
The Process
I started manually copying and pasting the player stats. I opened up a fresh spreadsheet, and made columns for things like “Player Name,” “Points,” “Rebounds,” “Assists,” “Steals,” “Blocks,” “Field Goals Made,” “Field Goals Attempted,” and so on. It was pretty tedious.
Then I realized there was some more complicated data I wanted, like shooting percentages. So, I had to add more columns and do some calculations.
Ran Into Some Problems…
- Inconsistent Formatting: Different websites list the stats in slightly different orders, or use different abbreviations. That made it annoying to copy and paste directly.
- Time-Consuming: Doing this all by hand took WAY longer than I expected.
- Accuracy Worries: I’m pretty sure I made a few typos along the way, which is no good.
Figuring Out the Next Step
Manually copying stats is a slow and boring task. I need to be able to have better way.
