Machine learning applications for NBA coaches and players

Machine learning applications for NBA coaches and players might seem like an odd choice for me to write about. Let us get something out of the way: I don't know much about basketball. However, one of the perks of working in data science and machine learning is that I can still say somewhat insightful things about sports, as long as I have data. So with that expertise I'll weigh in to offer some machine learning applications for basketball. During a conversation with my good colleague Ray Wright, who does know quite a bit about basketball and had been looking at historical data from NBA games, we suddenly realized something about player shooting.