NBA Rotations and Game Flows

We've had NBA Rotations for a couple years now but we finally have WOWY where it needs to be to focus on this tool this year. We have some awesome plans for this tool over the next month and just depends on how much we can get done and release. But let's answer some common questions first.

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What are NBA Rotations (or Game Flows)?

NBA Rotations refer to the units that are on the court together. There's 12 players active on a NBA roster and only five players can be on the court at the same time. Since a game is 48 minutes long broken up into four quarters, players need rest. That's where NBA rotations come into play. You can see common packages that teams put on the floor to play together and how those particular groupings of players perform while on the court. 

How do NBA rotations work?

While it's not always a clean break you can see in the example above the Knicks had a pretty distinct group of players that started the game and played the majority of time together. Julius Randle was having himself a night and ended up playing 44 of the 48 game minutes. And while there wasn't a clean break with the rotations, you can start to see how teams play teammates together on the court of the course of a season. Basically, players need rest so there's usually key moments where substitutions happen in games but that can be thrown off by a number of things.

• Foul Trouble
• Injury
• Blow out
• Fatigue

Those are just a few things that could change up how a players minutes on the court could vary. But by reviewing multiple games and considering context of opponent and things listed above in the list, you can start to paint a picture of what is likely to happen in particular games with packages and NBA rotations. It helps Peter come up with NBA minute projections (supporter only) that can be used to help predict floor time. Minutes lead to opportunity and opportunity can lead to fantasy production. Not all minutes are created equal but that's an article for a different day.

Features of Our NBA Rotations Tool

We have some existing features and some upcoming features on our NBA rotations tool for you.

Current Features

• Date Range - modify date ranges to find a game you're looking from a specific time frame.
• Team Filter - (supporter only) easily filter down to a specific team. This can be used in conjunction with the date range.
• Stint/Segment Popup - You can view what happened in a specific stint or segment by clicking on it and seeing all the plays that player was involved in. (we're revamping that to be even better and hope to have that out very soon)
• Player Summary - on the far right you can quickly see how many minutes a player played as well as their USG rate, points scored, +/- and their fantasy production.
• DNP Filter - (supporter only) to filter down to games from a specific team within the time range specified where a particular player didn't play at all.
• Mobile UX - increase your experience on mobile devices making this tool easier and more mobile friendly.
• Stat Overlay - see stats overlayed on top of stint segments for easier awareness.

Planned Features

While we hope to get to all of these this year, it's likely we won't be able to get to all of it and some will rollover for next year.

• Scoring Chart - a line graph showcasing the point differential throughout the game
• Unit Summary - easily view specific five man unit groupings with their +/- and load those five players on the court in WOWY to view more advanced data.
• USG Heatmap - get context of USG for a particular stint/segment of a player and icons to indicate if above or below thresholds.
• Fouled to Bench - did a player get substituted right after a foul happened? Easily see this on the stint bar with icons.
• Player Logs - pull up a specific player's rotation charts for every game to easily see how they are commonly used. (not likely this year)
• Predictive Rotations - using data and history to predict minutes and actual rotations on the court (definitely not this year)

How do you use NBA rotation data?

We covered a wide variety of NBA rotation information in here but is there a specific way you're using rotations to help you? Maybe there's specific features that would make it more helpful. Either way, drop us a note in the comments and let us know.