Sports Hackathon: Hack-a-shaq Strategy

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How do we define Hack-a-shaq?

In our case, we first select players who only shoots free throws with less than 60 percentage. Second, The other player foul to the “shaq” player with personal foul and it resluts to 2 free throws immeditealy.

Why Hack-a-shaq?

  1. Pool free throw
  2. Obtain ball for the next play

Why not?

  1. 6 fouling opportunity for each player
  2. The change of the opponent team’s strategy
  3. Risk of successful shooting

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Approach

Firstly, according to the average percentage of successful shooting of players, we can make the strategy. Then we can compare the percentage of successful shooting after hack-a-shaq and areverage one. This helps us learn about the physical and mental state of player being hack-a-shaqed. If the player is more probably to throw successfully, then the strategy fails.

Secondly, we should evaluate the influence of hack-a-shaq on our own team. Does it help in scoring or break up the rhythm of our own team? Hence we measure the score in the next turn after free throw.

Tradeoff here: Despite of the high probability of positive score after hack-a-shaq, we have only 6 times of fouling which is a trade-off. Also it is usually the case that opponent team will take the palyer off which block the hack-a-shaq strategy.

Time distribution of Hack-a-Shaq

Score differences of Hack-a-shaq (Team who use the strategy)

Numbers of using Hack-a-Shaq for each team

Players who were ’Hack-a-Shaq’ed

Net score for the team who use this strategy

Free throw Comparison

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