Not long after Mark Cuban bought the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, the dotcom billionaire became famous for running on the court during games and running his mouth as he pleased.
Within months, he was one of the most controversial and most fined owners in National Basketball Association history. He also helped develop one of the best teams in the country.
Young talent and solid coaching get most of the credit for the squad’s success, but Cuban also instituted unconventional techniques, such as hiring his former college math professor to formulate equations to help coaches pick a lineup.
When Cuban was at Indiana University in 1980, he took a class from Wayne Winston, who’s still a professor of decision sciences there. Fast-forward to March 2000, just three months after Cuban bought the team, when Cuban asked Winston if he could devise a system to improve the team.
A short time later, Winston and a partner presented Cuban with a system for rating players, and Cuban signed on.
Their relationship continues to this day.
Tempo first talked to Winston last week as the highly favored Mavericks began to stumble against the Golden State Warriors. Two days later, the top-seeded Mavericks collapsed in one of the biggest postseason upsets in NBA history. We caught up with Winston again to see why the team (and perhaps his equation) faltered.
Q How are you feeling today?
A I’m devastated, and I just feel so bad for the guys. To go out like this is just such a shock.
Q The last time we talked, the Mavericks were down in the series 3-1, but you were optimistic. What happened?
A I thought they’d have a decent shot at Game 5 but it just didn’t work out.
Q Does this mean there’s a problem with your methodology or the team’s implementation of it?
A I think this is a case where one team was not playing at their usual level and another team was playing above it for the last month. [The Mavericks] had their chances but they just couldn’t hit their shots. They also have some injuries to their bench that people don’t talk about.
Q When you’re calculating the math on this, what exactly are you looking at?
A We look at every minute of every game: who’s on the court, with which team. So when a guy’s on the court the team should play well, and when he’s off the court they should play badly. We can average that. And for every game I do a scouting report, which I e-mail to an assistant coach.
It’s a form of regression analysis, although it’s not exactly. We’ve developed our own sort of algorithms for this that I don’t think other people have figured out.
Q Baseball has been called a game of numbers and statistics, but basketball rarely receives that label. Why is that?
A Well, baseball has the pitcher-hitter interaction and that’s about it. It’s really easy to analyze. Basketball, you have 10 people on the court at the same time, so how do you figure out who made them good?
Q What type of student was Mark?
A He was a good student. He got an A-minus, I think, though he was interested in things other than school.
Q OK, based on your numbers, who do you think is going to win it all this year?
A We would have the San Antonio [Spurs].
Q Considering the losses, will you change anything for next year with the Mavericks?
A I don’t own the team so I guess it’s not up to me. [Laughs]
But seriously, no, not in our system, it’s as good as we think it can be.
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jageorge@tribune.com
