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Hey, NBA fans! Who’s the greatest rebounder of all time? Some might say Wilt Chamberlain. Wilt retired in 1973 after collecting almost 24,000 rebounds, over 2000 more than any other player’s career total. Wilt once grabbed a record 55 rebounds in a single game. These days, few NBA teams average more than 55 rebounds per game. These are really big numbers. Wilt must have been the greatest rebounder ever. Right? Not so fast. In 2010, a sportswriter named Ben Morris published a series of posts on his Skeptical Sports website called The Case For Dennis Rodman that took a closer look at the NBA’s greatest rebounders.
Vocabulary
- data: raw, unorganized facts and numbers.
- information: data with context and a purpose.
- data visualization: using the graphic representation of data to tell a meaningful story
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[MUSIC]
0:00
Hey, NBA fans,
who's the greatest rebounder of all time?
0:08
Some might say Wilt Chamberlain.
0:13
Wilt retired in 1973 after
collecting almost 24,000 rebounds.
0:16
Over 2,000 more than any
other player's career total.
0:21
Wilt once grabbed a record 55
rebounds in a single game.
0:26
These days, few NBA teams average
more than 55 rebounds per game.
0:31
These are really big numbers.
0:37
Wilt must have been the greatest
rebounder ever, right?
0:39
Not so fast.
0:42
In 2010, a sports writer named
Ben Morris published a series
0:44
of posts on his Skeptical Sports
website called The Case for
0:49
Dennis Rodman that took a closer look
at the NBA's greatest rebounders.
0:53
In the 1960-61 Season, Wilt averaged
over 27 rebounds per game, the most ever.
0:59
That number towers over Dennis Rodman's
peak season of 18.7 rebounds in 1991-92.
1:07
But Wilt played almost
every minute of every game.
1:15
Meaning, he was on the court 48
minutes per night versus Rodman's 40.
1:19
In addition, the game moved at a much
faster pace in the early 60s than
1:24
in the early 90s, and players made
shots at a much lower percentage.
1:29
A typical game in 1961 featured 147
1:35
rebounding opportunities
from missed shots per game.
1:38
By 1991, rebounding opportunities
had dropped to just 84 per game.
1:43
To make a more direct
comparison between the players,
1:50
Morris used a statistic called
Total Rebounding Percentage.
1:54
Total rebounding percentage means,
of all the missed shots available,
1:58
what percentage were
rebounded by each player?
2:03
By that metric,
the results weren't even close.
2:07
In each of Rodman's six best seasons,
2:11
he grabbed over 25% of the rebounds
available while he was on the court.
2:13
Even in Wilt's best season, he rebounded
only 20% of the missed shots available.
2:20
So Wilt may have the most career rebounds.
2:26
But Morris's charts demonstrate that
the most efficient rebounder of all time
2:29
was Dennis Rodman.
2:34
Hi, my name is Anwar.
2:37
I'm a designer, a developer,
and then teacher at Treehouse.
2:39
My pronouns are he/him.
2:42
I'm here today to introduce you to
the fundamentals of data visualization.
2:44
What is data visualization?
2:50
A simple answer might be something like
the graphic representation of data.
2:52
But to get a better understanding of what
practitioners of data visualization do,
2:57
let's start with the term data.
3:02
By data I mean raw,
unorganized facts and numbers.
3:05
In the intro to this video,
we learned that Wilt Chamberlain gathered
3:11
almost 24,000 rebounds in his NBA career.
3:16
But on its own,
what do we learn from that number?
3:19
If I told that statistic to a random
person walking down the street,
3:23
they would have difficulty making
use of that data for two reasons.
3:27
The number lacks context.
3:32
Very few people have any idea how
many rebounds the average basketball
3:34
player collects over a career.
3:39
Without comparing 24,000 rebounds to
the performance of other players,
3:41
this statistic is meaningless.
3:47
Large numbers are intimidating.
3:49
If I asked you to picture
five basketballs,
3:52
that shouldn't be a problem for
most of us.
3:55
If I ask you to picture 20 basketballs,
that's a bit tougher but
3:59
we might accomplish it by
forming mental groupings.
4:03
Four groups,
each containing five basketballs.
4:06
But 24,000 basketballs?
4:10
That's a hard number to remember and
impossible to visualize.
4:13
Practitioners of data
visualization take raw,
4:18
hard to grasp data like
24,000 rebounds and
4:21
turn that data into information by
providing context and a purpose.
4:25
In the opening of this video,
we received enough context to understand
4:31
that Wilt Chamberlains
24,000 is a lot of rebounds,
4:36
over 2,000 more than
the next closest player.
4:40
We also learn from Ben Morris
that the number 24,000 doesn't,
4:45
by itself, tell a complete story.
4:50
The purpose of Morris's
data visualizations was to
4:53
demonstrate that Dennis Rodman was
the most effective rebounder of all
4:56
time by comparing actual minutes spent
on the court and calculating who
5:01
grabbed the highest percentage of
missed shots available to rebound.
5:06
During this course,
we'll learn to do something similar.
5:12
We'll learn how to convert data into
information by providing context and
5:16
a purpose.
5:21
And we'll take a look at different
visual means of telling our
5:22
audience a meaningful story.
5:26
We'll start the preparations for
that process in our next video.
5:28
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