Last Night, In Basketball is an independent publication that provides in-depth analysis of what actually happens on the court — covering all 30 teams, throughout the entire season and offseason.
The website and newsletter also depend on reader support.
Purchasing a paid subscription gets you access to features like Three Things I Noticed on League Pass, weekly deep dives into topics of interest, databases for several in-house statistics, and more, while also helping cover costs for things like travel and event coverage, as well as software that provides support for Film Findings videos.
I’d like to once again revisit a concept called signature significance. We’ve done this before with Robert Williams III, Andrew Nembhard, Trayce Jackson-Davis, Jared McCain, and Donovan Clingan.
We will once again turn to Bill James (sorry) to explain why, sometimes, we actually can learn something from a mere one-game sample size:
[In] certain relatively rare cases of extreme performance, significant separations in data can occur in surprisingly small samples, including one game. A perfect example would be the game in which Roger Clemens struck out 15 batters without walking anyone. That game, in and of itself, presents credible, or "significant" evidence that Clemens is a pitcher of some quality. Why? Because a poor pitcher never (almost literally never) has such a game…
Strikeout to walk ratio is an excellent indicator of a pitcher’s ability to win, and pitcher who strikes out 15 and walks none in a game is almost certain to have a good strikeout to walk ratio. We are in the habit of looking for direct significance; one game is never directly significant. No one game makes a man a proven pitcher. What small data samples can occasionally provide is indicative significance — the significance of the signature they bear.
Today, we're here to talk about New Orleans Pelicans rookie Derik Queen. I've already featured him in Three Things this year, but after what he did on Monday night, he needs his own spotlight.