Optimizing wheelchair basketball lineups: A statistical approach to coaching strategies

Valentina Cavedon, Paola Zuccolotto, Marco Sandri, Maricay Manisera, Marco Bernardi, Ilaria Peluso and Chiara Milanese

PLOS ONE, 2024, vol. 19, issue 5, 1-15

Abstract: This study was designed to support the tactical decisions of wheelchair basketball (WB) coaches in identifying the best players to form winning lineups. Data related to a complete regular season of a top-level WB Championship were examined. By analyzing game-related statistics from the first round, two clusters were identified that accounted for approximately 35% of the total variance. Cluster 1 was composed of low-performing athletes, while Cluster 2 was composed of high-performing athletes. Based on data related to the second round of the Championship, we conducted a two-fold evaluation of the clusters identified in the first round with the team’s net performance as the outcome variable. The results showed that teams where players belonging to Cluster 2 had played more time during the second round of the championship were also those with the better team performance (R-squared = 0.48, p = 0.035), while increasing the playing time for players from Classes III and IV does not necessarily improve team performance (r2 = -0.14, p = 0.59). These results of the present study suggest that a collaborative approach between coaches and data scientists would significantly advance this Paralympic sport.

Date: 2024
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0302596

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302596

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