Updating Stats By Numbers For The NBA 2012-2013 Regular Season

Updating Stats by Numbers

I’ve been working behind the scenes on updating Stats by Numbers for the NBA 2012-2013 regular season that will be starting on October 30th, 2012. In order to get the site ready for the new season, I had to make some drastic changes to the core structure. It had been well over a year since I’d done any work to the site and I knew I needed to get a fresh start for it. Some of the design decisions I’d made in 2007 were not so great and the only way to fix things was to scrape the entire frontend of the site. This also meant reworking the database design on the backend to create ways to map my old data into the new formats I’d devised.

Updated Scores Page

The updated scores page for Stats by Numers, with a weekly carousel and date selector.

I’ve mostly completed the backend work and am getting the site ready for launch by processing the box score and play by play data for the last 3 seasons. This amounts to quite a lot of data as there are about 1.64 million plays in just the last few seasons alone. There is still a little more than a month before the season starts and ample time to get everything ready. Over the course of the next few weeks, I’ll be updating Stats by Numbers with more content and adding posts to the blog on the site.

Dynamic Sandbox

In other news, my brother and I are in full production of our to be announced game. Our game company, Dynamic Sandbox, will be releasing the title in the next 6 months and I will be able to share more information in the coming months. We are both lifelong gamers and are very excited to be working on something we are so passionate about. What I can say now is that we’ve chosen MOAI to be our framework; this allows us to write one set of code and port the game to many devices thanks to the cross-platform architecture of MOAI. I can’t wait to share more about we’re working on in future posts!

Rain Clouds in the Summer

I haven’t been able to record in a long time because my TonePort UX2 isn’t working and the phantom power on my EMU (for my condenser mics) isn’t working either. I finally bought some external phantom power supplys, but haven’t tried them yet. I’m looking forward to giving it a go this weekend. I desperately need to get these tracks finished and start working on the production.

With regards to my other side projects, I’m still heavily looking into some type of app (leaning towards game) development for the iPhone/iPod Touch. The only problem here is the capital investment of buying a Mac. I’d probably get an 13-inch MacBook Pro or a Mac Mini if I wanted to save some $$$.

The other project is a website focused on NBA statistics. I can’t talk about too much yet, but I plan on launching it in the very near future.

NBA Roundup

Lots of great NBA action in the past two days, and even more horrible calls. I’m usually not one to complain, but things have gotten out of control. Ron Artest is ejected (again!) for a straight up hard foul. In the end, the league decided to reduce it to a flagrant one…come on. He deserved to have it recinded, but they didn’t want to embarass the refs. That’s fucked up; he becomes the scapegoat because of his past history. To be fair, even in that incident, the fans acted as a catalst for the violence by provoking him. His fault is not backing down, but he has learned to control himself (although he does get heated) and not blow up. Ron knows what is going on and refers to it as ‘past history profiling’. At least the guy has a sense of humor about it.

In second bad call, or non-call in this case, they miss an intentional foul at the end of the Mavs/Nuggets game that gives C-Melo enough time to jack up a three and take a one point advantage. At least in this case, the NBA had the balls to fess up to the mistake and issued this statement:

“At the end of the Dallas-Denver game this evening, the officials missed an intentional foul committed by Antoine Wright on Carmelo Anthony, just prior to Anthony’s 3-point basket.”

Weak. Let’s hope things turn around and the refs start getting the calls right. NBA refs are the best in the world (I know you hear that cliche all the time, but it’s true) and need to show it. Next up: Lakers @ Rockets tomorrow 12:30pm on ABC

Lakers even it up

What a great game! Kobe showed us what we already know; he can light it up anywhere, anytime, putting up a 40 point gem. I loved the yells to Battier, ‘He can’t guard me!’ Talk about the opposite of Dirk. I’m a little bummed that Fisher got suspended, but I understand it and am glad that he made the play. Next stop Houston on Friday. Go Lakers!

Lakers 2nd Round and more NBA stuff…

Monday is the start of the second for the Lake show. The matchup is a favorable one with the Lakers going 4-0 against the Rockets in the regular season. I’m looking for Andrew Bynum to pick up his game and play to the competition. He needs to stop getting so many cheap fouls and focus on staying in the game. Starting should help that, giving him the consistent minutes he needs. Can’t wait for gametime – 7:30pm PST TNT.

While we’re on the subject of basketball, this Bulls/Celctics series has been amazing! Last night there was a triple OT (the fourth OT game in the six game series) that pushed the series to a game 7. Can’t wait for tomorrow to see how this plays out.