ABSTRACT
Preparing basketball teams to perform at the highest standard of competition is a complex process dependent upon the interactions of technical, tactical, fitness and anthropometric characteristics of available players. In general, basketball performance depends offensively on shooting field goals and defensively on securing defensive rebounds (Ibáñez et al., 2003; Ittenbach et al., 1992; Karipidis et al., 2001). In closely contested games, fouls and free throws have also been reported to be important (Kozar et al., 1994). Other game-related statistics, such as turnovers, steals, assists and blocked shots, are not reported consistently as discriminators between winning and losing teams. It has also been suggested that the best breakdown of offensive and defensive performances can be obtained by analyzing four factors in the following order of importance: (1) effective field-goal percentage, (2) offensive rebounding percentage, (3) turnovers per ball possession and (4) freethrow rate (Kubatko et al., 2007). This chapter will cover the research on performance indicators addressed in basketball research and how the results of static, dynamic and self-organized complexity studies are contributing to model basketball performance.
