 Baseball didn't lead the revolution. Again, moneyball was about finding the little inexpensive things that contribute to winning and spending less money to shore those up instead of huge money on the big things because it was more cost effective. It was never like Billy Beane discovered some knew secret formula to winning no one else could decipher without the right math. Smart teams have always found players to do the little things and then pair them with the big money players in the most competitive combos possible . The best teams at doing this have always been successful. The salary cap actually has been the impetus for this development, which means football and basketball have actually lead this movement. It was less important in baseball with no cap because you could always overpay for everything to win (hence the Yankees). Moneyball was simply a team deciding they couldn't compete financially and therefore couldn't overspend so they started budgeting very tightly and searching for bargains and shopping 2nd hand. In a capped league the concept of not being able to compete financially doesn't exist as much so the concept of "Moneyball" was meaningless. But the evaluation of talent and the balance of team building has been a major part of football and basketball for decades. The technology to better measure physical aspects of sports has improved the ability to judge the value of players.
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 The math on 3pt shooting has been known forever. I went to basketball camps in the 90s and watched videos from the 80s explaining how if one team takes 10 2point shots and makes 6 they score 12 points, but if the other team takes 10 3point shots, they only have to make 4 to get 12 points. We always knew that math. The problem was we expected a team could make 5 out of 10 2 point shots, but probably only about 3 out of 10 3point shots consistently. That would mean the 2point shooting team wins 10 to 9. But now 3 point shooting has improved across the board and teams can expect to shoot 40% from 3 on the law of averages so 12 beats 10 4 to 5. Why? Because now streaky shooters can bomb away through 5 straight misses and then make 4 out of 5 and be shooting 40 % consistently. Previously there was a taboo that if your deep 3 point shots aren't falling, get closer 2 point shots. The rest of the world thought this way since the 80s with the shorter international 3 point line. But the USA could still beat those teams with superior athletes able to close out on shooters.  |
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