Free Book (Kindle) - Stumbling On Wins in Basketball

[koland]

Ordinarily, I skip over reporting extended samples, but after examining Stumbling On Wins in Basketball, by David J. Berri & Martin B. Schmidt, an excerpt from Stumbling on Wins (Bonus Content Edition) ($9.99), it appears that it contains nearly the entire book, unlike the two business shorts also released as freebies this week, which at 8 and 9 pages on my DX would have greatly been overpriced at anything other than free (Changing a Troubled Ship's Course and Clearing the Mind for Creativity). This lengthy excerpt has also been edited as a stand-alone title, rather than being an arbitrary length or selected chapters. According to the table of contents, only two chapters and an appendix are missing; although I suspect a small amount of editing was done on the remaining chapters, there are over 2100 locations and the sample of the entire book was 260 -- if the 10% sample rule is still in effect, only around 500 locations are missing in the excerpt. If you really want the missing chapters, I'd suggest that you pick up Stumbling On Wins in Football ($3.99), although I suspect you really don't need the two chapters and appendix on football to get the gist of this one.

Book Description
In basketball, spending explains less than 10% of the variation in wins. Discover what explains the other 90%!

In basketball, success takes more than money. From 1997-98 to 2003-04, the Knicks finished either first or second in payroll-and won only six more games than they lost. Their "averageness" led them to hire Isiah Thomas. Few people knew more about basketball. Thomas' path to disaster began with his first move: sending several players and draft picks to the Suns for players, including Stephon Marbury.