NBA Gems by Alexander Varlamov

In basketball, each player performs their role. Some focus more on offense, others on defense, while some support the entire team through their actions. In the "NBA Gems" visualization, the Ternary Plots are created for each player, where proximity to the vertices of the triangle determines how successful the player is in offense, defense, or strategy. The visualization includes the performance of all NBA players in matches from 1996 to 2023.

Each diagram represents a sort of portrait of a player for a given season. The diagram itself is a combination of a Ternary Plot, Contour Plot, and Density Plot. The contours show the density of points on the diagram. This combination of plots results in triangles with an agate-like texture. The title "NBA Gems" reflects the fact that the diagrams resemble precious or semi-precious stones, as well as the idea that each NBA player is a sort of gem.

There are many metrics in basketball, which can be found on nba.com or espn.com, but they are typically presented in tables. One of the goals of this visualization was to create beautiful and engaging diagrams based on NBA metrics. The visualizations are non-trivial and serve as an experiment in creating digital portraits of players based on their metrics.

The visualization is interactive: users can select NBA seasons and sort the diagrams by various metrics (Free Throws Made, Points, Blocks, etc.). Sorting by metrics essentially forms rankings. For example, sorting by Points per Game for the 2021-2022 season puts LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo at the top.

Each point on the diagram represents a match, and by hovering over it, you can see the player's season statistics as well as statistics for the specific match. For instance, in the 2021-2022 season, LeBron James and Giannis Antetokounmpo were at the top in Points per Game.

Thus, the result is an intriguing interactive visualization with a mix of data art and unconventional visualizations for sports analytics.