Is coaching experience associated with effective use of timeouts in basketball?

TL;DR

This study investigates whether coaching experience correlates with effective timeout use in NBA basketball, revealing that less experienced coaches may have a more positive impact on team scoring dynamics after timeouts.

Contribution

The paper provides empirical evidence that coaching experience is negatively associated with timeout effectiveness in professional basketball.

Findings

Timeout factor has a minor influence on scoring dynamics.

Less experienced coaches tend to have a more positive timeout impact.

Coaching experience is negatively correlated with timeout effectiveness.

Abstract

Experience is an important asset in almost any professional activity. In basketball, there is believed to be a positive association between coaching experience and effective use of team timeouts. Here, we analyze both the extent to which a team's change in scoring margin per possession after timeouts deviate from the team's average scoring margin per possession---what we called timeout factor, and the extent to which this performance measure is associated with coaching experience across all teams in the National Basketball Association over the 2009-2012 seasons. We find that timeout factor plays a minor role in the scoring dynamics of basketball. Surprisingly, we find that timeout factor is negatively associated with coaching experience. Our findings support empirical studies showing that, under certain conditions, mentors early in their careers can have a stronger positive impact on their teams than later in their careers.