Steve Devlin

University of San Francisco

Analyzing NBA Lineups with Algebra

One aspect of data science involves leveraging data and mathematics to find an interesting perspective on a real-world problem. Here's an example of one such problem: In the NBA (which is awash with data), winning requires good players who also play well together. But what does it mean to play well together? How can this be quantified and identified? To explore this problem, we will introduce and use tools from an area of abstract algebra called representation theory. We'll build everything up from first principles so no background in algebra is required.