Kirk Goldsberry (born 1977) is a

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

writer. He was the vice president for strategic research for the

San Antonio Spurs The San Antonio Spurs are an American professional basketball team based in San Antonio. The Spurs compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Western Conference (NBA), Western Conference Southwest Division ( ...

, the lead analyst for Team USA Basketball, and a visiting researcher at the Harvard Institute of Quantitative Social Sciences. He is best known for his sports writing and for pioneering the hexagonal shot chart in

basketball analytics Advanced statistics (also known as analytics or APBRmetrics) in basketball refers to analyzing basketball statistics through objective evidence. APBRmetrics is a cousin to the study of baseball statistics, known as sabermetrics, and similarly tak ...

, and for being one of the leaders of the recent advanced metrics movement in basketball.

Education

Goldsberry earned a Ph.D. (2007) from

UC-Santa Barbara The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the Un ...

where he studied

Cartography Cartography (; from grc, χάρτης , "papyrus, sheet of paper, map"; and , "write") is the study and practice of making and using maps. Combining science, aesthetics and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality (or an im ...

and

data visualization Data and information visualization (data viz or info viz) is an interdisciplinary field that deals with the graphic representation of data and information. It is a particularly efficient way of communicating when the data or information is num ...

. He also holds a master's degree from

UCSB The University of California, Santa Barbara (UC Santa Barbara or UCSB) is a public land-grant research university in Santa Barbara, California with 23,196 undergraduates and 2,983 graduate students enrolled in 2021–2022. It is part of the U ...

, and a bachelor's degree from

Penn State #Redirect Pennsylvania State University The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State or PSU) is a Public university, public Commonwealth System of Higher Education, state-related Land-grant university, land-grant research university with campu ...

(1999), where he majored in

Earth Science Earth science or geoscience includes all fields of natural science related to the planet Earth. This is a branch of science dealing with the physical, chemical, and biological complex constitutions and synergistic linkages of Earth's four spheres ...

and

Geography Geography (from Greek: , ''geographia''. Combination of Greek words ‘Geo’ (The Earth) and ‘Graphien’ (to describe), literally "earth description") is a field of science devoted to the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and ...

. He played basketball recreationally.

Career

Academia

Following graduate school, Goldsberry served as an assistant professor of Geography at

Michigan State Michigan State University (Michigan State, MSU) is a public land-grant research university in East Lansing, Michigan. It was founded in 1855 as the Agricultural College of the State of Michigan, the first of its kind in the United States. It i ...

(2007-2013) and a visiting professor at

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

(2011-2013). At Harvard, Goldsberry designed and co-taught the first Geography course offered since Harvard eliminated Geography in the 1940s. In 2012, Goldsberry presented his first basketball research at

MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference The MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference (SSAC) is an annual event that provides a forum for industry professionals (executives and leading researchers) and students to discuss the increasing role of analytics in the sports industry. The conferen ...

, which focused on the need for new �
spatial and visual analytics
�� in basketball. Within the paper, Goldsberry introduced a new method for making shot charts using NBA shooting data. He is currently teaching Sports Analytics within the

McCombs School of Business The McCombs School of Business (McCombs School or McCombs) is a business school at The University of Texas at Austin, a public research university in Austin, Texas. In addition to the main campus in Downtown Austin, McCombs offers classes outsid ...

the University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

ESPN and ''Grantland''

During his time at

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and ''

Grantland ''Grantland'' was a sports and pop-culture blog owned and operated by ESPN. The blog was started in 2011 by veteran writer and sports journalist Bill Simmons, who remained as editor-in-chief until May 2015. ''Grantland'' was named after famed ...

'' (2012-2015), Goldsberry achieved prominence by integrating his shot charts with analytical breakdowns of NBA players. His work appeared regularly at

FiveThirtyEight ''FiveThirtyEight'', sometimes rendered as ''538'', is an American website that focuses on opinion poll analysis, politics, economics, and sports blogging in the United States. The website, which takes its name from the number of electors in th ...

, and other ESPN outlets. Among his most cited pieces ar
The Kobe AssistThe Evolution of King James
an
DataBall
Goldsberry leveraged his background as a cartographer to analyze and present spatial basketball data to readers in novel ways. He used his personal experience playing basketball, where his strengths and weaknesses varied depending on his location on the court, and figured that it also applied to other players.

San Antonio Spurs

After ''Grantland'' was shut down, Goldsberry joined the

as their vice president for strategic research in 2016. He left in 2018 to return to writing.

Return to writing

In 2019, Goldsberry published ''SprawlBall: A Visual Tour of the New Era of the NBA'', which focuses on the inefficiency of shots in basketball taken between the restricted circle and the three-point line.

Publications

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Goldsberry, Kirk Living people 1977 births