One of the panels at the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference yesterday dealt with performance enhancement. Obviously, steroids in baseball and — to a less hullabullo-ed degree — football are the first things that come to mind when the topic is broached. And indeed, supplements and pills led the discussion.

Kevin Arnovitz of TrueHoop broke down a story Steve Kerr told about the potential dangers of supplements.

Kerr talks about Tom Gugliotta, who went to GNC years ago and began taking a lot of legal substances. One night after a game, he got on the bus in Portland and collapsed. Portland trainers helped him. They called the Suns’ staff to find out what he was taking. The fact that the Suns knew, Kerr says, might have saved Gugliotta’s life. The lesson is that training staffs need to know exactly what their players are taking.

According to Kerr, the scare after Googs collapsed prompted all the trainers throughout the league to mandate that their players told them about any substances going into their bodies. “It came from that incident,” said Kerr. “It was an eye-opener for the entire league.”

And as the field of supplements and over-the-counter pills has increased, this has only become more critical. “Think of the explosion in that industry — in GNC,” said Kerr. “If it’s legal, somebody’s going to sell it.”

But like most people, Kerr doesn’t think MLB-type doping is a problem in basketball, and he only ever saw one example of a player trying to get an edge with an illegal substance — and it came about 20 years ago when he was still at the University of Arizona. It was also unsuccessful, as the player in question was trying to bulk up for pre-draft workouts that never led to an NBA career.

Kerr was similarly candid about himself and pills, saying that he took Vioxx late in his career to help with his knee problems. “I think Vioxx was a performance-enhancing drug,” he said. Obviously, Vioxx was a completely legal anti-arthritis pill/pain reliever, and whether it is really even performance enhancing or not is debatable. But Kerr felt it was. “Maybe some of it was psychological … I felt better, more confident.”

This led me to wonder what perfectly legal things might potentially be giving NBA players an edge other than pills and supplements. I don’t care to discuss that. My interest in that debate has been entirely exhausted by MLB coverage in recent years.

No, I’m curious about equipment.

The panelists talked about possible advantages gained by the utlra-buoyant suits worn by swimmers in the Beijing Olympics. Well, NBA players have begun donning a lot of new attire over the past decade, too. It doesn’t make them float, but it does dull some of the pain they might feel.

Guys like Dwyane Wade wear padded shorts under their uniforms to protect their hips and lessen the chance of an errant knee giving them a dreaded deep thigh bruise that can linger for weeks and hamper mobility. In short, this lets him drive to the hoop with less concern for his own health or fear of pain, which has always been a natural deterrent to penetrating just as it has been with taking a charge from a guy like Shawn Kemp on the other end of the floor.

Dwyane is quoted as saying as much on the webpage for McDavid’s “HexPad,” which are the padded shorts he wears.

“I never have any second thought about taking it to the hoop wearing HexPad” – Dwyane Wade

It’s hard to gauge exactly what type of advantage this gives Flash. Lots of other NBA players wear similar protective gear, so it is not like he is the only one who thinks they help. We do know, however, that George Gervin and Isiah Thomas didn’t wear HexPads in the NBA “glory days.” Then again, guys like Patrick Ewing and Kevin McHale did rock bulky knee-pads that must have helped them along the same lines.

So is this any big deal? Probably not.

But what about Kenyon Martin and others who now wear shin guards? It seems to me that if I was a guy whose main role was to challenge guys going hard to the rim and battling for rebounds in the post, it would be easier to do so if I didn’t have to worry about getting kicked in the shins. That hurts. Throw on the compression arm sleeve with a elbow pad that Kenyon likes to wear, a padded compression tank top under your jersey and some HexPads underneath your shorts, and you’re pretty well-armored from head to toe. May as well add some knee pads and a Rip Hamilton face mask to complete the package. Take the court in riot gear, essentially.

Now, I’m not sure of all the rules surrounding what you can and cannot wear for medical reasons. We know that full-leg compression tights are no longer allowed without a note from your doctor. And Dwyane knows that he can wear a bandage over a cut, but not a “Band-Wade” with his name on it.

We like to joke about the foolishness of all this stuff (see A Stern Warning’s “Over Accessorizers“), but given all the new, light-weight protective and support equipment out there (including the new shoulder sleeves that we have seen from Vince Carter, Michael Beasley, Antawn Jamison and Mike Miller this year), when does it all become too much?

Where is the line?

Hypothetically, I have to imagine that if any player tried to wear all the gear used by Kenyon, Wade, Ewing and Rip at the same time, the league would step in and tell him to take some of it off. But all this leads back to some of the other topics broached at the Sloan conference.

Eventually, bio-medicine is going to offer innovations that are true advantages more so than colorful fashion statements with protective qualities. The panelists speculated that artificial limbs might some day be stronger than natural ones. Cancer survivor Kyle Garlett completed an Iron Man Triathalon last year after receiving a heart transplant and getting an artificial hip. He is a hero who overcame long odds to accomplish such an athletic feat, but what if science develops artificial hips that improve performance?

Arnovitz brings up LASIK surgery as another performance enhancer that no one has an issue with now. And Tommy John surgery for baseball pitchers is now widely seen as a mostly innocuous way to make your arm stronger. But what about trying to surgically attach a fully inorganic arm? Maybe it helps your shooting form. Or maybe it just lets you go harder for rebounds. I dunno. I’m not a doctor. And, yeah, it certainly seems like something that would not be allowed in a league of non-cyborg basketball players.

Well, OK. No full metal limbs allowed. Seems like a good rule.

But what about a titanium finger?

Tougher call.

At the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, discussion generally surrounds the quant-friendly nuances of how the statistics of the game can be collected, analyzed and adjusted to provide the closest numerical representation of the truth. What are the limitations of Player Efficiency Rating? How valid is adjusted plus-minus? Can any of these advanced numbers ever really show us an objective reality or are they all too biased by the contextual roles that players have within their unique roles on their teams?

These are all fine debates and ones that will continue to rage on throughout every corner of the Dorkapalooza community.

What is most relevant to NBA fans today, however, is how front offices across the league are using these numbers to make decisions in a practical sense. Some of these answers became clearer on Saturday as Mavs owner Mark Cuban, Blazers GM Kevin Pritchard and Celtics Assistant GM Mike Zarren gathered to speak on a panel alongside two of the NBA’s statistical pioneers, Dean Oliver, who works with the Nuggets, and John Hollinger, who we all know from ESPN.

How do team execs really use the numbers?

“Depends on the time of year,” said Pritchard, noting that different stats mean different things depending on whether he is thinking about the trade deadline, the draft or optimizing lineups to match up with an opponent in a seven-game series. “Overall, it’s on the personnel side.”

Trade and free agency decisions are increasingly being made with more statistical information, and Oliver broke down how widespread this is all becoming and stated that he knows of eight teams that have actually integrated advanced analytics into their decision-making (Boston, Cleveland, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Oklahoma City, Orlando and Portland). In all, he says that he saw 14 different teams with personnel on the attendee list for Sloan Conference this year — and knew of two other assistant GMs who were not listed. Kevin Pelton also broke down which statisticians are now working in the league, in the process, revealing that he is now consulting with Indiana.

Cuban has been bullish on gathering data since he first bought the team, and early on began consulting with noted statistician Wayne Winston, who he had as a professor for a statistics course while attending Indiana University and had lost touch with until he got to the NBA. “I hadn’t seen him until three weeks before I bought the team. I saw him on Jeopardy, and thought, ‘Hey, I should give that guy a call.’”

In his early days, he admittedly made some mistakes. At least twice during the day, Cuban mentioned Evan Eschmeyer as a guy who he overvalued — and badly overpaid — based largely on some plus-minus data that, in retrospect, he realizes was based on too small of a sample size to translate to the future.

That was something Cuban learned from, but it didn’t deter his reliance on plus-minus, which he not only used recently to make a perhaps sea-changing trade for the Western Conference, but to help decide to hire Rick Carlisle before the 2008-09 season. He ran the numbers, and found that Carlisle was the NBA coach who had the greatest positive affect on the plus-minus rankings of those players who joined new teams. “It was Rick by a long shot,” said Cuban earlier in the day.

A big challenge to all this, however, is just gathering the data. “[Only] 20% or maybe a quarter of defense shows up in a box score,” said Hollinger. Steals, blocks and personal fouls are there, but what happens on all the other plays is not. Who forced a shooter to miss? Who blew a rotation? The box score will never tell you that.

“The box score is an incomplete story,” said Pritchard. “And more than that, it can be misleading.”

Still, unless you have the time to watch, chart and analyze every play qualitatively, the numbers — many of which can now be instantaneously collected automatically from play-by-play data — provide an invaluable base level of evidence on which to make better decisions. Oliver summed it up perfectly. “Individuals see a game better than the numbers,” he said. “But the numbers see all the games.”

Cuban and Rockets GM Daryl Morey, who run the Sloan Conference in partnership with MIT, have devoted a ton of money and organizational resources to mining all the games to find the data that goes beyond the box score. But they have both expressed their desire to see more of this being done by the league.

“Evaluating players, you have to do a lot more work and that’s what’s frustrating to us,” said Cuban. “You have to have someone charting every play. And there is no more inefficient use of someone’s time.”

Zarren understands the frustration and knows that Boston and the other major teams embracing data mining are probably wasting resources just to come up with the same data that other teams are unveiling. “There has to be a lot of duplication of work going on.”

Some have suggested that if the league — or some third party provider — does the work and makes it available to all the teams, it would take away some of the competitive edge for those on the cutting-edge. Cuban doesn’t seem worried about that and feels like it is what you do with the general data that really matters.  “We all have our own special sauce,” he said. “We’re only talking about the data gathering … All of the teams are going to catch on, we may as well nip it in the bud.”

Hollinger, whose PER metric is all-too-often proselytized as a Holy Grail player ranking despite his insistence that that is not its utility, similarly seems to believe that most advanced numbers are more important within the context of individual front offices than they are when used as some monolithic, numerical judge of every player in the league. He says that he “wouldn’t want to pick the All-Star teams” based on league-wide advanced statistical measures alone, but, within the operating philosophy of each front office, almost all of these numbers — when put into proper context — can be used to help make better decisions.

Getting the numbers from the stat heads to the people coaching the team is the next hurdle.  “As important as the work you do is how you communicate it,” said Zarren. In Boston, it took him and Doc Rivers a while to understand each other and the vocabulary barrier is something that will always be difficult to overcome.

Dean Oliver has had similar experiences working with the Nuggets, but has learned a lot in his time there and the whole organization has continued to improve its ability to talk the same language. “These communication skills are not trivial,” he said. “And improving these skill may be more important than improving how you calculate adjusted plus-minus.”

Once everyone is one the same page, teams can start seeing some real results. Coaches can tailor their systems to the overall organizational philosophy and get the players to do those things they were brought in by the GMs to do. And while a guy like Shane Battier has famously embraced this from the player side, a lot of this stuff can stop with the coaches. It may not be necessary to have the players in on the math.

“It’s really important for the coaches to design schemes around the data,” said Zarren. “But it’s not important for the players to know everything that went into designing it.”

The goal should be to integrate the analysis into the overall coaching philosophy, but for many players — some of which can’t even remember the plays they are supposed to run — advanced stats are not something that can be used to change the way they play.

“We had Gerald Green,” said Cuban, with a glance over towards Zarren. “You had Green. He does stuff [athletically] that makes you say ‘Oh my God!’ … He just doesn’t understand the game of basketball.”

Offering further evidence of the difficulty in putting any of this into the players hands, Cuban talked about the logistical problems presented by the arduous schedule of the NBA season. “We haven’t had a practice since the trade,” he said in reference to the deal that brought Caron Butler and Brendan Haywood to the Mavs.

“We’ve had two since then,” said Zarren.

But while the numbers are not something Cuban will be using immediately to help Haywood play better individual defense as the Mavs make a run at an NBA title, they are a big reason he is now in Dallas. “Defensive numbers absolutely had a large part in the trade for Brendan Haywood,” he said. “And we wouldn’t have done the trade without him.”

Still, when it comes to the actual game, there is a lot that this can do.

Much to the chagrin of Cuban, Pritchard recounted a late-game play between his Blazers and Cuban’s Mavs in an earlier match up this year that showed how these things can affect the games on a day-to-day basis. With Portland needing a big hoop with seconds left, Juwan Howard hit a 15-footer that sealed the win. Knowing Howard’s shooting percentages and tendencies from different locations on the floor, Cuban couldn’t believe that Juwan hit that shot. That was shot he never makes, and it was a shot Cuban would love to see Howard take all game long.

Pritchard told Cuban that the look on his face after it went in was priceless. “That’s the only 15-footer he’s hit this year,” said Cuban.

“He’s hit two,” said Pritchard.

And whether or not that number is an exact figure that Pritchard can pull off the top of his head or just a quant-centric joke, I think it’s safe to say that Dorkapalooza isn’t just for dorks anymore.

(Giant hat tip to Kevin Arnovitz for some additional reporting.)

When the Celtics lost to the Magic last year in the second round of the Playoffs, it was no big deal. The fact that it took seven games — an epic seven, no less — to oust the lowly Bulls wasn’t even that troubling for the reigning NBA champs. Their emotional and defensive leader was on the sideline in a suit, so it was almost commendable that Boston could defend it’s title so admirably even without Kevin Garnett.

That title defense was a nice feel-good story, but minus KG, the team was probably already thinking about next year. Over the Summer, KG would heal, Paul Pierce would get some needed rest, Rajon Rondo would further evolve and Kendrick Perkins would practice his tough guy face in the mirror. All would be back to normal in Boston. The Celtics would enter the 2009-10 season as a team driven to avenge a disappointing season lost to bad luck. And when they signed both Rasheed Wallace and Marquis Daniels to fill out the rotation, it looked like we would were just a meaningless regular season away from the Celtics/Lakers Finals rematch we all wanted to see.

The season started out well enough. There were still three major contenders for the Eastern Conference crown and the Celtics looked as good as anyone. But after a terrible first two months of 2010 — capped by a woeful yet convincing loss to their Atlantic Division “rivals,” the New Jersey Nets, on Sunday — the Celtics no longer look like a contender.

Really, they barely look like a team that can win a playoff series.

They are a lowly 9-11 in their last 20 games, which include losses to the Nets, Pistons and Clippers and only three wins over teams that were .500 when they squared off. Moreover, they are a highly mediocre 26-19 so far this year against opponents who don’t play in the worst division in the NBA (the Atlantic, which has the same number of teams, 3, playing below .400 ball that the entire Western Conference has).

While watching the scrappy, KG-less Celtics struggle to beat the likes of the Bulls last Spring, I imagine many of you had the same thoughts as me: “They’re sh*tty.”

Well, 57 games into this season: “They’re still sh*tty.”

You might recognize those (admittedly exaggerated to fit this post) characterizations of this team as quotes from Major League, a seminal film about counted-out underdogs overcoming staggering odds to succeed. Unlike the Celtics, which were famously constructed by Danny Ainge’s Voltron-esque assembly of The Big Three Part II in combination with the savvy drafting of Rajon Rondo and Kendrick Perkins, the Cleveland Indians team in Major League was a ragtag bunch put together for one sole purpose: losing. And losing bad enough so that their owner could break her lease with the city and move the team to sunny Florida. It was only once the players learned of her sinister plot that they were able to put it all together and start winning.

They needed an external wake-up call to motivate them to win.

Now, I personally don’t have much faith in this Celtics team. But if ever there was a wake-up call in this year’s NBA, it’s losing to the Nets. At home. Convincingly.

Will that be enough to help Boston hold off Father Time and magically rebuild the ligaments in KG’s knee? Probably not. I think the Celtics are a clear step behind the three legitimate contenders in the East (Cleveland, Atlanta and Orlando).

But this Celtics team, which I think at least within our little NBA internet world is now being counted out as a title contender, does bare a striking resemblance to my favorite fake baseball team.

Let me count the ways…

Kevin Garnett & Jake Taylor

Former greats cut down by failing knees, KG and Jake are both the inspirational leaders of their teams. Jake calls the shots from behind the plate. Kevin calls the shots from the back of the defense. Jake talks to the umps, lobbying for balls to become strikes. Kevin swears at the refs, lobbying for fouls to become no-calls. Jake gets into the opponents’ head, asking players why their wives let dudes wear their panties as a hat. Kevin gets into the opponents’ head, barking on all fours or clapping inches from their faces.

Jake, although once an “All-Star in Boston,” was never as good at baseball as KG was at basketball. But as we see in the final game when “Jake Taylor calls his shot,” he has a veteran savvy that allows him to still get his job done despite the fact that he can barely run down the line to first anymore. With KG looking like he can barely defend the pick-and-roll anymore half the time, will we see him be able to overcome his physical limitations to still succeed in this year’s playoffs?

Paul Pierce & Ricky Vaughn

Feared, dominant closers, The Truth and The Wild Thing are among the best to ever do it at the end of the game. Hand the ball to Veghead for three outs and everyone in the building expects the team to win, unless perhaps he is facing Clue Haywood, the most feared hitter in the league. Hand the ball to Paul for a mid-range dagger in crunch time and everyone in the building expects the team to win, unless perhaps he is facing LeBron James, the most feared player in the league.

No matter what else the rest of the team did, the whole game rested with Ricky Vaughn. If he couldn’t get the outs, all the other stuff didn’t matter. Boston’s reality is the same, and while it will be great if KG can start looking more mobile and help the defense once again become ferocious, we all know at least one or two key games in the playoffs will come down to Paul Pierce getting a bucket. Does Pierce still have his end-of-game fastball?

Rajon Rondo & Willie Mays Hayes

Unstoppable speed demons, Rajon and Willie remain less heralded than their superstar teammates — but are probably the most important players on their teams. Willie gets on base with ease, using his speed to score, set up his teammates for RBIs and embrace OBP over the glory of the longball. Rajon gets into the paint with ease, using his speed to score, set up his teammates for lay-ups and embrace FG% over the glory of the three-pointer. Willie did thousands of push-ups. Rondo’s shoulders lead me to believe he has, too.

Willie walked around the locker room with a confidence that rubbed some veterans the wrong way given his proclivity to pop out, but he did all the meat-and-potatoes things that the Indians needed to win and his teammates were willing to give him the keys on the basepaths. Rondo’s personality may similarly irk some veterans tired of seeing the young buck clang jumpers off the iron, but if the Celtics are going to make any noise in the playoffs, they need to let the quick kid with swagger drive the car.

Ray Allen & Pedro Cerrano

Veteran specialists, Ray and Cerrano were both raised under one philosophy: “Chicks dig the long ball.” Pedro does not worship Jesus, and his superstitious nature leads him to believe that he “needs hat for bat” and that sacrificing a chicken can break a slump. Ray once played a movie character named Jesus, and his superstitious nature leads him to believe that his jumper could be affected by Paul Pierce doing 360 dunks in pregame or him not eating a meal of chicken and rice. Pedro shaves his head with a knife. Ray shaves his head everyday at 4:00 pm.

Like Cerrano learning how to hit a curveball, much of this Celtics playoff success will depend on Allen’s ability to re-find his dead-eye accuracy from behind the three-point line. If Cerrano never told Jobu off and hit that clutch home run against the Yankees, the Indians never come back and win that final game. If Ray can’t hit some big threes in the playoffs, the Celtics might not win a series. Bartender, Mr. Shuttlesworth needs a refill.

Rasheed Wallace & Roger Dorn

Lazy, past-their-prime vets who do what they want, when they want, Sheed and Dorn don’t really give a damn what you think. Roger rocks extravagant sweaters, seems to enjoy golf more than baseball and is only playing for the Indians because they pay him top dollar. Sheed rocks extravagant Championship belts, seems to enjoy shooting trick shots more than basketball and will play for anybody “as long ast they CTC.” Dorn still hits the ball well when he tries but can’t field it. Sheed still plays defense well when he tries but can’t shoot it.

When it mattered, Dorn ultimately realized that “we’re all professionals here … this aint the California Penal League” and found some unlikely motivation to buy into the team concept, sacrifice his body and come through for his teammates. If the Celtics can’t get something similar from Sheed, their front court depth will be practically nonexistent.

Kendrick Perkins & Eddie Harris

Experienced performers who offer dependability over the spectacular, Perkins and Harris both get their job done — by any means necessary. Whether you’re talking about putting snot on the ball or elbowing opponents in the throat, these guys won’t think twice about doing whatever it takes … and then explaining their rule-bending with “I haven’t got an arm like you, kid” or “I really closed my eyes, so I don’t even know what part of the body I hit.” And given their ornery natures and permanent scowls, I’m guessing neither guy has many friends.

But both Cleveland and Boston know one thing: these guys will show up to play and give you all they have every time out.

Doc Rivers & Lou Brown

The Webster’s definition of a player coach, both Doc and Lou have great three-letter names fit for inspiring legions of men. Lou is a hard-nosed baseball lifer who gained some invaluable experience in how to overcome long odds at Tire World. Doc is a hard-nosed NBA lifer who gained some invaluable experience in how to overcome long odds at Disney World. Lou used a nudie-girl cutout of the team’s owner as a gimmick to rally his team. Doc used the African proverb of Ubuntu as a gimmick to rally his team.

Far from a tactician, Lou relied on a mixture of unorthodox charm and tough-love to bring the Indians to the top, but in the end, the game-winning strategy came from Jake Taylor’s savvy decision to lay down a bunt. Doc needs to do much of the same — and let KG, Pierce and assistant coach Tom Thibodeau figure out how to get things done when the game is on the line.

Tommy Heinsohn & Harry Doyle

I don’t really think you need me to spell this one out for you.