The Debate: Who is the Better Baller?
Name:_________________________________ Class:________ Date:__________
Guided notes and practice
Fill in the blanks and show all calculations.
The San Antonio Spurs defeated the Miami Heat in the 2014 NBA Finals. Many people continue to
debate the question “Who is a better player, Tim Duncan or Lebron James?” The following data shows
the number of Field Goals attempted (FGA) by each player in the last 5 playoff games series, use the
data to have an informed discussion about the performance of the two players during the final games.
Tim:
10, 10, 7, 14, 10
Lebron: 21, 17, 14, 22, 17
1. What is the smallest number of goals attempted by Tim? __________ Lebron? ________
2. The smallest number in your data set is called the _______________________________.
3. What was the largest amount of goals attempted by Tim? __________ Lebron? ________
4. The largest number in your data set is called the ________________________________.
5. Put the numbers in order from least to greatest and identify the median number of goals
attempted by each player.
a. Tim:
b. Lebron:
6. The median separates the data into halves, (lower half and upper half). Now for each half
identify its median.
a. Tim: Lower half_______________________. Upper half___________________
b. Lebron: Lower half______________________.
Upper half__________________
7. The median of the lower half with the smaller numbers is called the______________________
(Q1).
8. The median of the upper half with the larger numbers is called the ______________________
(Q3).
The Debate: Who is the Better Baller?
Name:_________________________________ Class:________ Date:__________
9. You should have identified 5 different numbers for each player. Write these in order from least
to greatest.
a. Tim:
b. Lebron:
10. Using GeoGebra, create box plots for each player. Copy the plot on your paper.
11. Find the interquartile range (IQR). What percent of the data is in the interquartile range? (Q3
minus Q1). A
a. Tim:
b. Lebron:
12. Who has the larger IQR?
13. The IQR shows that between games 2 and 4 _______________ attempted more Field Goals than
_____________.
14. Calculate the mean FGA for each player.
a. Tim:
b. Lebron:
The Debate: Who is the Better Baller?
Name:_________________________________ Class:________ Date:__________
15. Now we want to see how widely spread out the FGA are so we will need to calculate the
Standard Deviation. Complete the table to find the Variance (Find the difference between each
number and the mean, square that difference, and then average the sum).
Tim’s FGA
per game
Tim’s FGA
– Tim’s
Mean
= T
T2
10
10
7
14
10
Lebron FGA
per game
L2
Lebron’s FGA –
Lebron’s Mean
=L
21
17
14
22
17
Sum of T2 =
Sum of L2 =
Sum of T2 ÷ n =
Sum of L2 ÷ n =
**in the table n represents the total number of games.
16. What is the variance (Sum of T2 ÷ n) for both players?
a. Tim’s FGA variance ____________.
b. Lebrons FGA variance ___________.
17. Find the Standard Deviation for both players (take the square root of variance).
a. Tim:
b. Lebron:
The Standard Deviation is the number that gives you the normal spread of FGA for each player
about his mean FGA. It means that the number of FGA could be that many points above or below his
mean FGA; approximately 68 percent of FGA should be within plus or minus this range.
According to my calculations _______________ FGA showed a higher Standard Deviation.
Therefore, ________________ had a more consistent game series based on a Standard Deviation that is
___________________ to his mean.