October 20188 IN MY V EWSIMULATION BASED DECISION MAKINGAs the trade deadline approached for the 2017 NBA season, Lebron James knew his team needed some fine-tuning if he was going to take it to his eighth consecutive NBA finals appearance. James is one of the smartest tacticians in the game, both on and off the court, despite a recent Donald Trump tweet to the contrary. As well as being one of the greatest players of all time, he is also the unofficial Head Coach and GM of any team he plays for. And often when asked by reporters how he makes decisions about his team, his revelation is surprising ­ in part, by frequently playing NBA 2k, the market leading basketball video game, "I mix and match a lot of line-up changes and things of that nature to see how we can be really good". Either wittingly or unwittingly, James uses simulations, an increasingly popular method of analytics that enables both humans and machines to fine-tune their decision BY TONY GRUEBNER, GM ANALYTICS, INSIGHTS & MODELLING, SPORTSBET
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