NBA 2K23 - ETL and Exploratory Data Analysis

As a basketball enthusiast and a passionate data analyst, I took it upon myself to scrape the data for this popular game (it wasn't available online), and conduct an in-depth exploratory analysis using SQL and Python. I utilized various libraries including pandas, re, BeautifulSoup, and selenium to gather and clean the data, and perform various statistical analyses on it.
Data scraped from 2kratings.com
Explored using Deepnote
Using SQL, Python (pandas, re, BeautifulSoup, selenium)
Gil Harari - LinkedIn; GitHub; Mail; Phone: +972-52-744-1568

Some random facts:

Bucks, Suns, Celtics are in the top of most success-predicting metrics (and Spurs, Rockets, Hornets, Pistons are at the bottom).
Jazz are the tallest, heaviest, and slowest team in the NBA. (It also has the lowest overall rating.)
Thunder are both 3nd tallest and 2nd leanest out of all 30 teams (i.e. looking for that next KD/Giannis/unicorn).
Grizzlies are the #1 hustle team, by a fairly large margin.
Mavericks are 27th (4rd lowest) in terms of their average overall rating. [update April 23 - no wonder they did not make it to the playoff!]
Warriors, Lakers, 76ers are best 3pt shooters (this beautifully reveales the flaw of averages analysis - having a bunch of slightly-above-average shooters such as the case with the Lakers, doesn't translate to high quality 3pt shooting in real life) (Knicks, Hornets, Clippers are the worst on average - again, it's hilarious that the Clippers, a better 3pt shooting team than the Lakers, are ranked at the bottom!)
- This metric might be skewed by players who aren't really shooting 3s - i.e. having a 25 3pt shooting ratings vs. a 45 3pt shooting ratings both roughly translates to "not a 3pt shooter", but will impact the data differently.

75% of players are from the United States, 5% from Canada, and the rest is pretty much all-over-the-place
A non-US player is more likely to be of a big man archetype: taller, heavier, stronger, less explosive, better interior defender but worst perimeter defender, more skillful in the post, less of a playmaker, etc. (33% of non-us players are centers, while only 13% of US players are centers).

Badges are special abilities or skills. There are four categories of badges: Finishing, Shooting, Playmaking, and Defensive/Rebounding. Each type of badge provides different benefits and boosts for the player's skills and abilities
Zion Williams is the only player with all 16 finishing badges
4 players have all 16 shooting badges - Stephen Curry, Buddy Hield, C.J. McCollum, Devin Booker
There's no one with all 16 playmaking badges, but the closest is Luka Doncic, with 15
Giannis Antetokounmpo is the only player with all 16 DEF/REB badges
The player with the most badges, below an overall rating of 80, is Kyle Lowry
Celtics are the team with the highest average of badges per player (followed by Suns, Bucks, Warriors). Spurs are with the lowest average (followed by Rockets, Jazz, Thunder)
PGs have a much higher average of badges per player, which makes sense as they are the major holders of "playmaking" badges, while the other badges are not really position-specific
Indeed, we can perceive above that the majority of playmaking badges are associated with PGs.
We can also see that DEF/REB is positively correlated with bigger positions - let us quickly demonstrate that indeed height is correlated with primary playing positions:
A beautifully linear graph.
There is a very strong correlation between amount of league experience and the amount of badges of a player (correlation coefficient = 0.776):

The average NBA player is 200cm tall (about 6'6"), a mediocre shooter from all ranges, and generally doesn't really possess qualities which are associated with traditional big men (e.g. strength, playing in the post, interior defense, etc.).
A further verification of this observation is that when we test which NBA players are the furthest away from average - centers dominate the list:
And the most average NBA players are...:
- (Yes, the Polish dude that shoots one-handed fts is the most average of 'em all.)
We can also be a bit more sophisticated than that, and test how the average player looks like for each position!
Starting with the most average PGs:
- Killian Hayes is average? That's awesome!
- Jamal Murray is average? I always knew something was fishy about that dude. [April 2023 update - he's sneakily good, and most likely underrated]
Least average PGs:
- A mix of uniquely talented and of fringely weird players (Ben, I'm looking at you).
Most average SGs:
Least average SGs:
Most average SFs:
- It all just resonates, to be honest.
Least average SFs:
Most average PFs:
- Sochan got mogged.
Least average PFs:
Most average Cs:
- Wiseman is average? That's awesome!
Least average Cs: