In the past offseason I undertook a study that has always interested me—assessing the value of a timeout.
Timeouts are the only tangible resource a coach has at his disposal. They only have four of them (though they can only carry three into the second half should they choose not to call one in the first) and while there is a lot of conversation within the flow of the game regarding timeouts there hasn’t been a lot of analytical research, more so just announcers proclaiming “this team needs a timeout!” when an opposing team is going on a run or the home crowd is getting fired up and giving their squad some positive momentum.