[quote]scj119 wrote:
even Memphis has a chance (they match up really well and Ginobli is hurt). Memphis is so long and defensively good, they are like a team of octopi - there’s just arms everywhere. In passing lanes, driving lanes, contesting shots, etc.[/quote]
I don’t have an exact record, but Memphis has beaten the Spurs and a bunch of other elite teams. With the Manu injury this could be close.
I dunno though, it’s hard for me to pick the Grizz still.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
[quote]johnman18 wrote:
I hate to say it as a Celtics fan but I think you’re right Cuban the Knicks could give them some trouble. But I still think the C’s will take in 6.[/quote]
People want the Knicks to have a chance because it’s a great story they’re relevant again. Unfortunately they aren’t really that good.
Celts in 5.[/quote]
Ill agree with most of this, I do say the Knicks will make it very tough on the Celts and take 2. The truth is that besides from Amare, Melo, Billups, Douglas and possibly Fields their roster is very poor, still absolutely no size (Turiaf starting at 6’8") and poor rebounding. Their defense has actually somehow improved since the trade, but the Celtics are just too deep, and have great finishers in Pierce and Allen
2 more good role players (a banger and a good spotup shooter) and they will be a top 4 East team.
It’s also pretty terrible that there are two teams in the East with .500 or less records that are in the playoffs. Pathetic
[quote]MattyXL wrote:
[quote]scj119 wrote:
[quote]johnman18 wrote:
I hate to say it as a Celtics fan but I think you’re right Cuban the Knicks could give them some trouble. But I still think the C’s will take in 6.[/quote]
People want the Knicks to have a chance because it’s a great story they’re relevant again. Unfortunately they aren’t really that good.
Celts in 5.[/quote]
Ill agree with most of this, I do say the Knicks will make it very tough on the Celts and take 2. The truth is that besides from Amare, Melo, Billups, Douglas and possibly Fields their roster is very poor, still absolutely no size (Turiaf starting at 6’8") and poor rebounding. Their defense has actually somehow improved since the trade, but the Celtics are just too deep, and have great finishers in Pierce and Allen
2 more good role players (a banger and a good spotup shooter) and they will be a top 4 East team.[/quote]
They need more than one above average defensive player (Douglas)
[quote]gregron wrote:
It’s also pretty terrible that there are two teams in the East with .500 or less records that are in the playoffs. Pathetic[/quote]
You’re saying Houston is better than Indiana? Well WHY DIDNT THEY MAKE THE PLAYOFFS HUH?
/sarcasm
Houston would sweep Indiana, there is no justice though. Eventually the East will be better/deeper again, we see it in every sport & its unavoidable
[quote]LarryDavid wrote:
[quote]scj119 wrote:
even Memphis has a chance (they match up really well and Ginobli is hurt). Memphis is so long and defensively good, they are like a team of octopi - there’s just arms everywhere. In passing lanes, driving lanes, contesting shots, etc.[/quote]
I don’t have an exact record, but Memphis has beaten the Spurs and a bunch of other elite teams. With the Manu injury this could be close.
I dunno though, it’s hard for me to pick the Grizz still.[/quote]
Yes but they also played those games with the (vastly improved) Rudy Gay.
They will have a hard time getting shots off - Spurs will take away Randolph…or at least slow him down… so it’s on Marc Gasol, Mike Conley, Tony Allen and Shane Battier to produce consistent offense. That’s why I didn’t predict them more convincingly after the Manu injury.
But they have the ability to turn the game into an ugly pickup style game with lots of turnovers and fast breaks.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
I did read the whole article and it is just laughably wrong on nearly every point. I don’t mean subjective points like “x is better than y”, I mean purely objective points you can fact check, like when he says PER goes into Power Rankings (it doesn’t).
You are looking only for articles that prove your point. Google search “problems with won-loss record” or something and you’ll find plenty of articles as well.
Bottom line is in every sport, scoring margin has been shown to have more PREDICTAVE value than won-loss record, and therefore is a better measure of a team’s true talent. All Hollinger does is take scoring margin, weight home wins differently than away wins (evens out for every team who has an equal number of home vs. road games) and then weight the recent part of the schedule more heavily. It’s really not rocket science and makes logical sense when OBJECTIVELY evaluating a team’s strength.[/quote]
You are unbelievably dense sometimes. It makes NO LOGICAL SENSE and is not a good predictor of champions or rankings. First off, you’re proclivity to dehydrate basketball down to just “stats” is infuriatingly and fundamentally just off. We can argue about this fundamental issue until we’re blue in the face.
But let’s go with the pure objectivity argument. His formula still sucks. Taking scoring margin to be that heavily weighted over wins is ridiculous. This is where your completely objective model breaks down in the NBA. A team that has 60 wins is typically better than one with 50 wins (as much as scoring margin is going to predict). I don’t CARE how much of a scoring margin that other team had. Bullshit. And that really goes out the window with the playoffs start.
In 16 years the team with the BIGGEST margin has won the championship 7 times (43.75%), with an avg difference 2.4 in scoring margin between the champion and their highest ranking competitor. 43.75% accuracy is is not bad, but not adequate for predicting the NBA Champion or placement of the different teams in the ranking…
Cleveland had the best scoring margin in Hollinger’s rankings in 2009 and got their ass handed to them by Orlando.
His formula is fundamentally flawed, not that helpful and that you are arguing in its defense is just perplexing as all get out. His correlation coefficient of scoring margin to number of post season wins is .58. In math terms, this sucks ass as a predictor.
I imagine your doing this because you want to save face on this thread. I can’t come up with any other fundamentally sound reason that you would be defending this jackoff’s formula. Unreal.
[quote]scj119 wrote:
I did read the whole article and it is just laughably wrong on nearly every point. I don’t mean subjective points like “x is better than y”, I mean purely objective points you can fact check, like when he says PER goes into Power Rankings (it doesn’t).
[/quote]
No, it’s not. You found one line that was probably not thought through well when it was written. I am sure the author knows individual PERS don’t go into his power rankings if you read his whole article and take in context. It sounds like he’s saying it but it’s obvious he knows that it isn’t that. You are trying to discredit all the valid criticism. He does criticize PER as well on its own merits as flawed and it is. I’ve even referred to it before as somewhat helpful but also fundamentally flawed.
There are polls on hollinger’s analysis and most don’t like it because most people who are fans have an intuitive sense when something doesn’t smell right and hollinger’s analysis just doesn’t pass the sniff test when you look at it closely and compare it with what you observe during the regular season and post-season. It’s absolutely retarded.
The problem with PER as well now that we’re on the subject:
PER largely measures offensive performance. Hollinger freely admits that two of the defensive statistics it incorporates – blocks and steals – can produce a distorted picture of a player’s value and that PER is not a reliable measure of a player’s defensive acumen. For example, Bruce Bowen, widely regarded as one of the best defenders in the NBA (at least through the 2006-07 season), has routinely posted single-digit PERs.
"Bear in mind that this rating is not the final, once-and-for-all answer for a player's accomplishments during the season. This is especially true for players such as Bruce Bowen and Trenton Hassell who are defensive specialists but don't get many blocks or steals."
Neither PER nor per-game statistics take into account such intangible elements as competitive drive, leadership, durability, conditioning, hustle, or WIM (wanting it more), largely because there is no real way to quantitatively measure these things.
In addition, some have argued that PER gives undue weight to a player’s contribution in limited minutes, or against a team’s second unit, and it undervalues players who have enough diversity in their game to play starter’s minutes.
Lastly, PER rewards inefficient shooting. To quote Dave Berri, the author of The Wages of Wins:
"Hollinger argues that each two point field goal made is worth about 1.65 points. A three point field goal made is worth 2.65 points. A missed field goal, though, costs a team 0.72 points. Given these values, with a bit of math we can show that a player will break even on his two point field goal attempts if he hits on 30.4% of these shots. On three pointers the break-even point is 21.4%. If a player exceeds these thresholds, and virtually every NBA player does so with respect to two-point shots, the more he shoots the higher his value in PERs. So a player can be an inefficient scorer and simply inflate his value by taking a large number of shots."
The bottom line is that the intangibles in basketball are not measurable. You can try and slice and dice basketball with statistics all day long and they’re still going to off quite a bit because they DONT incorporate intangibles.
[quote]randman wrote:
[quote]scj119 wrote:
I did read the whole article and it is just laughably wrong on nearly every point. I don’t mean subjective points like “x is better than y”, I mean purely objective points you can fact check, like when he says PER goes into Power Rankings (it doesn’t).
You are looking only for articles that prove your point. Google search “problems with won-loss record” or something and you’ll find plenty of articles as well.
Bottom line is in every sport, scoring margin has been shown to have more PREDICTAVE value than won-loss record, and therefore is a better measure of a team’s true talent. All Hollinger does is take scoring margin, weight home wins differently than away wins (evens out for every team who has an equal number of home vs. road games) and then weight the recent part of the schedule more heavily. It’s really not rocket science and makes logical sense when OBJECTIVELY evaluating a team’s strength.[/quote]
You are unbelievably dense sometimes. It makes NO LOGICAL SENSE and is not a good predictor of champions or rankings. First off, you’re proclivity to dehydrate basketball down to just “stats” is infuriatingly and fundamentally just off. We can argue about this fundamental issue until we’re blue in the face.
But let’s go with the pure objectivity argument. His formula still sucks. Taking scoring margin to be that heavily weighted over wins is ridiculous. This is where your completely objective model breaks down in the NBA. A team that has 60 wins is typically better than one with 50 wins (as much as scoring margin is going to predict). I don’t CARE how much of a scoring margin that other team had. Bullshit. And that really goes out the window with the playoffs start.
In 16 years the team with the BIGGEST margin has won the championship 7 times (43.75%), with an avg difference 2.4 in scoring margin between the champion and their highest ranking competitor. 43.75% accuracy is is not bad, but not adequate for predicting the NBA Champion or placement of the different teams in the ranking…
Cleveland had the best scoring margin in Hollinger’s rankings in 2009 and got their ass handed to them by Orlando.
His formula is fundamentally flawed, not that helpful and that you are arguing in its defense is just perplexing as all get out. His correlation coefficient of scoring margin to number of post season wins is .58. In math terms, this sucks ass as a predictor.
I imagine your doing this because you want to save face on this thread. I can’t come up with any other fundamentally sound reason that you would be defending this jackoff’s formula. Unreal.
[/quote]
Man, you are stupid (and don’t understand math whatsoever). There are a lot of things you say that are pretty dumb, but I’m going to highlight a couple and if you even attempt to defend yourself again I will probably block you. I can’t keep beating my head off a wall.
[quote]randman wrote:
You are unbelievably dense sometimes. It makes NO LOGICAL SENSE and is not a good predictor of champions or rankings. First off, you’re proclivity to dehydrate basketball down to just “stats” is infuriatingly and fundamentally just off. We can argue about this fundamental issue until we’re blue in the face.[/quote]
OK, it’s not meant to be a perfect champion predictor -it’s simply meant to be a more true predictor of strength of team than won-loss record. Also I’ve said many times bball is about way more than stats. However, stats can assimilate information over a much larger scale than our mind can. Obviously I would rather watch 1,000 games than use 1,000 games worth of stats - but I am never going to watch that many games in a season. I’ll take 100,000 games of stats over the few hundred I have watched in my lifetime simply because, although stats give you less information on a PER GAME basis than viewing the games do, you can assimilate hundreds of games of info instantly. It’s not “game stat vs. game viewing”, its “view as many games as possible and back that up with stats on top”. I don’t think you can make any NBA argument without BOTH stats AND viewing.
[quote]randman wrote:
In 16 years the team with the BIGGEST margin has won the championship 7 times (43.75%)[/quote]
And the team with the best won-loss record is 6-16, thanks for proving my point for me.
[quote]randman wrote:
A team that has 60 wins is typically better than one with 50 wins (as much as scoring margin is going to predict).[/quote]
This is such a horrid statistical argument I don’t know where to start. You are making the assumption that scoring margin and win totals are unrelated. Teams with 60 wins will virtually ALWAYS have a higher scoring margin than a team with 50 wins because scoring margin and wins ARE RELATED. Never did I say they are independent.
However, given equal strength of schedule, I’d take a 52-51 team with a scoring margin of +3 over a 51-52 team with a scoring margin of -3. And I’ll gladly give you the other.
[quote]randman wrote:
Cleveland had the best scoring margin in Hollinger’s rankings in 2009 and got their ass handed to them by Orlando.[/quote]
That’s my favorite argument. It was contradicted once so it’s not true!
–Last note - Even Hollinger notes that come playoff times, individual matchups mean at least as much (sometimes moreso) than power rankings. Power Rankings give a GENERAL OVERVIEW of strength. Hell he picked the Hawks to take Orlando 7 games this year and said he wouldn’t be surprised if they won despite a huge disparity in power rankings.
If you actually read him instead of making blanket assumptions you might learn something.
I hope to god this discussion on Hollinger dies the fuck down once the playoffs start.
Because it is uninteresting as fuck and flooding this thread with text.
^ I gotta agree with you on that one.
I’m picking the Miami Heat in 7 games, which will be in Miami, over the LA Lakers. I picked the Lakers the last 2 years, even though I HATE them (loved Showtime though). They just seem vulnerable to me this year.
your MVP has been getting his asshole ripped open on the defensive end (thanks to Collison). Lets see if he can pick it up on the defensive end next half.
FUCK
Tyler Hanbrough? WTF!! I guess he worked on his jumper…
WOW.
What a game. Even if Indiana ends up losing great effort.
Holy Derrick Fucking Rose
Damn! Derrick Rose is the Real Deal! That was a great game.
[quote]therajraj wrote:
I hope to god this discussion on Hollinger dies the fuck down once the playoffs start.
Because it is uninteresting as fuck and flooding this thread with text.[/quote]
Agreed, sorry. Done with it.