Reply With Quote
Oh but it is, for each conference at least. Again, taken as an average over the entire season it's a very good indicator of who's on top and who's not.
When used over 10 years it proved to be accurate half the time. That is, any team leading that stat category has as much a chance to win the NBA championship as any team not leading that category...Especially when you continue to try to use examples of a stat over the course of a game or less when it's been explained to you that it isn't used that way.
/thread
Oh but it is, for each conference at least. Again, taken as an average over the entire season it's a very good indicator of who's on top and who's not.
Really? Do you expect Manu Ginobili to average under 30 minutes a game in the playoffs?... How about Bowen playing reduced minutes? How do we prevent the game we played with scrubs against Denver from going into that stat too? And can we take back the games TP and Manu didn't play?
You see what the problem is?
Which is quite excellent considering that there are 30 possibilities for the top spot during any given season.
Fact is, the higher the margin of victory the more likely that team is to win championship.
I wonder what the last 10 NBA champions have averaged on point diff? I'd bet none of them were less than 5th in the league.
Wrong. Over ten years they actually picked the winner of the NBA championship correctly half the time. That's four times as accurate as win/loss totals in predicting the nba champ. As mentioned in the article (which you clearly didn't read), nothing else even comes close to that.
The failure in your math is that there are 30 teams in the NBA, not two. Using the coin-flip example, the percentage for a team winning the championship in a 30 team league, all else being equal, is 1 in 30 or 0.03 percent.
You are also neglecting the fact that all the league leaders in in margin are in the playoffs every year, and the ones with the highest margin routinely make the conference finals.
Last edited by Obstructed_View; 02-08-2009 at 09:50 PM. Reason: misspelled math
I do, and it's the fact that you're arguing events that occurred over 8-10 games out of an 82 game season. I'll say it again: Taken as an average over the enitre season.........
And yes, injuries do play a relevant part in the calculation. You'd expect our point diff to be substantially lower with Manu and Tony out right?
Exactly. Teams in the bottom half of the league in margin don't make the playoffs, regardless of their offensive or defensive field goal percentage.
Yes, the problem is that you don't understand how statistical anomalies are insignificant when measured out over a long period of time. I've tried to tell you this several times.
1990: +3.5 - Lost in the second round
1991: +4.5 - Lost in the first round
1992: +3.4 - Lost in the first round
1993: +2.7 - Lost in the second round
1994: +5.2 - Lost in the first round
1995: +6.0 - Lost in the WCF
1996: +6.3 - Lost in the second round
1997: -7.8 - Missed the playoffs
1998: +7.0 - Lost in the second round
1999: +7.1 - Championship
2000: +6.0 - Lost in the first round
2001: +7.8 - Lost in the WCF
2002: +6.2 - Lost in the second round
2003: +5.4 - Championship
2004: +7.2 - Lost in the second round
2005: +7.8 - Championship
2006: +6.8 - Lost in the second round
2007: +8.4 - Championship
2008: +4.8 - Lost in the WCF
2009: +3.2 - ???
I didn't set out to make a point; just wanted to put it on paper.
It's somewhat distressing that the point differential is at the lowest point in the Robinson/Duncan Era. But the Spurs usually finish strongly in this category, so it should rise as the season progresses - as long as they remain healthy.
If I had to compare this team to a previous Spurs team it'd be the 2003 team. Started slow due in part to working in new parts into the system and they are in a little bit of a rebuilding phase. The 2005 and 2007 teams were set going into the seasons. You could probably say the same for 1999.
But anyways, just to be statistically safe, it'd be nice if the point differential ends up being greater than +5.
Just because a team isn't ranked #1 in differential doesn't mean they have a 50% chance of winning the le. The stat is very useful and even predicted several Spurs les. I am confident that le winners rank very highly in this statistic, even if they aren't #1 exactly.
Yeah, it would be great if our team this year was better in this stat but so far we are not.
I think OV is correct on this one.
Completely untrue. Taking the last 10 years as example, 5 of the teams with the highest margin of victory won the championship and 5 of the teams with the highest margin of victory failed to do so.
Among the teams leading in this stat category for the past few years were the D'Antoni Phoenix Suns and the 67 win Dallas Mavericks. Good teams? Sure. Championship caliber teams? Obviously not.
You are also neglecting that you stated that this stat measures defensive ability, which clearly does not. That's a fact. And again, as 'great' this stat is, it's no more accurate than a coin toss to determine which team will win an NBA Finals...
I'm sorry. I probably phrased that wrong. I was talking about using that stat to gauge who would win an NBA Finals... It's no better than a coin toss...
There were 300 teams competing for the last ten championships, hence the fix to your math.Taking the last 10 years as example, 5 of the 10 teams with the highest margin of victory won the championship and 5 of the 290 teams without the highest margin of victory won the championship.
Again, you're trying to liken this to a coin toss when it isn't (unless you've come across a 30-sided coin of some sort....).
There are 30 teams and that means 30 possibilities, not the all or nothing armageddon scenario you keep bringing up. It means that places other than first on the chart matter as well. 290 teams over ten years did not lead the chart.......
Until that sinks in, there's really nothing to discuss.
It's not an anomaly if it's constant over the sampling period.
There are 30 teams in the NBA, not two. Fifty percent of the time, that stat predicts which of those 30 teams will actually win sixteen games in the playoffs before the others do.
Really, there's 30 teams in the NBA finals? Wow, you must be watching a different league... that's probably the problem here.
There are 30 teams in the NBA, not two. Fifty percent of the time, that stat predicts which of those 30 teams will actually win sixteen games in the playoffs before the others do.
The stat quoted talked winner of the NBA Final vs loser of the NBA Final... There's only 2 teams in the Finals last I checked...
There you go again........ why is that a bad thing though? You're not considering the start point, in our case 300 teams lined up for their shot at a ring. 50% of the time this stat gives us the winner. What's the problem with that?
No. This is DIRECTLY FROM THE ARTICLE:
I took the difference between the two values for every single team over the last 10 years (The Bobcats only have existed for 3 years and I adjusted the 98-99 season to 82 games because of the lockout) and mapped out their point differential against their wins in the season.
That's a useless stat... As far as winning a championship, it tells you absolutely nothing. As far as measuring defensive prowess, it tells you absolutely nothing.
Thus, it's a useless stat, even if it's 200% better than any other...
Elnono, flip a coin and tell me who is going to win the NBA le this year. Right now, before you even know who's going to make the playoffs.
The San Antonio Spurs, obviously...
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
