...have us losing one more game in our "Best" simulation for the remainder of the season.
the other aspects of his predictions are more realistic/useful/whocares-able, but i couldn't resist pointing out that anomaly.
http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/playoffodds
77 games makes more sense than 46 as the minimum.
5000 seasons, having the top rated team go near perfect once seems plausible.
5000 seasons, having the Spurs not running into enough tough losses to go below 46 is surprising. The model is supposed to have a regress to the mean feature. And no team should be anywhere near 35% championship till the playoffs are started. The championship odds should be much flatter.
I would vwager that there's a bug that Hollinger will squash soon.
Pop will throw more than 1 game, and the bench probably won't win more than half of thrown games unless the thrown games are against abysmal opponents.
Memphis only 8% to get division seems suspect.
Why? This is the same formula he's been using for years.
The same formula Hollinger has been using for years usually starts out with significantly flatter odds. I suspect Hollinger made a small tweak that was coded wrong. (Decimal out of place?) This doesn't pass the smell test, and I'm a Hollinger fan. Think Matt Wieters.
I'll concede.
Dec 13, 2009 is what I would have expected, with the Lakers at 8.9% leading the 27 other teams with non zero chance.
Nov 30, 2010 is much more like this year, with the Spurs at 25.4% leading only 17 other teams with non zero chance.
I haven't found early 2011-2012 odds.
2009 smells better.
It looks like Hollinger has lessened early season regression.
More power teams and less talent distributed now, too. That might not show up as a statistic, but it affects the margin of victory, which is one of Hollinger's favorite metrics. There are only 4 elite teams this year and beyond that it's a pretty steep drop after the top 6.
Not that these numbers mean anything, but it also has us with twice of a better chance than anyone else at winning the le.
Particularly Hollingers last 10 stats.
Looking at the Hollinger Power Rankings, while I see the dropoff, it doesn't seem to be so steep to give the Spurs a 35.4 to 3.0 edge over the Grizzlies.
Hmm, now Spurs projected at 63 wins to Grizzlies 53.
2009, Celtics 61 W 6.3% champs, Cavaliers 53 W 6.8% champs; Lakers 58 W, 8.9% champs, Mavs 53 W 7.4% champs.
OK, 2009 had flatter win totals even with the horrible bottom 2/3rds of the East.
Yes, steeper power rankings at the top four (Cavaliers 108 then to Spurs almost 111 now, but #5-16 very similar both years.
But not that steep. My nose probably wouldn't complain if the Spurs were 18%ish and the Grizzlies 6%ish, particularly when the Spurs have to go through one of the two elite teams to get to the finals, and the third in the finals. Even that smooshes the chances toward 25%. [Well, no. Hollinger matches the West championship at "only" 44.2% which fits the three elite West teams theory, but then greatly devalues the Knicks after they have an easier time in the East.]
OK. I'll vwager the Spurs championship today. [But then, I was onboard when the Spurs were the heavy favorites going into last years playoffs.]
Beat the Jazz.
Then rest the big 3 for TNT and beat the Blazers, on route to 77 wins.
So says this Falcons fan that expects the #1 seed NFC team lose the first playoff game to the eventual SuperBowl champs.
When the Spurs were up 2-0 in the WCF last year, their chances of winning the championship were around 63% IIRC.
The thing about the probabilities is that that 63% number was likely correct. Just because the Thunder won the series, that doesn't mean the Spurs had a 0% chance of winning. The Spurs were favorites when the playoffs begin and heavy favorites when up 2-0 in the WCF. I believe that if you play out the playoffs 1000 times from that point, the Spurs win about 630 of those.
Spurs will get #5 this time. Book it.
This is why early predictions are terrible. Although, if we win 77, I'll be speechless and never question these things ever again.
That would have probably been the case if the Thunder didn't adjust and the Spurs kept playing the way they were playing.
At least this time you contradicted stuff you said in other threads.
The problem with the Spurs is that after Game 4 in the WCF they looked dazed and confused. The team lost their intensity and I will never forget how much they looked like a deer in headlights at home no less, in Game 5.
It was shocking how scared they looked after that, which is why even when they got an 18 point lead in Game 6, it wasn't going to be enough.
The bull reffing in the fourth quarter of that game didn't help either.
It was all part of the plan to get LeBron a ring. The Spurs would have given Miami a much tougher time than OKC did.
Stern has the Spurs penciled in for #5 this time, don't worry. Spurs are a lock.
In a vacuum, Hollinger's playoff odds are fine, IMO. Unfortunately for the Spurs, they don't play in a vacuum and their chances of season-altering injury or a key player suffering a drastic decline are much greater than other top contenders.
It was a minor miracle that the Spurs got to the playoffs last year healthy. It's going to take even more of a miracle this year due to each player (read: TD and Manu, basically) being a year older.
The Spurs are looking pretty damn good but unfortunately the playoffs are a looooooooooooooooong way away.
Those playoff odds are also based on current rotations carrying through to the playoffs, not including changes to health/minutes from what has happened so far.
So you're telling me there's a chance?
I always take them as, "In the past, teams who have played like x have had y chance of doing z." People tend to talk about sports results so definitively. Like, the heat beat the thunder last year so there was a 100% chance they were the better team. People do this with Jordan all the time. It's kind of beat the odds that the bulls won all 6 finals they appeared in. In retrospect, we say, "jordan won every time he went. he's the best." but he's the best for other reasons, and he happened to win the 6 finals he went to. Obviously, they had a great chance to win because they were the best team each year (probably), but even the best team can lose 4 out of 7. A 90% favorite should still lose 1 out of 10.
anyway, teams playing like the spurs are now are on track to be in it at the end of the playoffs, like we were last year. Last year, hollinger was bullish on the spurs, and we rattled 20 off, then lost our mojo and got beaten by a team that did some crazy things in close games. Durant going god mode for 15 or whatever in that fourth qtr, their bigs going 35/30 (felt like), and harden's step back. That series was close. If we can stay healthy and play like we've been playing for the last year, we're going to be right there. and i think we can all agree being in contention for a championship is more than we expected three years ago.
Spurs will get #5 this time. Book it.
face it. even without injuries the Spurs will be lucky to put up a fight in the WCF. If they make it that far.
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