Hollinger writes well (fron a foreigner standpoint) but his raw analysis based on his statiscals indicators just plainly sucks.
I just take it for what it's worth, statistics.
It doesn't factor players taking games off either. So it's re ed. And I'm pretty sure he's not happy at all with Pop trying to rest guys even if it cost the Spurs the game. It whacks off all his numbers, and makes it specially hard to figure out what the 'real' numbers for the team are...
Folks..
I have a more fundamental problem with Hollinger's stats approach. Most stat geeks use statistics as a supplementary function to evaluate how things work. They don't use it as a base to predict things. Hollinger is uber-confident about this methodology and thinks that it is good enough to predict how a team performs on the court.
For e.g., he makes this innocuous suggestion that his predictions consider a) health to be given and b) expects things to go on .. as they are .
a), I am willing to give it to him. but b) is simply naive. Teams adjust strategies, make trades, define different roles for players, tinker with lineups; players get newer forms of motivation over different periods of the season and all that and so on. None of these intangibles can be captured in a "quantifiable" form, beyond some quick ones, such as "Road vs Home", "Fast pace vs slow pace" etc.
On the other hand, if stats are used for interpretation, with the "context" already known .. for e.g., I try to study why the Spurs lose to the Bucks so often, and check up the stats of the Bucks big men and come up with a thesis, that is a valid exercise, since the imponderables and intangibles are eliminated almost enough to make it a much more exact science.
Instead, by converting his work from a Stats-nuts-and-bolts'er to a Nostradamus, Hollinger takes his art into "pseudo-science" and ends up having to defend his predictions by giving excuse after excuse after lame thesis that he keeps making up on the go.
The funny part is that the Spurs by emphasising a ball sharing, team oriented, defense oriented approach, increase the number of intangibles, those that are seen by basketball connoisseurs and by definition peers and coaches. And thats why they keep defying Hollingeronomics and are enough to call the problem that Hollinger's pseudo-science is.
Not sure if I noticed much of an axe to grind from Hollinger - he is what he is. I'll go back and look at his stories this year though.
In general, Hollinger is like a computer who has been programmed to interpret the statistics from another computer. Pretty worthless.
What pisses me off is the he has absolutely no self awareness when it comes to the limits/weaknesses of his system - even on the rare occasions where he acknowledges weaknesses, it's like he then memory dumps that before he writes his next sentence.
His sole belief in stats have become dogma that he cannot let go of, no matter what evidence is presented that they are (at best) only one of several indicators of future performance.
Isiah Thomas - Kevin McHale - Chris Wallace
Jerome James - Jason Collins - Michael Ruffin
Tim Floyd - Brian Winters - Sidney Lowe
Peter Vecsey - Sam Smith - John Hollinger
Vintage Hollinger
I think you're being too hard on Hollinger, LJ. Maybe he has been too hard on them this year, but he has championed the Spurs' cause in many past seasons when all the usual talking heads dismissed them. Hollinger was the only one picking the Spurs to win the le before the '07 playoffs when everyone else loved the Mavs or Suns. Plus, he's always been a big supporter of Tim and Manu.What a .
If you are going to dismiss the Spurs since even before the start of the season and take shots at them throughout the season, you can't suddenly jump on the bandwagon after a few wins. Just a couple days ago he predicted the Spurs to get murdered on the RRT.
I don't think he has a personal ax to grind against the Spurs. He just believes in his formulas, right or wrong, above all else, and his formulas told him for the first three months that we're no good. A part of it was playing the first dozen games without Tony or Manu, which his formulas won't account for. The biggest factors though is that our margin of victory hasn't been very strong and our schedule has been fairly weak.
Pop goes out of his way to limit the minutes of our big three and as a consequence we don't blow crappy teams out as we often could or should. If the Lakers beat Memphis by 30 and we beat them by 5, then obviously his formula will like the Lakers a lot more.
No matter what our opinions of his formulas are, at least he's looking at concrete numbers and not his own subjective opinions, the way Stephen A. or J.A. Adande or Ric Bucher do.
You guys need to give him a break. For all we know his bosses at ESPN order him to dismiss the Spurs because we're ratings poison. Elliott left the network because he couldn't believe the at udes so-called unbiased professionals had about us.
this guy should at least bother to watch games
If all his Spurs dismissing were due to numbers, I'd give him a pass. But he dismissed the Spurs before the season even began. And, when he wrote that article I linked to early in the thread where he looked outside of his numbers to pick teams that were better than the numbers indicate, he admitted to only mentioning the Spurs due to their reputation.
Hollinger made a good call in 2007 but since the middle of last season, he's made it his mission to bury the Spurs. He's picked against them every time and has scoffed any intangibles that could possibly elevate the Spurs above his cookie cutter formula.
As I've said before, I appreciate Hollinger's work because he at least tries to broaden the scope of NBA analysis. However, if he did so with less bias and less obsession to be proven right, it'd do him and his numbers a lot of good.
Uhhhh.... let me check my calendar.. yeah we are between Jan 11 and March 4.... lets see....
Beat the Lakers
Beat the Pacers
Beat the Nets
Beat the Hornets
Beat the Suns
Beat the Jazz
Beat the Celtics
So all these home.road games we are supposed to lose.. we lost on the road to the Lakers, and to Orlando (and Philly.. how the did that happen? Nuggets dont count)... and have won every game at home except Orlando.
GREAT PREDICTIONS NOZZLE!
Does it really matter? No one seriously thinks the Spurs are going to beat the Lakers anyways. Maybe an occasional game at home by a point or two, but if we can lose to the bobcats once in a blue moon I guess any team is up for grabs.
This is the one reason why I like him more than other ESPN writers, he is much more factual than all the others. Does he believe a bit too blindly in his formulas? Yes, but that is why he works on them, so that he can have some credible results. But the man picks up trends way before others do.
For example he picked up last year on how good Calderon was playing before half of the writers even knew who he was. And he is playing amazing this season as well, yet he is nowhere to be seen in All Star voting, he is way better offensively than Mo and Rondo, but got no recognition at all. Sooner or later some writer will pick up and will start writing how underrated he is, and all that.
But that's exactly why I like reading Hollinger, he makes you think about things that you didn't before. I, and most other NBA junkies that roam around here, can read Bucher, Adande etc and not learn anything I didn't know before. For example, Adande writes today what a great season Durant is having, whereas you could tell from the first two months of the season that he had improved his shot selection considerably. I guess someone that is now starting to follow the NBA after the NFL might like that kind of news, but to me is redundant. Hollinger is different from all these guys.
But he doesn't have credible results. And that is the problem right there. For your Calderon comment, I'll answer with his 'projection' that Manu was going to be on the decline last season. Manu had the best season of his career.
Even though we have consistently beat the crap out of Phoenix, he still picked them to beat us in the 1st round last playoffs. Then he picked New Orleans over us. Either his formulas need a lot more work to account for many other factors, or he just isn't very good.
You can't just go by stats alone.
It is essential that an analyst go by what they see in the actual game as well. And not everything in the game is quantifiable. Match-ups will affect future stats that come out and so if anomalous match-ups weren't present in previous games (ie mismatches at some position - pg, pf, sg, ..) and will be in the next game, using only the stats you have may completely mislead you.
Fact is: you can't measure heart and desire to win. It's difficult to measure poise in a pressure situation. If one team is blowing everybody out and another team is 17-4 in games decided by 6 points or less and the game turns out to be close, what does the model do ? Never underestimate the heart of a champion. A team that has won 4 championships, a core that has won 3 championships in recent times is likely to respond better to that close game.
Models are designed by people. The weight of each individual statistic is arbitrary and subjective.
Therefore, I think that it is better to base one's analysis on watching games consistently rather than a formula. It is what happened in the BCS fiasco.
And I am a ph.d. student studying mathematics. So, it is not like I am averse to statistics.
From watching the games available on Direct TV [not many] (and from reading the posts of people here whom I respect and who know a lot more than I do, I conclude the following:
1. Our defense is not nearly as good as it has been in the past. However, our defense in the second half was much better.
2. I am concerned (as is Hubie Brown) about having Matt Bonner serve as our second big because he can't help defend the rim with Tim. We typically had another big who could help protect the rim. Horry, despite his age and only being 6'10" was a great team defender and off the ball defender around the rim. Oberto seems to know where to be in rotations although he is not quick or athletic, nor is he a shot blocking threat.
I am concerned that we can't beat a team like LA with two bigs with Matt Bonner as one of our starters. However, the Bynum injury may have changed that match up for us. Bonner doesn't seem to know where to be on rotations, he is too slow to cover Amare or David West. And if his shot goes off, then he is basically useless on the floor.
3. George Hill and Roger Mason jr. were the best moves the Spurs have made in years. They are solid contributors and have made our team much, much better and much deeper than it would have been otherwise.
4. We can't trade to get a big who can rebound and defend the paint. We don't have pieces we can afford to trade for a big like that. Ian would barely be recovered from surgery by May. He would be too rusty and not in basketball shape to make a significant contribution. Moreover, he is still learning the game. It would be too much to ask or expect.
5. Pop has done a great job getting us where we are. With Tony and Manu injured, we could have fallen very far behind. Losing Oberto and Ian also hurt our team defense or the ability to develop talent (in Ian's case). Kurt's slow start didn't help. However, that double overtime game was a great game for Kurt (he played terrific after Timmy fouled out) and he seems to be improving from some injury situation.
6. Without a legitimate second big, we need SuperManu. Manu has been showing signs of life. His recent dunk was awesome. A healthy and productive Manu Ginobili will be sufficient to compete against a Laker team without Bynum. The Lakers would still be strong favorites, in my opinion. With Bynum, it's difficult to see the Spurs winning because Bonner can't guard Pau Gasol or Andrew Bynum and Tim can't guard both at the same time. Bonner can't really guard Lamar Odom for that matter. But we might be able to get away with that last match up since Lamar sometimes falls asleep during game and disappears.
7. No matter what, I am a Spurs fan !! No matter what happens this season, we have our rings and trophies.
He's maybe good offensively (as you said) but Calderon is maybe the worst starting PG when it comes to defense.
oh, i thought this thread was about the Nuggets
(cue 44pt loss jokes)
This is exactly my problem with Hollinger's work.
His PER is a rather good evaluation of players statistical performance... but his PER predictions
That being said, people in the stock-market modeling do the same with much worst consequences.
Very true, Hollinger probably wakes up at night thinking about CIA Pop regular season experiments.
He did more than that. After game 5, he said that there was almost zero chance that the Spurs would take that series.
We're actually LOL at his mistakes, which are varied and plenty...
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
