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On August 15 2014 04:47 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 02:15 Ace wrote:On August 14 2014 19:59 AgentW wrote:On August 14 2014 14:34 Jibba wrote:Entire article based on PER's. Zzzzz Haha that's the article that the people in the Reddit thread about if Love is overrated absolutely destroyed. Not only is all of the data cherrypicked, it's cherrypicked incorrectly. This is why journalists that try to use stats in this era REALLY need to know their shit. So easy to lose credibility when you can't even do basic fact checking about what the numbers mean. Stats is a bit of a new thing in sports. When 538 was about to start, Nate Silver (or maybe it was somebody else) displayed a graph that showed that the average journalism major is above average in the verbal portion of the SAT but below average in the math portion. Old school journalists chose their profession because they were terrible at math in school. Can't really help them.
Old school sports journalism was all about baseball which has always and forever been about the stats moreso than every other sport put together.
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On August 15 2014 04:47 andrewlt wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 02:15 Ace wrote:On August 14 2014 19:59 AgentW wrote:On August 14 2014 14:34 Jibba wrote:Entire article based on PER's. Zzzzz Haha that's the article that the people in the Reddit thread about if Love is overrated absolutely destroyed. Not only is all of the data cherrypicked, it's cherrypicked incorrectly. This is why journalists that try to use stats in this era REALLY need to know their shit. So easy to lose credibility when you can't even do basic fact checking about what the numbers mean. Stats is a bit of a new thing in sports. When 538 was about to start, Nate Silver (or maybe it was somebody else) displayed a graph that showed that the average journalism major is above average in the verbal portion of the SAT but below average in the math portion. Old school journalists chose their profession because they were terrible at math in school. Can't really help them.
Nate Silver should then point out that the math portion of the SATs are terrible indicators of how well people grasp statistics. It has very little to do with math, you can do statistics with college algebra. Nobody crunches the numbers by hand now and they represented PhD level thesis projects prior to the computer boom (think 80s). The problem is that statistics itself isn't hard if conveyed properly, statisticians themselves are partly to blame for this because they have a hard time not over-explaining things and people trying to understand put up this mental wall because they're scared of math. It's both "what do these numbers mean" and "these numbers mean....", most people aren't interested in how PER overemphasizes some aspects of a player's game, just the what. But at least these people are just writing about sports, and not running your government or anything.....
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On August 15 2014 04:41 XaI)CyRiC wrote:
Like I said, I can understand why you would say that it appears impossible looking at things as they stand now, but not everything regarding both teams will remain static, that's almost certain. Players will improve or regress, injuries will occur, chemistry issues, off-court distractions, etc.
Again, we're not talking about teams that have a substantial gap in talent. This isn't like comparing SA/OKC/LAC to SAC/LAL/MIN or CHI/CLE to MIL/PHI/BOS. The difference in win totals between TOR and WAS was only 4 games. ATL (albeit without Horford for most of the season) finished 6 games behind WAS.
My prediction is injuries withstanding  . Injuries, especially to Pierce for Washington complicates things. I think they will have a real problem at the wings if Wall/Beal don't make big leaps.
I actually think that 4 win gap is underselling Toronto. I think barring a Dwayne Casey meltdown (not too farfetched) Toronto will improve. Losing Rudy Gay and playing Terrence Ross more was actually good for them. The Wizards losing Ariza and Webster is a massive problem because Pierce not only can't replicate Ariza's production, but he can't play those combined minutes. Porter is in his 2nd year and finally going to get minutes. Unless he's really good I don't see him making enough of an impact to cover the loss of those 2 SFs.
Atlanta will be boss mode again though. Korver/Horford/Millsap is so killer.
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On August 15 2014 08:27 Judicator wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 04:47 andrewlt wrote:On August 15 2014 02:15 Ace wrote:On August 14 2014 19:59 AgentW wrote:On August 14 2014 14:34 Jibba wrote:Entire article based on PER's. Zzzzz Haha that's the article that the people in the Reddit thread about if Love is overrated absolutely destroyed. Not only is all of the data cherrypicked, it's cherrypicked incorrectly. This is why journalists that try to use stats in this era REALLY need to know their shit. So easy to lose credibility when you can't even do basic fact checking about what the numbers mean. Stats is a bit of a new thing in sports. When 538 was about to start, Nate Silver (or maybe it was somebody else) displayed a graph that showed that the average journalism major is above average in the verbal portion of the SAT but below average in the math portion. Old school journalists chose their profession because they were terrible at math in school. Can't really help them. Nate Silver should then point out that the math portion of the SATs are terrible indicators of how well people grasp statistics. It has very little to do with math, you can do statistics with college algebra. Nobody crunches the numbers by hand now and they represented PhD level thesis projects prior to the computer boom (think 80s). The problem is that statistics itself isn't hard if conveyed properly, statisticians themselves are partly to blame for this because they have a hard time not over-explaining things and people trying to understand put up this mental wall because they're scared of math. It's both "what do these numbers mean" and "these numbers mean....", most people aren't interested in how PER overemphasizes some aspects of a player's game, just the what. But at least these people are just writing about sports, and not running your government or anything.....
I disagree that the SAT math is not well correlated with understanding of statistics. I think you are relying on anecdotal evidence of most of those things.
That said, PER is bunk, and really should just be a (the only) fantasy basketball stat, because fantasy basketball sucks.
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On August 15 2014 08:27 Judicator wrote:
The problem is that statistics itself isn't hard if conveyed properly, ...
Way too vague.. the statistics and theories behind what a fellow in the CAS must understand are very complex and subtle
CAS = Casualty Actuarial Society
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Most stats have little to do with math but a lot to do with logic. Sorry if anyone's a sports journalist or studying to become one but I cannot take anything they write seriously. Those are the people who can barely write and have nothing to contribute but clog up the newspapers and airwaves with their shitty opinions.
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On August 15 2014 08:41 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 15 2014 08:27 Judicator wrote:On August 15 2014 04:47 andrewlt wrote:On August 15 2014 02:15 Ace wrote:On August 14 2014 19:59 AgentW wrote:On August 14 2014 14:34 Jibba wrote:Entire article based on PER's. Zzzzz Haha that's the article that the people in the Reddit thread about if Love is overrated absolutely destroyed. Not only is all of the data cherrypicked, it's cherrypicked incorrectly. This is why journalists that try to use stats in this era REALLY need to know their shit. So easy to lose credibility when you can't even do basic fact checking about what the numbers mean. Stats is a bit of a new thing in sports. When 538 was about to start, Nate Silver (or maybe it was somebody else) displayed a graph that showed that the average journalism major is above average in the verbal portion of the SAT but below average in the math portion. Old school journalists chose their profession because they were terrible at math in school. Can't really help them. Nate Silver should then point out that the math portion of the SATs are terrible indicators of how well people grasp statistics. It has very little to do with math, you can do statistics with college algebra. Nobody crunches the numbers by hand now and they represented PhD level thesis projects prior to the computer boom (think 80s). The problem is that statistics itself isn't hard if conveyed properly, statisticians themselves are partly to blame for this because they have a hard time not over-explaining things and people trying to understand put up this mental wall because they're scared of math. It's both "what do these numbers mean" and "these numbers mean....", most people aren't interested in how PER overemphasizes some aspects of a player's game, just the what. But at least these people are just writing about sports, and not running your government or anything..... I disagree that the SAT math is not well correlated with understanding of statistics. I think you are relying on anecdotal evidence of most of those things. That said, PER is bunk, and really should just be a (the only) fantasy basketball stat, because fantasy basketball sucks.
There is very little math involved on the user side. Think of it as computers, I don't need a degree in CS (or related field) to use a computer, I just need to know how and what program(s) to use for the task. Statistics is the same way, you don't actually need to understand the nitty gritty, just when and how to use it. There's 0 math involved in the entire process at this point from the user side, and you don't need math to understand the limitations and interpretations of the results which more critical. Like the PER limitations are purely conceptual from the "design" of the statistic, nothing to do with math. Like you can go up to someone and say that PER is inflated for volume shooters (iirc), and they would probably get that.
@KelianQatar, statistics for everyday use is not difficult if stated properly (and this is what sports statistics are at the journalism level). The development of the stats themselves is important as well, but not necessary for the understanding of the end result if the reporter knows what questions to ask; using PER as a simplified example again, what are the limitations, does it have any biases, these are all things the associated paper (if there is one) would highlight to varying degrees. I am not belittling statistics as kindergarten math mind you, but there is absolutely no need to dive into statistical theory on the end-user side of it.
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Judicator brings up a good point because I never took a statistics class in my life, but from just reading and knowing some math I can figure a lot of it out.
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On August 15 2014 13:01 Ace wrote:
Judicator brings up a good point because I never took a statistics class in my life, but from just reading and knowing some math I can figure a lot of it out.
Side note...most of my students do poorly because they're bad at the word problems from traditional math classes, like I would get them in college algebra, see that they struggle with word problems specifically, then sure enough when they come to me for statistics, they struggle in the class. It's not math they're having issues with, you can be bad at math and then do integrals with no problems, but hit them with a word problem and its like asking them to do taxes (which ironically Americans also suck at).
Edit: Enough of a digression, back to basketball stuff...its always fun reading your all's comments.
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Basic statistics is pretty tame, the problem from a lay-person perspective is that it's rarely part of school pre-college and the college courses are probability & stat (and urged upon unsuspecting "non-math" people). Worse still is that it's often jargon heavy. Which, while meaningful to someone who understands, is a big old NOPE for everyone else.
Judicator's really good point is that you can explain core ideas for almost anything (including some basic analysis of when it's useful etc) without getting into that terminology. Math textbooks are consistently awful at this. It's like they're always written for a student one 'tier' too advanced.
The biggest problem with PER, and really all omnibus individual basketball statistics, is that teammates and team responsibilities change where the countable events happen so significantly that it's silly to treat them as more than contour lines for seeing trends. That "No-Defense" player of the year article someone linked too a couple months ago did a nice job of explaining that kind of thing to a non-math audience I thought.
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davis is fucking huge, he was pretty thin last year afaik
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hayward looks bigger now too
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United States22883 Posts
It's not quite 2002, but it's not much better. I don't think these players are going to excel at running sets. Who's going to get the shooters open looks and good passes?
Harden cannot run the show and no team has to respect their big men besides Davis, outside of rebounding. Seems counter intuitive but maybe Cousins would help them run small ball.
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Davis will probably get like 5 blocks a game vs. unathletic foreign big men.
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United States22883 Posts
I love the way Kyrie is playing, but i do not want harden on this team. Free throws be damned.
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On August 17 2014 11:12 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Davis will probably get like 5 blocks a game vs. unathletic foreign big men.
QED: Davis vs Gasol last year.
Davis is gonna be the best player on the team by the end of the tournament unless we get MVP Rose back (doubtful).
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On August 17 2014 13:03 TwoToneTerran wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2014 11:12 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Davis will probably get like 5 blocks a game vs. unathletic foreign big men. QED: Davis vs Gasol last year. Davis is gonna be the best player on the team by the end of the tournament unless we get MVP Rose back (doubtful).
MVP Rose still wouldn't be more valuable than competent Davis.
People continue to overrate point guards it seems.
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On August 17 2014 13:43 cLutZ wrote:Show nested quote +On August 17 2014 13:03 TwoToneTerran wrote:On August 17 2014 11:12 zulu_nation8 wrote:
Davis will probably get like 5 blocks a game vs. unathletic foreign big men. QED: Davis vs Gasol last year. Davis is gonna be the best player on the team by the end of the tournament unless we get MVP Rose back (doubtful). MVP Rose still wouldn't be more valuable than competent Davis. People continue to overrate point guards it seems.
Davis is clearly more valuable/worth more as a player because he's tall, young and his growth curve is insane. 2010 Rose should still certainly count as a better player just because he's a better defender for his position(Davis gets blocks but has come on a bit slowly as an overall defender) and a clearly better offensive player.
Like, you put them both on a team with a replacement level player at the other 4 positions and Rose's team would do much better because of what Rose was capable of -- and that's not just a point guard thing. Lots of non point guards could claim as such due to ball handling skills and the ability to create their own shots. Davis can kind of create his own shot a little but he's still very reliant on others for his offense (but he's REALLY good at that re: putback dunks, pick and rolls and spotting up from certain midrange spots). Even beyond that other big men like Love or Griffin are better at making their own offense currently, though Davis is catching up astonishingly fast.
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Replacement level is such a bad comparison for basketball (even though I disagree with you even using that standard). However, the comparison becomes very clear if you use "average NBA level" to compare. In such a comparison, Super Rose becomes Rubio, Bledsoe, Jeff Teague, or Deron Williams while Davis becomes Pekovic, Gortat, or David Lee.
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On August 17 2014 14:57 cLutZ wrote:
Replacement level is such a bad comparison for basketball (even though I disagree with you even using that standard). However, the comparison becomes very clear if you use "average NBA level" to compare. In such a comparison, Super Rose becomes Rubio, Bledsoe, Jeff Teague, or Deron Williams while Davis becomes Pekovic, Gortat, or David Lee.
The point was that if you put no talent around Davis or Rose that Rose would do better because he was better before injury than Davis is right now. "Average" NBA players can be a lot of different things, there's too much ambiguity there. There's lots of NBA teams who don't have average talent.
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EPT![[image loading]](https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/1471904_938349566192308_6002985025819850660_n.jpg?oh=544f19d4fa6ebe84fd6b14e156bfc7ae&oe=5469E934&__gda__=1416748809_627eb0a18d75d48d69de2b37ea6b1988)
