In depth team by team previews

I've watched both guys play alot, and I know Andre is the better defender.

No, you believe Iguodala is the better defender.

So you think Redd is a better defender? He's not. Everyone knows that. Common sense.

You are doing it again. (And also not reading what I write.)

That's why I believe he is a better defender than Chris Duhon and the only point gaurd I can name right now that is a better defender is Jason Kidd.

Why is Hinrich better than Duhon? Or Baron Davis? Or Rajon Rondo? Or Tyronn Lue? or Andre Miller? or Sarunas Jasikevicius?

The difference is, I am actually stating something that is pretty damn believable and is widely accepted.

Despite what I often claim, two people agreeing on something does not make it true.

I'll stick to my current opinions if it means seeing the "facts" (aka stats) results in a pathetic claim like Michael Redd is a better defender than Andre Iguodala.

This one set of facts is true. When that method is used on that data, Michael Redd scores higher than Andre Iguodala. That is true. Just because the results "seem wrong" that does not discredit all data and methods everywhere, nor even discredits that one. The "laugh test" might be smart, but does not mean something is false.

It looks 13C in here, and it even feels like it. But this thermostat claims 24C. That cannot be right, it does not feel right. There is no way my limited senses could ever perceive something wrong. Another one claims the same thing! That thermostat and all others must be flawed.

Adding controversy to controversy, I'm going to throw out Devin Harris as the best defensive PG in the league.

82games.com seems to agree with me, and they do have a disclaimer on the composite score thing:

This statistic still has many of the same limitations as before. DCS still is no substitute for scouting out the game in person and analyzing a player’s strengths and weaknesses. It can’t tell you that Trenton Hassell has the unpleasant job of guarding the Kobe Bryant’s of the world every night. Hopefully it does as good of a job as statistics possibly can. Most people haven’t seen every player play enough to get a good judgment of their defensive ability, so DCS is useful in this sense.

I have no clue what you are trying to say. That because I do not have all possible data in the universe I should not make a counterclaim, while you consider it alright for Shannon and Indy to make a claim, despite having zero valid data.

Not really. You're just the first one who said that you cannot have all the data in the world. I never said I agreed with Shannon or Indy making the claim that Hinrch is the second best or whatever.

If it is the latter, why did you post then?

What, I'm not even allowed to post now?

The difference is, I am actually stating something that is pretty damn believable and is widely accepted. Like visa.

Widely accepted means s***. Back a few centuries ago (forgot the excat date; I suck at history), it was widely accepted that the sun revolves around the earth. Does that make it true? No. Not that I actually think Darko is the best player in the universe.

Adding controversy to controversy, I'm going to throw out Devin Harris as the best defensive PG in the league.

Devin Harris FTW!

What, I'm not even allowed to post now?

As I said. If you were contending it was impossible to ever have enough data, so why are we even discussing this (people do this sometimes on forums) then I thought you needed to not post to stay intellectually consistant.

Not that I actually think Darko is the best player in the universe.

Great, now he has to rape your wives and daughters.

As I said. If you were contending it was impossible to ever have enough data, so why are we even discussing this (people do this sometimes on forums) then I thought you needed to not post to stay intellectually consistant.

I never said it was impossible to have all the data. I just said that you don't have the data. Shannon has most the data, but unfortunately, most of it is in his head and cannot be retrived.

Great, now he has to rape your wives and daughters.

lol...I don't have any wives or daughters...by the time I do Darko might actually have a wife by then so he doesn't have to rape anyone.

Wait...you said wives? Are you suggesting that I'm a unfaithful guy with multiple wives? FYI, I'm not too big on polygamy. I sure hope it was a little mistake and not a cheap shot...

Benji, since I can't think of anyway to "prove" that Hinrich is the better defender (other than my word and footage), you win. My mindset hasn't changed, but I can change yours, so I give up on this.

But I have a question for you.

If you were to analyze a player, what source would you trust more to come to a conclusion on - statistics or game footage?

benji's mind is impossible to change, rememeber her is right, you are not

If you were to analyze a player, what source would you trust more to come to a conclusion on - statistics or game footage?

Any idiot will take game coverage since you can take stats from footage, but not the other way around. What a great question.

benji's mind is impossible to change, rememeber her is right, you are not

Thanks for that, really added to the discussion, just like normal. You should try and read the threads for a change.

I never said it was impossible to have all the data.

Alright, but it was worded in such a way it was one of the possible meanings of it.

I just said that you don't have the data. Shannon has most the data, but unfortunately, most of it is in his head and cannot be retrived.

I do not believe Shannon has the most data at all. He already stated he only remembers a handful of possessions. We have statistical data that describes the result of every single possession.

If you were to analyze a player, what source would you trust more to come to a conclusion on - statistics or game footage?

Any idiot will take game coverage since you can take stats from footage, but not the other way around.

It depends. Let's take an upcoming rookie, Kevin Durant. Are you offering me all 82 games to come of his season in game footage, or just a few games. If so, I would prefer the current available systems (eg, nba.com, 82games.com, popcornmachine) seasons worth of stats over a handful of games to watch.

Sure, if I have those handful of games, I will naturally observe and remember more than almost everyone on here because of my OCD. But I still would not trust my limited subjective perspective over hard data to draw conclusions from.

With complete footage, I could go over and over again I would prefer that, as I could chart everything. There is a website you can already do this on, but it's $2000 a year. Next season this data will start to be available to everyone as some ABPR people have bought in.

Also, one last note, if you do not think teams pour over stats, you are mistaken. If the Bulls are using Hinrich because he is the better defender, and not because he's on the floor more due to being a better overall player, there is a good chance they have some sort of stat system to determine this and not just "watching him" during the games. The biggest failing on stats teams tend to have are: (and a lot of people make the same mistakes like in all emperical studies.)
1. They sometimes buy into silly systems that are logically flawed.
2. They sometimes focus on the wrong things to analyze.
3. They keep the data to themselves, holding everyone back, because they think other teams will take advantage of it. Even though most of it is basic mathmatics anyway.

The point I have been trying to make is that instead of instantly dismissing stats because "they don't tell the whole story" (stats can't tell stories, people do) or don't match your opinion we need to consider the possibility our opinions are wrong. If we find trends in stats, over and over again, over the last decade, there is probably something to it, even if it seems wrong on the face.

If we can do and believe in emperical studies of regular life things, there is absolutely no reason we cannot do it in sports with their rigid rules and possiblities.

benji's mind is impossible to change, rememeber her is right, you are not

Thanks for that, really added to the discussion, just like normal. You should try and read the threads for a change.

i do read the threads, thats how i know that you are a know it all who puts himself above everyone else on this forum and talk like you are the smartest man alive and to disagree with the great benji should be a crime against humanity

uh...Sauru, what did benji ever do to you?

No, this was not my original post.

Last edited by JT_55 on Tue Sep 18, 2007 10:13 am, edited 1 time in total.

Maybe you should try contributing to threads instead of making one line posts to insult someone? Or making statements irrelevant to ongoing discussions? Or keeping your strange irrational suddenly developed personal beefs out of threads? Or is this because I said something about your claims that Bird and Stockton did not have great stats?

puts himself above everyone else

lawl.

I do not believe Shannon has the most data at all. He already stated he only remembers a handful of possessions. We have statistical data that describes the result of every single possession.

I meant that Shannon has the most of all of us simply because he has access to all the stats (the only thing is he uses them for only 40% of the time) and some of the possesion he can remember.

It depends. Let's take an upcoming rookie, Kevin Durant. Are you offering me all 82 games to come of his season in game footage, or just a few games. If so, I would prefer the current available seasons worth of stats over a handful of games to watch.

I don't know what Shannon means, but what I said assumes you're getting complete game coverage. Not doing that would be like just giving you the stats for 10 games.

The point I have been trying to make is that instead of instantly dismissing stats because "they don't tell the whole story" (stats can't tell stories, people do) or don't match your opinion we need to consider the possibility our opinions are wrong. If we find trends in stats, over and over again, over the last decade, there is probably something to it, even if it seems wrong on the face.

That's right. Luck and other factors go away as more trends come in, but there may also be the fact that your player is only good at the things "inmeasurable" (sp?).

It's very hard to find that perfect algorithm to measure defense, but it might be done.

I think that the Bulls are a team that relys a lot on game by game momentum. They seem like a team that can swing either direction very easily and rattle off a string of bad games. However, when they win a couple, it seems like their blood starts pumping, and they start beating teams by bigger and bigger margins. The Lakers team was a lot like the Bulls in that sense in the early Kobe/Shaq days before they won a title. Last year the Bulls struggled bad out of the gates. I think these guys know the system now and will get on a roll early.

That's true, the 3-9 start put them in a hole to start the season and if they avoid that they'll be in much better shape, especially weathering the storm of the circus trip in November. It's the fact that they've been prone to those lapses where they'll lose three or four very winnable games in a row. I want to believe that they'll cut down on those lapses this year but I'll have to see it before I can picture them pushing 60 wins.

What I'd like to see this year is Ben Gordon getting his 16-18 field goal attempts much more regularly. I know he's not the only offensive weapon the Bulls have but I think there's still a tendency for the offense to move away from him or he's left on the bench too long and ends up with only a handful of field goal attempts. I'm not saying he should take every shot, that it should be a matter of give him the ball and get out of his way but a 20+ ppg scorer needs to be allowed to take a reasonable amount of shots and miss a few without being yanked to the bench. Skiles has admittedly improved in that area though.

i do read the threads, thats how i know that you are a know it all who puts himself above everyone else on this forum and talk like you are the smartest man alive and to disagree with the great benji should be a crime against humanity

without reading any posts in this thread i will suggest what i bought my wife, roses dipped in gold

It's not even a discussion at that point, just a series of blog entries.

I don't know what Shannon means, but what I said assumes you're getting complete game coverage. Not doing that would be like just giving you the stats for 10 games.

It doesn't have to be a 2 an 1/2 hour video tape of one game. It could be a bunch of random video - not a highlight tape - from throughout the season.

This is getting ridiculous.

Indy, hit us up with the next team preview already. Sheesh.
I want to see your in depth justification for picking the Pacers to make the playoffs.

It's not even a discussion at that point, just a series of blog entries.

To be fair, he was referring to that one thread.

It's not even a discussion at that point, just a series of blog entries.

To be fair, he was referring to that one thread.

I was being fair, and I don't know what you mean by that.

^ Then I don't know what you mean by that

This is getting ridiculous.

Indy, hit us up with the next team preview already. Sheesh.
I want to see your in depth justification for picking the Pacers to make the playoffs.

Don't worry their coming. My schedule is wacky as hell right now, and I ended up having to work the other day when I thought I would get a bunch done.

All I have to say is that they will all be finished by the time the season starts.

Ridiculous. I just wrote the entire previews for Cleveland and Detroit and it told me I could only edit my own posts. (Which of course is what I was doing.)

Then I couldn't get back to the page and it is all gone. It might take me a few days to recover from the anger I'm feeling about this right now.

That happened to me with a big post a few days ago, now I don't even remember what it was about. I think the forum logs you out after a certain amount of time.

I managed to save a big post once when I clicked post, then it asked me to log in. I opened a new tab and went to the foru, signed in, then when back to the other tab and pressed back and all my writing was still in the text box.

I think you should probably do preview that are less of a workload, because 29 more previews the size of that Bulls one would take a hell of a long time to finish.

Can this forum add one of those automatic save message things? I've seen one of them, and they show a little text box of your entire message if it doesn't get through. Could be useful.

Notepad. Ctrl+A. Ctrl+C. Ctrl+V.