Hollinger Called To The Carpet

[iamworthy]

First read this:

http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-090224

Then read this:

http://www.nbclosangeles.com/sports/Lakers-Only-Third-in-ESPNs-Power-Rankings.html

I thought Hollinger was insane when I read his article yesterday. I agree with the second article.

[That Nicka]

I dont really care where Hollinger ranks us... I think he picked the Jazz to beat us last year

Let the Celts and Cavs wear themselves out blowing out bad teams... We can coast and still pull out games.. Hopefully we are fresher in the playoffs because of this

[semi-sentient]

I agree with the second article as well.

There are too many variables involved with the point differential argument so I don't think it's wise to give it so much preference.

How many times this season (especially early on) did the Lakers sit their starters the entire 4th quarter, which resulted in a complete blowout turning into a respectable looking loss for our opponents? Those types of situations aren't factored in (nor can they be), which is why I think it's pointless to give differential so much weight. Same with SOS.

The home/road disparity is something that should certainly be taken into account, but at the same time it's hard to believe there is such a gap in the rating when the Lakers have the best road record in the league, in addition to the best overall record. That should count for something, regardless of if they have played fewer games.

Having said that, does anyone know what Hollinger's rankings have looked like over the past few seasons? I'm curious to see how that matches up with the team that actually won the championship. Last year it was likely the Celtics because they were so much better (record-wise) than everyone else, but I'm willing to bet that in other seasons it was a bit off.

[vinnycorleone]

I agree with the second article as well.

There are too many variables involved with the point differential argument so I don't think it's wise to give it so much preference.

How many times this season (especially early on) did the Lakers sit their starters the entire 4th quarter, which resulted in a complete blowout turning into a respectable looking loss for our opponents? Those types of situations aren't factored in (nor can they be), which is why I think it's pointless to give differential so much weight. Same with SOS.

The home/road disparity is something that should certainly be taken into account, but at the same time it's hard to believe there is such a gap in the rating when the Lakers have the best road record in the league, in addition to the best overall record. That should count for something, regardless of if they have played fewer games.

Having said that, does anyone know what Hollinger's rankings have looked like over the past few seasons? I'm curious to see how that matches up with the team that actually won the championship. Last year it was likely the Celtics because they were so much better (record-wise) than everyone else, but I'm willing to bet that in other seasons it was a bit off.

He has been right 3 of the last 4 Championships.

And actually he had the Spurs as Number 1 in the Rankings even though they were 9 games behind the Dallas Mavericks when the Mavs were a 60 win team. (dallas gets bounced 1st round...spurs win the ring)

I don't like John Hollinger or his "stats". He is an obvious Laker hater not from the Power Ranking but from the articles he writes where he picks and chooses which stats to give (always negative about lakers). People in the business don't take him seriously though. ESPN is the only company that supports him because he is a Math "genius".

[TonyMontana]

Who cares what he thinks.
We need to stay strong and hopefully hang on to our Home Court and get Drew back and take this ish to the next level, and thats the CHIP.

I reed his rankings he does make sense about a few things but overall he's off in his own world and how teams should be ranked.

[pooteeweet]

I don't think Hollinger has a prejudice against any team (although his comment about Fish clearly fouling Ray Allen is suspect), just a bias towards his numbers and his system. He steadfastly maintains that the most important indicator of future success is average margin of victory. His own article points out the flaw: If the Lakers keep beating Minnesota by 3, and the Celtics keep beating Denver by 38, then the Celtics are going to keep being No. 1 regardless of who has the better record or by how much. What he doesn't say is that the Celtics don't even have to keep winning. They can lose 4 or 5 games in a row and still maintain their #1 ranking as long as those are close losses and the losses are punctuated by huge blowouts. He relies too much on averages. For a supposed statistical genius he doesn't seem to grasp the fallibility of averages. If Bill Gates takes a part time job at my company tomorrow then I could rightly claim that on average our employee is worth a billion dollars. His reliance on average margin of victory (he does at least give weight to strength of schedule and recent games) is so fundamentally flawed that a closer look at his rankings reveals that not only are the Lakers the 3rd best team in the league, but based on his numbers they're actually much closer to being the 6th best team in the league than the 1st. This is of course preposterous. He's getting what he wants though, attention, page hits, and nearly 1000 comments on his article.

[bballcool34]

Agree with the guy above me- Hollinger doesn't have anything against the Lakers, I'm pretty sure he picked them to beat the Celtics in June.

He does, however, have a fixation on stats, so coming from him, this is no surprise.

[Sedale Threatt]

I don't see why so many people get so bent out of shape over Hollinger or his rankings.

If anything, he's trying to bring some sort of objective analysis to the table by devising a relatively complex formula, plugging the data in and letting the chips fall where they may. As such, it's hugely ironic that so many people accuse him of hating on their favorite team, which would be the result of subjective opinion, the exact opposite of the approach he's trying to take.

Does that mean he's perfect? Of course not. Just as subjective opinions are skewed by bias, objective, formula-based opinions are flawed by their inability to incorporate nuance and organic observation.

Like I do with any writer/reporter/observer, I take his work with a grain of salt. It's no more than another tool to help me understand and enjoy the game I follow as a hobby. It's not gospel, and it shouldn't be treated as such.

But I do appreciate that he's at least trying to bring something unique to the table in terms of using cold data rather than spouting off from the hip, a la the second article. I'll take Hollinger over that half-baked tripe any day of the week.

As vinny pointed out, the biggest validation to his approach came a few years ago when he had the Spurs ranked No. 1 despite finishing so far behind the Mavericks. Dallas fans screamed bloody murder over that one all season long, and we know how that turned out.

So you can't throw the baby out with the bathwater just because his findings don't support your opinion.

[Slava]

I believe if Hollinger himself would bet his money on something he'd use a little more common sense to the statistics he's employed to create those rankings he does. However he does bring out a point of view for discussion and he tries to model a complex sport as basketball with relatively complex statistical analysis. I'd love to see him put out the theory behind his work though.

[Sedale Threatt]

But that's the thing -- the use of a formula to come up with rankings, rather than some arbitrary opinion off the top of one's head, is the very definition of common sense.

I've been reading for years that point differential is one of the better methods with which to predict future success. Not perfect, mind you, but the most dependable of all the statistical means available.

Mix that, as well as strength of schedule, recent performance and the split between home/road games, and I'm not sure what else he could use to come up with a better formula.

It's not infallible, but that has less to do with his method than the innate unpredictability of sports. If there was a 100% dependable way to determine who the best team is before they've actually proven it on the field/court, we'd all be overnight millionaires and the Vegas sports books would close down tomorrow.

[crazyeights]

Agreed, Sedale.

Correction: If there was a 100% dependable way to determine who the best time is...sports wouldn't exist.

Although I think Hollinger is trying to use basic common sense creating a unbiased formula, the formula admittedly has its bias, is an oversimplification and thus self-defeating. But it gives another sports geek a job.

[DEEP3CL]

Let him keep suckin east coast sack....................he'll gag on it soon. Dude is nerdy anyway.

[Slava]

Point differential could be a very useful tool in may be the stretch run or in the playoffs but in regular season games, it more or less hides as much as it reveals. In the true sense it should be the definitve indicator of a team's performance but I can list a few things that a simple point differential cannot account for.

Things like :

1. How many minutes do the key players or in turn the best 5 of a team play every game when compared to the other team and if that fact has been weighted with the point differential. Simply put we have let Kobe, Pau and Bynum play significantly lesser minutes at the start of the season and let 30 point 3rd quarter leads come down to 7 pt victories.

2. Does the opposition put up the same starting 5 or are they missing a key player when they play the Lakers compared when they play the Celtics and Cavs? If so the relative efficiency of the opposition needs to be weighed against the point differential.

3. Does a 30 point win over the Hornets carry the same weight as say a 30 point win over the Clippers? If so that's a huge fallacy.

4. Does this formula take into account the winning margins while playing back to back games? Surely that's a handicap for a team playing the Clippers say after a game against Boston the previous night.

Therefore I'd take point differential seriously in the playoffs when every minute matters and the quality of opposition is equally measurable but in the regular season, it all comes down to the binary logic that he pointed about in his first article.

[Slava]

Actually a Chinese dude posted a power ranking formula taking many random factors weighed against the point differential during the off season on the general board which I liked better than what ESPN does.

[Hunter103]

Yeah, well, Celtics just LOST.

To the CLIPPERS.

What does that mean, John?

[Showtime:Part2]

hollinger reminds me of stat arb traders who got boners over their algorithms and refused to listen to criticism of said models. (geeky reference, but i'm in the financial industry).

[semi-sentient]

Yeah, well, Celtics just LOST.

To the CLIPPERS.

What does that mean, John?

That they are still ranked #1?

I find that to be a bit odd, actually. They have a considerable lead on both the Cavs and Lakers, but oh well.

I agree that Hollinger doesn't have anything against the Lakers as far as this ranking system goes. It is what it is. I don't agree with it, but it isn't biased towards one team or the other.

vinnycorleone: Do you have a link for his prior results? I haven't found anything from searching, at least not a complete season. For some strange reason when I change the year in the URL it doesn't show accurate win/loss for the season.

[pooteeweet]

Yeah, well, Celtics just LOST.

To the CLIPPERS.

What does that mean, John?

In his ranking model it means absolutely nothing. Record doesn't matter. A team doesn't necessarily have to have a winning record or even make the playoffs to be ranked #1 in his model, as long as they manage to mix in some blowout wins along the way.

[MasterRyu]

We shouldn't be hating on him. Doing that will only make us look like whiners. Everybody has an opinion and employs different methods to come to that opinion. Opinions cannot be wrong by definition. I bet if he were favoring the Lakers, a lot of these posts wouldn't even exist.

[Sedale Threatt]

But that's the thing -- it's not an opinion. His method is the furthest thing from an opinion. He devised an automated statistical formula that is based on raw numbers, and raw numbers alone. His subjective personal opinion doesn't even enter into the equation.

As I acknowledged, it's far from perfect. Formulas and any other statistical analysis are inherently flawed because they fail to incorporate detail and nuance.

Also, there is some level of subjectivity to it considering, as jfar points out, some other stat wonk could come up with a formula of his own that produces completely different results. It all depends on what you measures want to emphasize, so it must be taken with a rather large grain of salt -- as is the case with all rankings, especially those done based purely on opinion.

But any device that can predict San Antonio winning a title in a season in which they finished nine games behind Dallas in the standings obviously has some sort of merit.

I'm also virtually positive his formula had Boston in the top spot for most of last season -- not exactly a stretch considering the Celts tore it up during the regular season, but still another feather in his cap.