Hollinger's Raptors prediction: 35-47, 10th in East

[djsunyc]

lmao @ these responses. You know, you guys could drive the point home even more by just writing "I'M INSECURE ABOUT MYSELF AND THIS RAPS TEAM, BECAUSE I KNOW IT WILL PROBABLY SUCK BUT I'M AFRAID OF GETTING YELLED AT BY THE IDIOT HOMERS ON REALGM", you know, instead of just saying "omg Hollinger suxxx!!!!111" over and over. Talk about being obvious... you guys are always good for a laugh with your insecurity and (very telling) overreactions to any criticism of the Raps.

The odds that Hollinger is right with his realistic, pessimistic take are much higher than the odds that anyone on here is right with their hilariously naive and optimistic take. In a way, it's almost a compliment to Hollinger that people are reacting this strongly... I suspect more than a few people secretly agree with him, or are afraid he might be right. If his article was well-received on this board, which as far as any reasonable dialogue and logic are concerned is the Bizarro World, then Hollinger would have something to worry about.

Newsflash: the fact that we have new players doesn't necessarily mean that those new players are very good, or that they'll play well together. There's a very good chance, imo, that we end up looking back at this summer as the summer when we totally wasted $100 mil on two so-so players in Turkoglu and Bargs.

lol...around these parts, it takes BALLS to be positive. it's easy to be negative - that's the pansy way out.

[cdel00]

Reading between the lines I got this from the article:

What John was really wanting to write:

The Raps have so many new faces on board and the chemistry between them is more importantant in determining their success as a team than their individual talent levels. In that regard it is rather futile to apply a statistical model to generate a report worthy possible outcome. So instead I will write an epic circle jerk to amuse myself at the thought of the torment and hits and emails generated by my loyal Raptor Truthers.

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

The Baseball Prospectus guys have absolutely raped every single sports writer & fan & gambler in projecting baseball win totals for future seasons. Granted baseball is a lot easier to model, but the basketball stuff is getting a little bit more evolved every year.

Please, never ever ever compare the role of statistics in Baseball to basketball. Sabermetrics has garnered respect among fans, players, coaches, managers, scouts and basically everyone. There isn't any evidence that basketball stats has made any tangible difference in winning or losing for a specific franchise.

and what makes you the authority on this?

And "never ever compare" as if the model development can't improve over time and it's a lost cause? gmafb.

I take it you're not a fan of Darryl Morey as a GM or Popovich as a coach.

[D-Wins-RingsIMO]

And people who can't read with any degree of accuracy are my personal bette noir. I said "last year's results and trends". Oklahoma getting better is predicated on last year's trend, so is Minnesota. Gee, predicting a young team that was improving to continue improving--what a bold and daring prediction. I'm not hostile to statistical analysis, but you also have to be aware of the limits. My case in point is Miami--what are the chances that Wade can repeat the MVP season he had last year and not break down? Is Jermaine O'Neal really not going to continue to age and slow down? And yet almost every prognosticator has Miami finishing almost exactly where they finished last year. Modeling the past is just that--modeling the past.

lol so basically.

It's ok to use the past to predict the future as long as the team is really young (therefore they will improve on the past) or really old (therefore deteriorate on the past results)

Well then.

Portland won 54 games AND they are trending up AND they are young AND they improved their roster.

So therefore it's "automatic" to project them to win more than 54 games????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

[HighOctane]

I can see where Hollinger is coming from but as low as 25 is a terrible at the lowest prediction. 30 games if things went sour, giving a median of at least 40 or a break even record would be better.

[kirbs]

People are criticizing the article which is perfectly legitimate to do right now. Not in 6 months.

But yes, I'm sure we'll all rush back in 6 months to criticize him when the Raps don't win a lot, or a little, or a medium number of games.

Well, if you criticize the article right now and they do end up winning around 35 games, you'll look pretty stupid. Of course, no one will bump the old thread and everyone will just pretend it didn't exist.

Nope. Just like if some random fan came out and said "San Antonio is going to win 12 games this year" and didn't justify their opinion at all. If their big 3 get hurt in game one and they win 12 games this year, that doesn't make people who called the idiot fan an idiot look stupid. It makes the idiot fan a lucky random guesser this one time.

Here's what you should do. Actually read what Hollinger wrote. Then you'll maybe understand why people are criticizing his "prediction".

He did justify his position though. I don't agree with his prediction either, but that doesn't mean he didn't justify it.

[Avenger]

The Baseball Prospectus guys have absolutely raped every single sports writer & fan & gambler in projecting baseball win totals for future seasons. Granted baseball is a lot easier to model, but the basketball stuff is getting a little bit more evolved every year.

Please, never ever ever compare the role of statistics in Baseball to basketball. Sabermetrics has garnered respect among fans, players, coaches, managers, scouts and basically everyone. There isn't any evidence that basketball stats has made any tangible difference in winning or losing for a specific franchise.

and what makes you the authority on this?

And "never ever compare" as if the model development can't improve over time and it's a lost cause? gmafb.

I take it you're not a fan of Darryl Morey as a GM or Popovich as a coach.

you're a big pro-hollinger guy aren't you? Why don't present the evidence where advanced basketball stats has made a real difference. Mark Cuban has invested million dollars in this stuff to help him make decisions but he still remains a joke of GM and what the hell has Darryl Morey proven? The hollinger types told Cuban that Jason Kidd was gonna be a significantly better player for Dallas than Devin Harris where as every knowledgeable fan could have were screaming about how much of a disastrous trade that was.

Pop is a great coach because he is great manager of personalities and one who is also capable of taking full advantage of the players he has. I dunno how anyone can say his coaching success can be attributed to stat heads.

[Junkball]

I've got to disagree with Hollinger on the depth issue. The Raptors have more depth at C, PF and PG than they had last year. I'd even venture to say that they have more depth at SF (assuming that they play Johnson there).

C and SG are likely to be the weak positions. The Raptors can be good without anything special from these positions, but they need solid performances from Bargnani and Belinelli (or DeRozan) to make 50 wins.

[jeff1624]

and what makes you the authority on this?

And "never ever compare" as if the model development can't improve over time and it's a lost cause? gmafb.

I take it you're not a fan of Darryl Morey as a GM or Popovich as a coach.

you're a big pro-hollinger guy aren't you? Why don't present the evidence where advanced basketball stats has made a real difference. Mark Cuban has invested million dollars in this stuff to help him make decisions but he still remains a joke of GM and what the hell has Darryl Morey proven? The hollinger types told Cuban that Jason Kidd was gonna be a significantly better player for Dallas than Devin Harris where as every knowledgeable fan could have were screaming about how much of a disastrous trade that was.

Pop is a great coach because he is great manager of personalities and one who is also capable of taking full advantage of the players he has. I dunno how anyone can say his coaching success can be attributed to stat heads.

umm, that's not true. Hollinger hated the Kidd/Harris deal on Dallas' part..

These are a few paragraphs from one of his articles when the trade was going down:

Obviously, the two protagonists are Kidd and Harris. So let me ask you a provocative question that I brought up when the three-way version of this deal was kicked around: Would you trade Harris for Kidd, straight up?

Based on notoriety alone, most would offer a quick yes. But shine that light a little closer. Kidd's PER this season is 16.07, while Harris is way ahead at 18.66. This may shock some people who have only seen the reports of his triple-doubles, but Kidd is scoring at a much lower rate this season, shooting a hideous 36.7 percent from the field, and his turnover rate has skyrocketed. While he's far from the only culprit, his decline is one reason the Nets are 25th in offensive efficiency; the Mavs, in contrast, are second with Harris as quarterback.

Per 40 minutes, Harris averages nearly seven points more; that's huge. He also gets to the line more than twice as often and shoots a far better percentage from the field. His true shooting percentage of 59.2 dwarfs Kidd's 48.3. Think about that difference for a second -- for every nine shots they take (including free-throw sessions), Harris has a one-point advantage.

Finally, Harris is a huge plus at the defensive end, where he has the quickness to defend the Parkers, Pauls and Nashes of the West and was second in the league in offensive fouls drawn last season, according to 82games.com. By my methods, he was the best defensive point guard in the league in 2006-07. Unfortunately, the one guy he struggled against was Baron Davis, a fact that may be seared in the Mavs' memories given how last season ended.

Kidd's two big advantages are passing and rebounding, and they're gargantuan differences, make no mistake. But if you break it down, it seems his numbers in those two categories might decline in Dallas' system.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/ ... 2f%2finsid


I hate Hollinger as much as the next guy, but don't spew out some BS just to try and prove your point.

[Legal Non-Conforming]

And people who can't read with any degree of accuracy are my personal bette noir. I said "last year's results and trends". Oklahoma getting better is predicated on last year's trend, so is Minnesota. Gee, predicting a young team that was improving to continue improving--what a bold and daring prediction. I'm not hostile to statistical analysis, but you also have to be aware of the limits. My case in point is Miami--what are the chances that Wade can repeat the MVP season he had last year and not break down? Is Jermaine O'Neal really not going to continue to age and slow down? And yet almost every prognosticator has Miami finishing almost exactly where they finished last year. Modeling the past is just that--modeling the past.

lol so basically.

It's ok to use the past to predict the future as long as the team is really young (therefore they will improve on the past) or really old (therefore deteriorate on the past results)

Well then.

Portland won 54 games AND they are trending up AND they are young AND they improved their roster.

So therefore it's "automatic" to project them to win more than 54 games????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????

Sorry, but I get the feeling you are (deliberately?) misinterpreting what I said. I didn't say that "it's ok to use the past to predict the future as long as the team is really young..." My point was that It's NOT a bold or daring prediction to say that Oklahoma, which went 20-30 after a dismal 3 and 29 start is going to go 36 and 46. And as far as Portland is concerned, Hollinger is predicting that they will win 55 games as opposed to 54 games last year.

If I were a prognosticator, I would do the same thing they are doing because only the past is knowable to some degree. But the past is not the future...and that's why the predictions are and can never be accurate. It's also why the Raptors throw a wrench in Hollinger's system--he himself said they could win anywhere from 25 to 50 games. DeRozan could turn out to be a good player or a lousy player--Hollinger's system is notoriously bad at predicting the future of one-and-done players. Strange, but Hollinger seems to be more aware of the limitations of his system than you are.

[Fairview4Life]

He did justify his position though. I don't agree with his prediction either, but that doesn't mean he didn't justify it.

This is why I suggested you reread that "justification". His justification of 37 wins was to say it wasn't even the most likely, it was a median guess between great and awful. How is that a justification of his opinion? For that matter, what the hell even IS his opinion? To me it looks exactly like "I don't know, here's a #".

[Kevin Willis]

lol, I actually read the whole Hollinger article, as well as his entries for a few other teams, and most of the replies.

If you read the article it's pretty obvious that Hollinger dislikes this Raps team, and that's what people are taking issue with. He's not saying that the odds they're good or bad are the same, he's saying that they could be anywhere from bad to good, but that it's more likely they're bad... hence the predicted record. If he really didn't know what to make of this team, the predicted record would be close to .500. Read between the lines... he's basically expecting this team to be pretty bad, but with the caveat that it might just happen to come together at the right time and work out much better. That seems to me to be a perfectly realistic expectation for this season.

Anyway, what did you guys expect Hollinger to say? His predictions are usually made with the aid of statistical models that draw heavily on the team's performance last year... since the roster is almost completely different and variables abound, he's not really in a position to do that with any kind of certainty, is he? Of course, this must mean that Hollinger hates the Raps and that he's an idiot and doesn't deserve to be paid to write about basketball. Forget the fact that he wrote 13890231890318903 words worth of perfectly sound analysis, covering every team in the league... if he's not high on the Raps then he's a LOOOSERR AND TOTALY AN IDIOT!!111!

Seriously, grow up, people. If you want to only read the kind of unabashed, idiotic homerism that you read on here, go read a Raps blog or something... your ego might not be able to take an impartial opinion.

a) You're a huge pessimist and I don't know if you would be fun at sexy parties
b) Hollinger is good at his statistical model which doesn't always work. Which is a reason for his criticism, stats alone don't work
c) Even using a statistical model he should have a narrower band than what he does. He reacts to uncertainty by extending his band which makes sense in a way but it also devalues his predictions because it doesn't differentiate his estimate from anyone else. I can say the Raptors will between 35 - 50 games with a 95% probability that I would be right and he's a much smarter basketball mind than me.
d) Sometimes he just says things to piss off Raptors' fans and he knows it and has admitted that his response will piss off fans in the past. Which already puts him in a bullsh*t light.

Hope that helps.

[supersub15]

In a piece back in the summer, Hollinger did say that he has no clue what Toronto and Washington will do this season, because of the amount of roster change on the Raptors and because of roster change and injuries on the Wizards.

He's basically saying he has no clue. Nor do we.

[RocLaFamilia]

In a piece back in the summer, Hollinger did say that he has no clue what Toronto and Washington will do this season, because of the amount of roster change on the Raptors and because of roster change and injuries on the Wizards.

He's basically saying he has no clue. Nor do we.

Yeah, but SS if he says he has no clue he shouldn't continue on to make a claim.

Also he claims that the median between 25 - 50 is 35! Isn't the median 37.5 (or 37/38 wins)? So he rounds down on his "no clue" claim

[Avenger]

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/ ... 2f%2finsid


I hate Hollinger as much as the next guy, but don't spew out some BS just to try and prove your point.

I said "Hollinger types". There were reports that the statisticians Mark Cuban employed were behind the Jason Kidd trade, they somehow convinced him that Jason Kidd was a better piece moving forward than Devin Harris.

[RapsBulls4evr]

I figure I'll drop this bomb before I go out for lunch, then I can return and enjoy the vitriol over my footlong club sub.

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/training ... recast0910

It's an Insider column so I imagine most of you won't be able to get in, but here's the key paragraphs. Not sure why he thinks Jarrett Jack will be the starting SG.

Jack and Bosh are the only starters who play any D, and Jack will be giving up inches as a starting shooting guard. The backups are better at that end, but the Raps may finish last in the league in free throw differential and will struggle to contain good post players.

This is either going to work out spectacularly well or it's going to be spectacularly awful. That is, if they win 50 games, it won't be shocking, and if they win only 25, that won't raise eyebrows, either.

Right now, it's safe to aim for the middle of the two; not necessarily the most likely outcome, but the median outcome. Toronto has one All-Star, limited depth, a couple of obvious strengths and a couple of equally clear weaknesses. That spells mediocre to me, so I'm projecting them to land in the lower middle of the Eastern Conference's huddled mass of contenders. That's just a guess, though -- nobody really knows whether this mishmash will work or not until the balls go up.

LOL. That is all.

[tosi]

He got burned too many times and this time he is trying to save himself.. The NBA is a long season. Who knows what may happen.