Is PDSS a good way to analyze the Raptors defense?

[Laowai]

You can be a 100% confident in your statistical analysis in making a bet. ( which is impossible ) then Turk eats too much Pizza and can't play and Phoenix actually wins a game they statistically should have lost. Its like predicting who will win X number of games. Injuries travel a flu epidemic can vary the expectations of a team dramatically.

If you look at the Raptors they could win 25 games or they could win 45 games both are within reason.After pre season a better picture will emerge in how the individual players interact.

How the loss of Bosh, Turk, POB, Wright, Beli & Rasho react to the addition of Barbosa, Klieza, Anderson, Wright, Dorsey, Davis & Alabi affect the team.

How Amir acts in becoming a starter?
How Bargs reacts becoming the go to guy?
Will Weems and DD continue to grow?
Will the chemistry be ruined with Jack and Jose battling to be a starter?
Will the coaching improve?

How the strengths and weakness of every team reflects against the Raptors?
To many dynamics to be accurate?
Plus additions and subtractions during a year.

Lets take Portland as an example where a major weakness is in C position.
Statistically Oden should play about 20 games next season.
What if he player 76 games that would significantly alter the Portland game plan and win total.


All you have to do is look at Washington with the Arenas gun incident it ended in the dismantelling of the team which again has a cause and effect on basically Cleveland and Dallas.
I look at statistics because living in China isn't easy to follow games live but I also know they are only a small part of the puzzle

[Scott Carefoot]

^--- I found it interesting that Voulgaris seems to believe in APM himself for measuring defense:

http://aloneinthecorner.com/post/527082 ... nsive-team

I really wonder how much he uses it to make gambling decisions...

I would love to hear people explain how Haralabos Voulgaris is wrong about Bargnani being the worst defensive C in the league when he makes a lucrative living on sports betting and poker. His opinion on this stuff is extremely credible and the fact that Villanueva makes the list as the worst defensive PF is unsurprising since I recently noted the similarities between AB and CV.

We all like to talk a big game about our sports knowledge but the real experts are the ones who put their money where their mouths are. If Voulgaris wrote regularly about the NBA, he would become my #1 must-read NBA columnist. Of course, that's unlikely to happen because it's not worth his time -- he's too busy getting rich off his knowledge.

[Ripp]

^--- Not only is it not worth his time, a lot of the profit in gambling seems to be exploiting differences between what the public estimates the probability of different events to be and what your own (hopefully superior) estimate says. So if you give away the farm, no more cash. So unfortunately, the guys who probably understand this stuff very well (Voulgaris, the stat guys at teams like the Celtics and Rockets) have zero incentive to share their knowledge.

[Fairview4Life]

There are a few guys who do have systems that make them money against the spread, but they are professional, much better with stats than you are, and are rich. Truehoop interviewed one such bettor and had him go over the claims Donaghy made, for example (he said Donaghy was a liar, basically).

No he didn't he said Donaghy fixed the games.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... hy-scandal

Most of the information I have about Donaghy is from the 2006-2007 season and its plain as day to me that Donaghy did change the outcome of the games, I don't see how any rational human being could argue otherwise.

I said he said that Donaghy was lying. Which is what you quoted. Donaghy claimed he didn't change anything in the games he personally reffed, he only bet based on inside information of which refs hated what players and when Dick Bavetta was reffing to bet on the home team, etc.. The stats dude said Donaghy was lying in those claims and based on the stats seemed to be fixing games.

[Fairview4Life]

Thanks for actually naming these things...I ended up googling and finding a pretty nice intro on about.com. All of these bets (the simple ones like point spread/totals/moneyline and the complex ones like parlays/teasers) seem equivalent...your task is to estimate the probability of each outcome and thus what your estimated payoff will be for different actions, versus what the sports books offer.

So due to those dumb people, won't the most profitable bets be available in parlays and teasers? Since they will have the wrong intuition about what the likelihood of different events are, and thus badly estimate the expected payoff of different choices? And of course, the more mistakes they make, the more potential for profit there is.

Parlays and teasers are sucker bets. You are better off grinding out single games.

[Ripp]

Not quite...the answer is pretty complicated. Like I said earlier, the name of the game seems to be finding cases where there is big gap between what the public wisdom is (as measured by say Vegas point spreads) and what the true outcome will be. As you sort of imply, estimating/predicting what the true outcome will be is going to be harder in the case of these exotic bets....but this is balanced out by the larger gaps between common wisdom and future true outcome.

Like, one case to consider is two separate bets for which the outcomes are heavily correlated, but for which the public thinks the outcomes are independent. In the extreme case where the two outcomes are say 90%+ correlated (and the public doesn't realize this, or not enough members of the public do, so the Vegas odds have not shifted to take this into account), then it makes sense to parlay if you can.


See this article for more info: http://sportsgambling.about.com/od/expe ... once=true& ...that site has a pretty good basic introduction that I found useful (though I'm still going to order some books from amazon.com)


EDIT: btw, how long is this thread going to last, lol. I feel kinda bad that it keeps getting bumped, but I've learned so much from some of the questions asked, especially the recent ones... Hopefully nobody in the forums objects too much.

[Courtside]

Of course, that's unlikely to happen because it's not worth his time -- he's too busy getting rich off his knowledge.

...is that to say that you live in your mom's basement rubbing nickels together?

[disoblige]

not true about he is not willing to share SOME of his knowledge. He even put screenshots of his desktop computer.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_ ... -voulgaris


It is a good read.

Do you ever talk shop with other basketball stat experts?
I don't really talk shop with other stat experts, to be honest I don't really know of any. There are a bunch of people who post on the Sonics Central APBR board whose opinion I respect. But I am kind of of the opinion that anyone devoting all this time to the study of basketball and not willing to really profit from it, is fooling themselves in some way.

I remember reading a post on the board where a poster stated that he could predict games with 60% accuracy against the vegas line, but he was not interested in doing so. If this guy could win even at a 56% clip over a significant sample, he could make a few million in a few years, and probably retire in five years. I tend to question the sanity or honesty of a person making such a claim.

anyone?

[Ripp]

^--- Ouch, a low blow

But Fairview already brought this up, and I explained how "predicting the winner/loser of games with X% accuracy" is different from "beating the Vegas line X% of the time."

A method that does the former will not necessarily do the latter....we'd need more information (and actually comparing to historical Vegas lines) to see how well it does on Task #2.

I really liked this Q/A he did:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/19/hi ... ob-763371/

Dude has evidently invested 3 million in his own prediction algorithm....pretty impressive.

[ranger001]

I said he said that Donaghy was lying. Which is what you quoted. Donaghy claimed he didn't change anything in the games he personally reffed, he only bet based on inside information of which refs hated what players and when Dick Bavetta was reffing to bet on the home team, etc.. The stats dude said Donaghy was lying in those claims and based on the stats seemed to be fixing games.

Ok right. From the context I misinterpreted what you were saying. The stats dude makes a lot of sense, if you bet big money on a game you are going to try to influence the outcome and the fouls show that.

[Fairview4Life]

^--- I found it interesting that Voulgaris seems to believe in APM himself for measuring defense:

http://aloneinthecorner.com/post/527082 ... nsive-team

I really wonder how much he uses it to make gambling decisions...

Reading that interview type thread on 2+2, he doesn't actually like APM, he just thinks it's the best one number ranking system type of stat out there. So I'm guessing he doesn't actually use it at all to make wagers.

[Scott Carefoot]

Of course, that's unlikely to happen because it's not worth his time -- he's too busy getting rich off his knowledge.

...is that to say that you live in your mom's basement rubbing nickels together?

Funny guy. I'm not the gambling type, but if I was as smart as Harabolos (I'm not) and I had the intestinal fortitude to attempt to live his lifestyle, I wouldn't have gotten married and had two kids. When you have dependents, it's hard for a sensible person to justify gambling a significant amount of money on sports.

The point is that the majority of people who would disagree with Harabolos' assessment are fans of Bargnani so their opinions are clouded. While some people try to portray me as a "Bargnani hater", my real beef is with how he is used. He should be a power forward and the first big man off the bench -- and it wouldn't shock me if he won Sixth Man of the Year if he was used that way because they usually give that award to pure scorers like Ben Gordon and Jamal Crawford. And that's what Bargnani is, a pure scorer. The fact that he's seven feet tall and was a first overall pick doesn't change who he is, and the sooner Raptors fans accept that, the better.

[Courtside]

The point is that the majority of people who would agree with Harabolos' assessment are opponents of Bargnani so their opinions are clouded.

See how that logic can work both ways?

[Ripp]

^--- I found it interesting that Voulgaris seems to believe in APM himself for measuring defense:

http://aloneinthecorner.com/post/527082 ... nsive-team

I really wonder how much he uses it to make gambling decisions...

Reading that interview type thread on 2+2, he doesn't actually like APM, he just thinks it's the best one number ranking system type of stat out there. So I'm guessing he doesn't actually use it at all to make wagers.

Yeah, it isn't clear...he dogs it a bit there, but at the same time uses APM to dog Bargnani's defense. I guess because Bargnani's defensive values are so large and negative, he trusts what APM says in that case. Anyway, not really clear what exactly he is doing, so probably too strong to use his impressive gambling results to validate the APM model.

[disoblige]

And that's what Bargnani is, a pure scorer. The fact that he's seven feet tall and was a first overall pick doesn't change who he is, and the sooner Raptors fans accept that, the better.

Hope is comforting. To give it up would cause us to drown in our sorrows. I hope bargnani becomes a star. You can call it irrational but it is no different than anyone hoping raptors wins a championship or hoping humans will survive forever.

[ranger001]

And that's what Bargnani is, a pure scorer. The fact that he's seven feet tall and was a first overall pick doesn't change who he is, and the sooner Raptors fans accept that, the better.

To move from a bad defender to an adequate defender requires effort and training. So if or when Bargnani learns to bring up his defence he will become a valuable member of the team and not just a scorer. There's players who you think couldn't defend and when they moved to a coach that emphasized defense they start playing defense.

Offense on the other hand is a skill that can't be learnt, e.g. no matter how much Evans practices his jump shot he's never going to be a shooter. So Bargs still has upside. I think most Raptor fans understand that he still has a lot to work on.

[Fairview4Life]

And that's what Bargnani is, a pure scorer. The fact that he's seven feet tall and was a first overall pick doesn't change who he is, and the sooner Raptors fans accept that, the better.

To move from a bad defender to an adequate defender requires effort and training. So if or when Bargnani learns to bring up his defence he will become a valuable member of the team and not just a scorer. There's players who you think couldn't defend and when they moved to a coach that emphasized defense they start playing defense.

Offense on the other hand is a skill that can't be learnt, e.g. no matter how much Evans practices his jump shot he's never going to be a shooter. So Bargs still has upside. I think most Raptor fans understand that he still has a lot to work on.

Offense is definitely a learned skill, just like defense. It just takes more physical work, and not mental work like D.

[ranger001]

Some things you can improve on offense but some just can't be learned. For instance, you or I will never have a handle like an NBA PG or a jumpshot like Reggie Miller.

[Fairview4Life]

Some things you can improve on offense but some just can't be learned. For instance, you or I will never have a handle like an NBA PG or a jumpshot like Reggie Miller.

I'll never play D like Dwight Howard either.

[ranger001]

That's true and Bargs never will either. The issue I guess is how much can be learned and how much is it that you have to be born with the talent. I think its easier to move up with defense than with offense since a lot of d is mental.