Doctor MJ wrote:QuantMisleads wrote:What is inherent in qualitative analysis is that we recognize as well that our judgements are never objective. It takes a lot of back and forth to straighten things out. Many objectivists (positivists) do not like this.
I've had my opinions about basketball changed so many times in so many different ways in the past few years, and yet you accuse people like me of "not liking' to have "back and forth". Meanwhile, you've basically stuck to the exact same mantra the whole time I've known you. It's remarkable that you cannot see how your actions would appear to others. You claim rational superiority by pointing out the rigidity of others, while speaking with greater rigidity than almost anyone else in the room at all times.
One would expect someone tossing around such lofty philosophical terms would know himself better.
Before saying anything else, I should note that I do not despise people who like Russell over Wilt, in fact I think Russell was also a once in a lifetime player as Wilt was, as they both had an unparalleled athleticism (and height to match), and I think Russell's skillsets made it easier for him to understand what he had to do which is why I think his teams were more successful. I do despise, however, the intellectual dishonesty among some posters and their appeal towards what they think is scientific analysis.
You raise some important points that I didn't explicitly raise perhaps in my last few posts. There are two issues at play when I see someone resort to DRTG/ORTG or other advanced statistical numbers and then pin most of it on one player:
1) Preconceived biases
2) Using themes to support the quantitative.
So as I mentioned before, we try to find the numbers to support our hypothesis...big surprise there. I find it both hilarious and pathetic that bastillon shows up (and does so faithfully) when he gets to push his view of a certain player using whatever methods at his disposal and has voting power (INCLUDING spreading the lie that Russell was injured in 1967). Of course there are other numbers, other facts that don't support that, but lets put that at the side for the moment.
The second matter is related to the first. In this case, we use the themes that aren't numbers to support the cherrypicked numbers that we have. Yet these themes are so overused that it's almost as if we're talking about robots rather than a complex 5 on 5 game. For example, we want to rationalize why Wilt only won 2 championships. So the theme is created to explain away EVERY YEAR HE PLAYED AND LOST, and we use whatever statistical tool we can find to support it! Every other poster reads this and assumes their analysis is impeccable, and you basically get everyone thinking the same way. You call this analysis?? So when all the newspapers, Cousy, and Russell said Wilt played like a monster in that 7 game series in 1962 (where Wilt loses by 2 points due to someone else not covering Sam Jones) where nobody gave the Warriors a chance in hell in winning, how do we treat Wilt? "Oh...he only scored 14 points in that final game! His scoring average was WAAAAY below average in the playoffs, he choked"! This is literally the story told. Was it true in other years? yes, perhaps it was, but not this year.
Look, there is ALWAYS room for interpretation. For example, I think Wilt's 1962 season isn't given the credit it deserves, but I respect other opinions on the matter. But when we use advanced statistics (that, no, whose assumptions cannot be tested in the way I described earlier) to give it the allure of scientific analysis, we should know better. But judging by the fact that many posters resort to themes to support their analysis (which, by the way, is the only thing I would accuse you of) and don't do enough newspaper or comments from their peers (or even interviews that were done with older players from that generation).
There is always going to be bias in our interpretations, but we're not doing the best of trying to root it out. The problem so much isn't with you guys, but that there are few educated dissenting voices. The problem with me is that I get easily angered at intellectual dishonesty so I can't seem to hang around for longer than a month, nor are my comments helpful in the right direction either because I'm too lazy to try to find the newspaper article or interview to rebut someone.
And for me, finding someone's dishonesty is particularly easy, even when it comes to people like ElGee, who has used 1965 and 1969(much like Bastillon, I might note) (without any historical analysis) to "prove" that Chamberlain had no impact when he switched teams. These guys are dishonest because I'm sure they have read my posts on what happened those particular years and why they're not applicable, but unfortunately for Chamberlain those were also the only seasons where he switched teams and/or missed games. This creates a theme of course: Wilt didn't have an impact, while Russell did. Does team record show this to be true? does where they made it in the playoff show this to be true? Nope. Though others will say yes, that this huge impact was evident in Russell's 2 point or 1 point victory over Wilt in game 7.
