falcolombardi wrote:Owly wrote:The contention isn't that the Lakers didn't know the rules or that it was unfair. Nor is it that the Lakers were "guaranteed" to win in 7.
It is that a short series involves a greater probability of inferior teams advancing.
Best of 3 at a glance in that era ... upsets include both matchups in the '83 West (notably Denver over Phoenix but also Portland over Seattle) and arguably at the very margins Knicks over Nets (though Nets lost Larry Brown late in the season). '81 Kings over Trailblazers. It doesn't matter though, the math is sufficient.
the less games the more variability yes, but maybe not ny as much as is often assumed?
I don't what the generic person assumes. For actual odds movement see later.
falcolombardi wrote:of the series you mention in 83' west there are 3 vs 6 and 4 vs 5 series,
Of course they are! Those are the seedings for the matchups in the qualifying/first round. You can't suggest upsets don't seem that common, then when they might be say "well that's not much of an upset, those seeds -the ones that play each other- are too close together". And 3-6 back then is out of circa 23 teams. So 6th in conference will be around league average maybe circa .500. And at the time top seeds were locked to division winners. So third could be the second best team in the conference. '83 Suns (4.61 SRS) versus Nuggets (0.27 SRS) - a pretty significant upset - illustrates this.
falcolombardi wrote:those kind of upsets happen every year in 7 game series too, hawks just nearly swept the 4th seed,
A 4-5 matchup? In which the 5 has the (very, very slightly) superior SRS. How is this an upset?
falcolombardi wrote:miami 4th seed beat bucks # 1 seed last year too. etc
A legit upset.
So
1) I can seemingly, with a quick search of nearby years find more upsets than you can recall/cite despite many more 7 games series (especially given you're not limiting yourself to round 1, so even if in just rounds 1 and two you have 12 series, each year, all freshly available in recent memory, versus 4 series a year).
2) Nowhere was the claim 7 games is a perfect sample. I don't love tournaments to decide champions if the objective is to find the best team, worse teams still advance. But significantly less so.
falcolombardi wrote:nothing that unexpected that would make us blame the series format
i feel like the difference in volatility between 3 and 7 game series is not enough to discredit the former
Tangent: Personal opinion wise would you be happy enough if all series were best of 3?
Even if team performance levels were constant, like a loaded coin, rather than varying over single games and injuries on top of that more influential in smaller samples ... if my checker is correct: a 70-30 at single game level matchup nearly doubles the upset odds in Bo3 versus Bo7, up about 10%.
Anyhow got to go ... can edit better go into it further later if desired.