Comments on: Providing the Statistical Analysis that Matthew Yglesias Needs

By: TK

TK — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 01:08:01 +0000

Thanks for clarifying, Patrick .

I thought you were saying that if the efficiency advantage was gained primarily through defensive prowess, somehow a team would want fewer possessions. (At first blush that might seem true, but for the aforementioned reasons, I think it’s actually false.)

Totally agreed that if there’s no efficiency advantage, then there’s no obvious pace decision to make. (Plus the extra intangibles you mentioned.)

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 22:10:41 +0000

TK:

This depends on whether or not the team does, in fact, have an advantage from extra possessions. The problem is that defensive and offensive efficiency do not cancel each other out.

Take, for example, the contrived scenario of a team who has the best defense in the league and the worst offense in the league, and they play vs. a team who is average in both.

In this case, extra possessions for both teams won’t help much, because the worst offense in the league vs. an average defense in the league isn’t likely to score more points than an average offense vs. the best defense in the league.

It’s also possible that the differentials aren’t equivalent — i.e. the standard deviation of defensive efficiencies may be greater (or smaller) than that of offensive efficiencies.

Then, or course, there are intangibles. If the reason you are so efficient at offense is because you are pounding it into Shaquille O’Neal in the paint (in his prime), you probably don’t want to push the pace, because that takes Shaq out of the game. If you’re the Pheonix Suns, you do, because Amare is soooo much more efficient running the floor than posting up in the half-court offense.

By: Ben Guest

Ben Guest — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 16:33:45 +0000

I think a lot of the critics went away when, last season, the Nuggets traded for AI and several stats gurus predicted they would be an instant championship contender while DB accurately predicted the Nuggets (and the 76ers) final record.

By: dberri

dberri — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 05:33:36 +0000

Jon,
I think you are just seeing that the critics have mostly gone away.

And I would add, the hostility was not generally coming from our direction.

By: Kent

Kent — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 04:52:48 +0000

Jon,

Sorry, I misinterpreted what you wrote initially.

By: Jon

Jon — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 03:12:00 +0000

No I never meant to say you said your work was flawless. I mean that is how some people thought you came off. I don’t think I made myself clear. I am not trying to offend you. I think what I meant was a lot of the “fighting” that went on in these comments is gone. In the past, there seemed to be much more hate between you and your critics, but I have noticed recently that things seem to be more friendly. Like when somebody questions your methods or implys you are wrong or something like that, in the past I think you weren’t as nice in your responses compared to now. I think this is a good thing. I was more just saying I think things are getting friendlier now.

By: TK

TK — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:09:54 +0000

Patrick — by the way, I completely agree with the first half of your post.

By: TK

TK — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:08:06 +0000

Patrick: I’m not clear on why the better defensive team would want to slow the pace. After all, if they enjoy a substantial differential between their excellent defense and an opponent’s average offense, they would want to press that advantage by having as many interactions as possible. If they only get 40 chances to prove that advantage, that’s worse (and introduces more variance) than if they had 60 chances to prove that advantage, no?

Your 7-game-series example suggests the same thing. Any team having any efficiency advantage — whether derived from offense or defense — would expect to demonstrate that advantage more frequently the larger the sample set.

The pre-shot-clock era is the reverse example. College teams that are huge underdogs — whether or not their deficiencies were offensive or defensive — often ran versions of a stall offense. This cut down the sample size. And with fewer possessions per game, they made their bet on variance.

By: Kent

Kent — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:55:03 +0000

Jon Posner,

Dberri never said his model was perfect. You really need to read this– http://dberri.wordpress.com/2007/11/18/a-guide-to-evaluating-models/

By: Pat

Pat — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 00:10:16 +0000

Essentially this is the difference between the Bulls and the Suns. Bulls= great on defense, Suns= great on offense.

although for God’s sake can the bulls start scoring at some point???