Subscribe:
RSS feed
Taking aim at the lies and damned lies in sports with stories written by the numbers.
Browsing All Posts published on »June, 2007«
Optimistic to a Fault
Frequent WoW Journal contributor, Steve Walters, wrote a fascinating column on optimism bias for the July 26 edition of the Baltimore Examiner. The column, entitled “Optimistic to a fault” can be accessed by clicking on the link. Or you can just keep reading. The Baltimore Examiner has graciously allowed us to reprint the column below: […]
Win Score and the NBA Draft
The following is a guest post from WoW Journal reader Erich Doerr. Erich has used the Win Score metric to investigate the top prospects for the 2007 NBA Draft. In The Wages of Wins, David Berri and company introduce a basketball valuation system called Win Score. This easily calculated metric merely requires a box score […]
Magic and Michael
Who’s the Best? This one question sparks the most fervent debate among sports fans. Was Willie Mays better than Mickey Mantle? How does Barry Bonds compare to Ken Griffey (or Babe Ruth, or Sammy Sosa, or whoever)? Is Joe Montana better than Dan Marino? Is it Wilt or Russell? A few weeks ago I responded […]
Defending Jerry Krause
Michael Jordan appeared in the NBA Finals six times in the 1990s. All six times Jordan won the title. At least that’s the story told. If we think about it, though, we realize that Jordan didn’t win any titles. Jordan is a player. And its teams that win games and titles, not one single player. […]
Playing with Team USA
Team USA made a couple of announcements in May regarding the players who will play for the USA this summer. First, there is a list of players who are not available due to injury. This list includes Chris Paul, Dwyane Wade, Gilbert Arenas, Lamar Odom, Paul Pierce, Joe Johnson, and Brad Miller. To replace these […]
Looking Back at the Bad Boys
The tendency is to believe it is the offensive superstars that lead a championship team. Showtime was led by Magic and Kareem (mostly Magic, as detailed yesterday). Larry Bird took the Celtics to three titles in the 1980s. The Bulls were supposedly just Michael Jordan and the Jordanaires. The Rockets had Hakeeem “The Dream” Olajuwon. […]
Who Led Showtime?
The latest trade demand from Kobe might cause some to look back at the days when the Lakers were led by players who demanded their team win by producing large quantities of wins (as opposed to Kobe’s method of just demanding the team acquire players who can produce large quantities of wins). In 1979 the […]
Final Thoughts on the NBA Finals
Here are my Final Final thoughts. In this column I address three issues: The MVP in the Finals, LeBron’s problems on the game’s biggest stage, and my bronze medal performance in the True Hoop Stat Geek Smackdown. Did Tony Parker deserve the MVP award for the Finals? Going into the last game, Tim Duncan had […]
The Best Team for Each Team
After the Finals ended last night I sat down to write my thoughts on Game Four. Too many story lines came to mind, though, and rather than write these all out I just went to bed. Today I am a bit short on time, so all I can do is offer thoughts on something I […]
A Few Thoughts for Thursday
While we wait for Game Four tonight (which I hope is not the final game of the 2006-07 season), here are a few more thoughts on Larry Hadley, the legacy of the Spurs, and the trade of Juwan Howard to the Minnesota Timberwolves. A Few More Comments on the Life and Career of Lawrence Hadley […]
Recent Posts
- We’re Moving!
- Why Owners are worse than they think they are
- The All-Time Spurs Team
- Some Good Looking Links
- Who were the real Playoff MVPs of 1995?
- NBA Owners have no hope of solving the NBA’s money problems
- More on the “NCAA Cartel”
- A Free Market for College Athletes
- The Best Nuggets Team of All Time
- The Bottom Line on the NBA Finances Part 2: The BRI Strikes Back
The Wages of Wins Network is licensed under a Creative Commons 3.0 Non-Commercial Share Alike License.
Wages of Wins Journal 
June 27, 2007 by dberri
4