I noticed on espn.com that John Hollinger has a new way to evaluate the best teams in the Association. He calls his system the NBA Power Rankings and believes it adds accuracy to how we differentiate between the best and the worst in our league. I’ve always thought Hollinger seemed out-to-lunch with his NBA reporting, but this latest work proves just how long he’s been gone—not to mention how many manhattans he must have sipped with his meal.
Hollinger believes he has devised a way to calculate such imprecise categories as a team’s strength of schedule and recent performance history. Weighing these numbers alongside teams’ victory margins, Hollinger brews a statistical concoction that places the Toronto Raptors ahead of Detroit, Utah, and the Wizards. His rankings have Chicago in front of Cleveland, Orlando on top of Washington, and the Clippers besting Golden State—despite that these front-runners are actually lower in their respective divisions.
To make matters worse, he has San Antonio five spots ahead of the Lakers and the Hawks (in last overall) fifteen down from the Wolves. Check last night’s box scores, John, and use your rankings to line the litter.
The main problem is that Hollinger lacks any feel for the game; he doesn’t understand the subtle benefits of an experienced team, the nuances of leadership, the drag of fatigue or injuries. For him, everything in the NBA needs an algorithm, has a stat or a number attached. Hollinger knows basketball like Hugh Hefner understands beauty: both guys quantify categories that aren’t precisely numerical and then exaggerate the results. Blown-up bra-sizes correlate with beauty like algorithms make for smart hoops writing. Some things just don’t compute.
Hollinger’s top 15:
1) Phoenix
2) Dallas
3) San Antonio
4) Houston
5) Chicago
6) Orlando
7) Cleveland
8) Los Angeles Lakers
9) Toronto
10) Utah
11) Detroit
12) New Jersey
13) Washington
14) Indiana
15) Minnesota
Something tells me Hollinger hates basketball. Nothing else explains why he so refuses the reality of his job.
5 comments:
this is ridiculous post... things like strength of schedule and victory margin aren't weird, intangible things.
But... as Hollinger points out, his rankings are specifically designed to emphasize recent results. You can see why he did it - if it weighed results all season, the rankings would only change very slowly and there would be no reason to check 'em out every day.
Thanks for your thoughtful post, Anonymous. If I read you correctly, Hollinger emphasizes recent performance so that his readers have to check the rankings more frequently. Doesn't that compromise the objectivity of his statistics?
I have to agree with you. I've always hated statistical analysis to determine who is acutally a better team. Hollinger is the #1 culprit. Stats are for gamblers and research papers.
I think things like power rankings, which I read but don't reference in my blog, exist to develop a readership and get some chatter going online. I think objectivity is impossible with sports journalism. Sports writing is a delicate balance between reporting and hype.
I like Hollinger's articles and I do prefer his rankings to Stein's (one of the few basketball related articles I skip).
There are definitely some issues with his current algorithm (like the recent results seem overly weighed), but not only will he work on it, what I like about him is he will call himself out when he's wrong.
I see Hollinger as someone who's thinking outside of the box to analyze basketball differently with new stats. I'd much rather read that then yet another ex-jock's opinion or on of the million self-proclaimed "experts" restating the obvious.
Interesting to know.
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