| 08 December 2007
(Boulder-CO) I’ll be the first to admit that I am a little bit frustrated with the Denver Nuggets so far this season. John Hollinger’s new computer generated measuring stick seemingly just hates them. Just look at this bizarre, Vegas style odds article if you need some more proof.
In his most recent computer generated, and might I add cockamamie, measuring stick Hollinger has put his name by a .1% chance the Nuggets win the NBA championship. And while I don’t think, at this point at least, the Nuggets are destined for basketball supremacy; the other odds that the article provides are actually quite maddening. For instance, the Jazz are given a 98.5% chance of winning the Northwest Division with the Nuggets only garnering the other 1.5%. This is irritating because as of this article’s post the Nuggets (12-8) are only a single game behind the Jazz (13-7) with ¾ of the season still remaining. The Nuggets could get everyone healthy (finally!) and win 45 out of the remaining 62 games. The Jazz could run into injury problems and drop eight of their next ten games. You just never know, but I would think that with the way things look right now in the Northwest that something a little bit more like a 51-49% chance either way between Utah and Denver would be more accurate.
My point is anything could, and probably will, happen. And it is my humble opinion that this kind of analysis, while mildly entertaining, is absolutely moronic.
I mean, c’mon now!
How Hollinger could put his good name by anything that has three teams optimistically winning 70 games is absolutely preposterous. Furthermore, we might as well just give the Celtics the Larry O’Brien trophy because according to Hollinger’s computer generated odds they have a 71% chance of being crowned kings of the NBA.
The bottom line is the “Worldwide leader” definitely dropped the ball this time by publishing a piece that puts the NBA regular and post seasons on par with college football’s BCS computer rankings; as both take out reasonable human analysis and replace it with something as mindless and blind as a computer crunching numbers.
Additionally, in Hollinger’s explanatory paragraph it is stated, “Hollinger’s NBA Playoff Odds are based on the Hollinger Power Rankings, designed by ESPN’s John Hollinger. The Hollinger Power Rankings are a measure of each team’s performance in the season so far. Based upon those rankings, each day the computer plays out the remainder of the season 5,000 times to see the potential range of projected outcomes. The results reveal the most likely win-loss record for each team -- and how likely it is for each team to make the playoffs, win the NBA title, win the lottery, and so on.”
To which I reply, "Oh they do, do they?"
Furthermore, If I was writing the cleverly diguised disclaimer it would have read a little bit more like this:
“In reality, all this kind of thing does it attach some percentages to some kind of six month crystal ball reading that means nothing to those of us who watch, read, and study the NBA on a day-to-day basis. Enjoy and don't read to deep into anything!”
I hope the Nuggets players read this and use it as added motivation to win the divison that Hollinger's computer all but has them dead in the water after only 20 games.
1.5% chance of winning the divison my foot.
Go Nuggets!
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