Shorthanded Cavs Own NBA's Best Record
Confounding the predictions and analysis of many "experts," the Cleveland Cavaliers now own the best record in the NBA even though they are currently without the services of two of the main cogs in their rotation, All-Star guard Mo Williams and versatile guard Delonte West (who led the Cavs in minutes played during last year's playoffs).TNT's Charles Barkley constantly lambastes Cleveland's offense and it seems like every beat writer around the league has some trade proposal that will supposedly bolster Cleveland's roster but meanwhile Coach Mike Brown has successfully integrated offseason acquisitions Shaquille O'Neal, Anthony Parker and Jamario Moon into the fold and the Cavs are poised to make a serious run at the 2010 championship.
My newest CavsNews article takes a closer look at Cleveland's recent success:
Shorthanded Cavs Own NBA's Best Record
Labels: Cleveland Cavaliers, LeBron James
posted by David Friedman @ 4:55 PM
4 Comments:
nice post, here's an article that might be of interest to you:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/sport/columnists/gabriele_marcotti/article7000809.ece
it's about statistics in football
ST:
I don't follow football (soccer) that much but the article that you cited is interesting because of the way that it delineates the limitations of statistical analysis.
Take a look at this one:
http://www.emptythebench.com/2010/01/26/lebron-james-fouls/
It's well written and would seem to a casual reader that this guy knows his stuff. However, this is a perfect example of an irresponsible use of numbers. He doesn't mention even watching a single LeBron James play! If he just watches one game and observes James closely, he'd have the answer, instead he compares LeBron's numbers with other players who have different play styles and different defensive schemes.
This guy has absolutely no idea what constitutes a good defense. There is no correlation between number of fouls and defensive ability.
He just looked at the box score and picked some numbers that would confirm a preconceived idea that he probably has read somewhere else.
Z
On that article, as soon as I saw the author, I dismissed it.
This is the same idiot who by going exclusively through stats steadfastly claims that Kobe is vastly overrated and should only be considered a good shooting guard and nothing else.
Same author claims that Pau is the MVP of the Lakers. I think Pau is a fantastic player and integral part of the team but no way is he the MVP of Lakers.
I think advanced stats are a useful tool to shed light in some of the harder to gauge aspects of the sport. But the author commits the classic mistake of using it exclusively. There is no one infallible tool for evaluation. I think the best way is to use all of them, experienced observation, stats, etc.
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