This is article is really good. It used to be just people on the internet proving they were dumb. Now the role of dumb guy is played by ex players: dumb guys with some clout. From hatvol to Chuck Barkley. Fascinating. http://grantland.com/the-triangle/m...yl-morey-al-leiter-rob-neyer-nba-mlb-nfl-nhl/
Daryl Moron has produced the same number of NBA titles as Barkley. Seems like a draw to me. How did all the analytics geniuses do in Memphis? Oh, that's right. Fired or demoted, while the traditional basketball guy who they jettisoned to bring in Hollinger and the rest of those guys had to come back to save the day.
Imagine that. One of the Grantland guys writing a self aggrandizing piece about how great sportswriters are.
Let's see. One team in the Bay Area is the poster franchise for the analytics revolution. The other does everything wrong according to the pocket protector crowd. One hasn't won a World Series since 1989. The other has won three of the last five. Guess which is which.
Nothing like a bunch of faux intellectuals sitting around talking about groundbreaking data that tells us shocking things like getting on base is important and LeBron James is great. Riveting shit.
What do the analytics say about Okafor sucking so bad defensively and at the foul line K kept him off the floor in crucial time the other night?
The Red Sox explaining 10 years ago how the metrics made Jeremy Giambi a great player was about all I needed to know as far as analytics being a be all, end all.
The Rockets not winning anything is your best argument against the use of analytics? You realize they aren't the only team utilizing analytics and paying not-insubstantial amounts of money to that end, yes?
Well not as riveting as your totally carefully crafted and in no way laughable arguments against the utility of data analysis in sports.
If he made any points you believe to be factually incorrect, feel free to counter them here. It's what message boards are for.
If you gave up on analytics in baseball I don't even know what to tell you. That ship sailed far away long ago.
When analytics add something that isn't readily apparent to anyone who has a meaningful knowledge of a given sport, I'll care. I'm still waiting for something from the analytics crowd that is one tenth as groundbreaking as they think.
Exactly. The analytics crowd act as if they have the market cornered on how to build teams. Funny how the teams most wedded to them aren't dynasties.
They have great utility to people who don't have a [dadgum] clue about what they are watching. To people who actually understand what they are seeing, it has some usefulness as a confirmatory tool.
Go pull some data on the number of three pointers attempted in the NBA currently and compare it with the NBA of 30 years ago. While you do that, I'll look for a post or three from you disparaging/criticizing reliance on the three point shot. When we reconvene we can quickly go over the meaning of the term "readily apparent" to make sure we're on the same page, and then I'll ask you if you care about analytics.
I agree with half of this as they can certainly play the role of confirmation tool. I don't agree with the other half as there is simply no way that a guy like Byron Scott falls outside the scope of "having a [dadgum] clue about what they are watching" -- I mean, he played pro ball for 15 years so surely he understands the game of basketball -- and yet he is pretty much completely clueless on effective basketball strategy. And I wrote all of the above before I even knew that he's stated publicly that he doesn't believe in analytics. http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports....oach-byron-scott-i-dont-believe-in-analytics/ So there you have it. We'll call him "Exhibit A", but he ain't the only one.
Analytics guys aren't going to disagree that having Lebron James on your team is going to trump analytics-derived insights in terms of importance But they'll rightly tell you that the best players can become even better by utilizing analytics. And they'd be right. Hell, Kevin Durant has his own personal analytics guy. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...ivalry-lebron-james-hires-225020480--nba.html
They're a useful reference, but let's not pretend they're any more relevant than the simple eye test.
