I don't see why anyone would view that article as fodder for Hollinger-bashing. He's just saying that what is happening right now is pretty unusual by historical standards, and that one cannot easily find a common factor shared by the other surprise finalists/championships (a factor, for example, clear enough to incorporate into a statistical model).
And let's keep one thing in mind: the failure here is not just of Hollinger's models. EVERY single member of the ESPN expert team picked the Celtics to lose BOTH series. It's not as though Hollinger's stats-based approach was telling us one thing, while the non-stats-based experts were all picking the Celtics to win based on their hunches. That would be a much stronger indictment of his model.
Bottom line: everyone was wrong, from the stat geeks to Vegas to Barkley. At least Hollinger has the good sense to go back and take a closer look at the historical record, to place things in perspective. I learned something from the article.
TP. This is a very good point that deserves to be repeated:
Just because Hollinger was wrong doesn't mean his method & statistics are bogus. ALL the experts were wrong. What matter is whether Hollinger is right more often than the other experts. I'd love to see a careful analysis of that.
Yeah but what did you learn? That more often than not, higher seeds (with better records presumably) advance in the playoffs over lower seeds?
I don't hate Hollinger, I disagree with him, but at the same time I read him probably more than any NBA "analyst" guy out there except Kelly Dwyer. But I do think that to make these blanket statements about how big a statistical anomaly this was without really explaining why it happened or even attempting to is ridiculous, and it comes off to me as a reader anyways as Hollinger more justifying his system, rather than acknowledging the reality of the situation.
He didn't need 4,000 words to show me that this Celtics team is a unique specimen. And of those 4,000 words, he could have explained more why the 77-78 Bullets and 93-94 Rockets shared so much in common. He didn't talk about veteran leadership, although the Rockets had a very Ray Allen-esque Clyde Drexler (as in the stages of their career and their cool demeanors), mention the strong bonds Hakeem and Clyde shared because of their college careers, allowing Clyde to more quickly acclimate to the system.
I don't know anything about the 77-78 Bullets beyond the fact that they also had some old dogs that were seeming out of time.
Point is Hollinger half donkey'd this article to show us how 'nutty' and improbable this all is, which is by way a justification of his own system.
Topic: Hollinger can't be wrong...he can only be 'unluckily inaccurate' (Read 9032 times)