Big Problems with Little Data

Video Show

Hosts

Andres Alvarez(@nerdnumbers)

Produced by Brian Foster(@boxscorebrian)

This week's poll

Show Notes

The Olympics/Talent Evaluation

Patrick's piece on Mason Plumlee vs. DeMarcus Cousins and Zach Lowe's piece on evaluating bigs lead to a discussion about valuable skills and player evaluation.

Evaluating things like Chris Bosh's midrange game as "good" is iffy. Yes, he's above average at it, but it's not neccesarily better than average threes or layups.

My general problem with modern advanced stats is we can zoom in on players, but do not understand the magnitude of their skill/deficiency.

Forty three players shot over four threes a game with > 35% last season!

The Pacers and 538

Paul George is a rare talent in that he's a good scorer but doesn't quite get the respect I'd expect.

Case in point, this 538 post on it!

Nate Silver's recent piece on Paul George and injuries is interesting. That said, the stats and methods Nate uses don't seem cohesive or vetted. In short, I expect more.

Richard Feynman sums up a lot of the issues in bad studies.

My issues with RPM.

Tanking

Patrick asks if Philadelphia is the first team to "tank correctly" in the modern draft.

Devin Dignam on how tanking used to work in the NBA.

I love the logic that the Wizards have been tanking for three decades, and the solution is to tank some more!

The reason the Wizards are "bad at tanking" is not being able to give up on top draft picks when they don't turn into stars.

Becky Hammon and Good Management

I'm a little skeptical about how the mainstream media will scrutinize Becky Hammon. I've written about this before. It's pessmimist and depressing but it's also possible this is tokenism, not a start of a change.

Kevin Draper has written about how people "in charge" in the NBA may have less control than we think.

Dan Pink has a great TED talk on what motivates people.

Tangent - Drinking Game

We've got a few common things happen in the show regularly. Feel free to tweet us more suggestions but here are a few suggestions for a Boxscore Geeks drinking game:

• Every time Dre's dogs shake their collars/bark take a drink.
• Every time we mention Kevin Love take a drink.

Shout Outs

Aaron Montgomery for this great tweet:

@NerdNumbers That trailer is basically like, "The Earth's surface is only 10% water... but what if it was 100?"

— Aaron Montgomery (@ProbablyMonty) August 1, 2014

Taye Diggs(@tayediggs) for making my day by following me on Twitter.

Music

Intro Music - Test Drive by Zapac.

Outro Music - Math by Supernova.