If you're an expert on basketball statistics, you have some decisions to make.
Here's the thing: even the most advanced basketball statisticians in the world acknowledge that there is a lot that is important to basketball that is really tough to measure and predict with numbers.
These people are determined to find better numbers than the ones we have. Thanks to thinks like PER, plus/minus, and a number of other metrics, numbers are telling a lot more of the story than they did in the days of points and rebounds.
But they don't tell all.
So, when I asked a collection of the world's best statistics experts to compete against my mom predict all of last year's playoff series in the first-ever stat geek smackdown, they had a decision to make: Choose with the numbers, that you know aren't perfect ... or override with some human intuition?
There were a mix of approaches.
Mike Kurylo of Knickerblogger has his own stats system called OTTER that could help him picked series, but last year, he abandoned it in making a lot of his picks.
"Last year," he reflects, "I went with my heart more than my brain, and ended up just barely beating out Henry's mom to avoid finishing in last place. This year I promise not to make that mistake. Even though I don't publish OTTER (my ranking system) anymore, I still compile the data and will be sure to use it as much as possible. While OTTER doesn't understand thing like midseason trades, injuries, and Gilbert Arenas' return (although OTTER swears he's a fan of Gilbert's blog), he does a good job looking at every game and taking all that data into account."
Meanwhile, last year Justin Kubatko of Basketball-Reference.com resolved to go strictly with his own numbers.
Kubatko ended up in first place, in the winner's jacket. (This year's prize is to be determined; I promise it will be goofy and not too valuable.)
Lesson learned? We'll see. This season the same competitors are back, with the same rules, ready to do battle again.
I present to you the 2008 TrueHoop Stat Geek Smackdown. Click around to see competitors comments and predictions for all the first-round series. We'll be updating with every round, and you'll see running scores in that big scoreboard as the playoffs progress.
Competitors get five points for picking the series winner correctly (six points in the Finals) and two points for correctly picking the number of games it takes for that team to win.
There is one change in the lineup. David Berri of the Wages of Wins has withdrawn from the competition -- this comes at a time when it would be particularly difficult for him to compete. We hope to have him back next year.
In his place, we're pleased to have a czar of adjusted plus/minus, Stephen Ilardi. I have linked to his work on adjusted plus/minus, and quoted him many times.
One other change from last year: Jeffrey Ma of the Citizen Sports Network is now undeniably big-time. has always been a big deal to us. He advises Portland GM Kevin Pritchard! But now he's a big deal to a lot more people, as the new movie "21" is about his time as the head of the MIT blackjack team that used smarts to beat casinos out of big dollars (as described in the book "Bringing Down the House").
