MVN - Most Valuable Network

Finding perspective while we search for a fix

Let me preface this column by saying that I have nothing but respect for my colleagues here at MVN and across the basketball writing community who have demonstrated the commitment to take the time and effort to analyze a variety of games that they believe may or may not have been tainted, thanks to recent scandalous developments regarding certain NBA officials.

However, as someone who failed brilliantly at handicapping professional basketball games this past season, I have nothing if not a few words of caution to provide. Given my current career record of 152-185, it is safe to say that as of now I cannot handicap basketball games with any satisfactory accuracy. It is an inordinately difficult task to achieve.

Siphoning out ‘tainted games’ is even tougher, and it is my contention that few if any of us can do it with any true efficacy. I certainly can’t.

The fact of the matter is that there are just too many factors to consider.

We cannot simply look at how close games hit to point spreads and over-unders because the fact of the matter is that the good fellows in Vegas are professionals. They are the best at what they do; games are supposed to hit very close to the spread and total set by the bookies. If they weren’t doing that, these folks wouldn’t be making money and staying in this line of work. That is why they do what they do.

Even beyond that, however, is the ongoing tendency among those across the NBA writing community to analyze most games on an individual basis, searching for such theoretically telltale statistics as free throw differential, foul trouble for star players and late-game runs. The fact of the matter is that it is a disservice to the task that many are trying to achieve here to judge each game as its own isolated event without any sort of frame of reference, which is all too easy to do.

For any of this analysis to matter, we must have a statistical perspective. It doesn’t mean anything to say, “Wow look at that foul-shooting differential, that’s huge!” without knowing the tendencies of each team, player, and official in the league such as to have a fair basis of comparison.

A team like the Phoenix Suns comes to mind as an example. They have come up on numerous occasions already as a team that seemed to be on the short end of the officiating stick in some notable contests, most especially Game 3 of last year’s Western Conference Semifinals against the San Antonio Spurs. Before we cite the Suns’ seemingly low free throw attempt figures in certain games, however, it is probably worth checking to see that they were dead last in the league in free throw attempts over the course of the season. Or that Amare Stoudemire was fourth in the league in personal fouls per game. With that in mind, suddenly Phoenix not shooting a lot of free throws in a given game or Stoudemire having had some foul problems doesn’t sound so crazy.

That information gives us a frame of reference. It provides us a window through which to view the subjects. It isn’t enough to say that the numbers in a Tim Donaghy game looked odd, we need to know what they look odd against. Because if they come close to matching up with the numbers that the Suns put up under the watchful eyes of most of the other referees in the league, than these statistics that we have picked out to support our case for a game being tainted suddenly look far less abnormal and far less noteworthy.

But here lies the problem. What I spent the last two minutes explaining amounts to two particular statistics pertaining to the 2006-07 Phoenix Suns. That is all it is. Two statistics. Two out of thousands of stats and splits about one team out of thirty from one year out of many. I’m not bringing these forth as definitive proof that the game was not at all fixed; I merely offer it as circumstantial evidence that suggests that idea, just as much evidence of circumstance has been offered to point in the other direction. As I alluded to earlier, in order for us to really even begin to be able to formulate viable hypotheses about the merit of certain games, we need to understand every stat for every team, every official, every player – home, road, day, night, back-to-back, rested, you name it – and much more – quite possibly an unconquerable challenge.

Until that virtually unattainable point, one would be hard-pressed to believe that we will have anything more than loads of meaningless speculation on our hands. There is a reason the best handicappers in the world have computerized algorithms that do most of their work for them. It is virtually impossible for us to as individuals to be able to process all the needed information and draw a viable conclusion using nothing more than the naked eye.

By and large, we don’t have a clue.

But for those of us determined analysts and detectives in the crowd, in the supremely unlikely event that we can get said clue, even after all the aforementioned obstacles have been cleared, there is nothing we can do to prepare for the final killer X-factor: good old statistical anomaly. It all comes down to a game played – and officiated – by humans, folks. Which means that ultimately all the statistical competence in the world won’t foretell everything. Strangeness is bound to occur.

And it is exactly why so many of us watch in the first place.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 25th, 2007 at 1:24 am and is filed under NBA Point-Shaving, NBA Police Blotter, Tim Dongahy, 2007 Phoenix Suns, NBA Statistical Analysis, 2007 NBA Off-Season, 2007 Western Conference Semifinals, San Antonio Spurs, General NBA, Phoenix Suns, NBA Handicapping, Amare Stoudemire, Blogroll. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.