How consistent are our stars: a statistical analysis

I didn't force my interpretation of consistency on you (or anybody else for that matter). I said you draw your own conclusions. If you feel that it's only when they perform below the average, nobody forced you not to draw that conclusion.

But like I said, stats show that TMac performs below average just as frequent as Yao. I don't know about you, but that actually makes sense to me. That's one of those duh concepts. Otherwise why would the average be what it is.

So what the hell are you trying to prove when you say don't use SD but use number of games below average? Hey, I'm going out on a limb here, but I would bet 10 bucks that for every player in the league, their games below average would be about half of their total games.

Like I said, if you think Yao is so "inconsistent" and TMac's so "consistent" and states it so matter of fact, fine. Give me your definition of consistency, the measure it and prove it. If you can't, everything you said is hogwash.

Also like I said, I try to make observations and draw conclusions from that while you draw a conclusion and don't even bother trying prove it. No no, you speak it as if it is a royal edict.

 

There are so many things wrong with this post. OK, let's identify the goal here. To me it is to help the Rockets win the championship for now and in the future. OK, that's the only thing that matters. Quite frankly if Yao puts up the sufficient numbers and help the team win the Champ, as far as I'm concerned, he can be "soft" all he want, whatever your definition of soft is.

Secondly, stats aren't meant to "tell the whole story." For example, what does PPG tell you? Let me tell you this, it sure as hell doesn't tell a players is better. It is more likely a player with a higher PPG is better, but it isn't certain. PPG tells you given the teammates you play with, against the team you played against, playing the schedule you did, at the place you played, shooting the way you did... (realize it gets pretty complicated after a while), but it sure as hell doesn't tell me who the better player is. People drew that conclusion, stats didn't.

Having said that, there is nothing that is more tangible and provable than stats. As highly as you think of your opinions, it ain't worth ****. Neither are mine. Which is why I said, you draw your own conclusions.

Finally, I always loved the "you miss 10 straight shots then comes back and hit the game winning shot" line. If you haven't missed the first 9 shots to start, I'd say that your team don't need a miracle 3 (for example) to win the game.

And even the most clutch players have a low probability of hitting the big shot (you always hear it when say... Kobe hits a 35 footer at the buzzer, he's so damn clutch, but never hear the many more other times when he misses miserably). Which means that in fact, just by having such a lousy shooting game you signficantly reduced your team's chance to win. So hitting the buzzer beater is at best "redemption," not heroics.

Mind you, sometimes you played well and shot well, but the other team just played better. Then if you take it to the next level and helps the team win, that's heroics. But if you were missing 90% of your shots and hits the game winning shot, I'd say, well you missed you much and kept shooting, sooner or later you're gonna hit one.

 

Um yeah, I used arithmetic mean and SD based on an assumed normal distribution. In case you didn't know, that's one of the staples of measuring inconsistency in stats. Having said that, I also said at this point I am unsure what consistency means, basketball wise. But if it is the same as the way statisticians measure it, it means that Yao is more consistent than TMac, which I don't happen to agree and hence said draw your own conclusions. But the village idiot would always say there is some conspiracy on my part to screw TMac.

And stats are biased? I'd say yes. But it is the least biased of all the options we have available. Your opinion and the fans' opinions (hell, even extend that to coaches and GM's) are even more biased than stats.

Btw, doesn't (according to a Newsweek poll) 70% of Americans still think Iraq has ties with Al-Qaeda after Cheney basically admitted he lied about the connection at the start. Oh and btw, doesn't Iraq have WMD's and hench the US went to war because of it (what oil)? Boy, that sure was a swing and miss right there.

Finally, so if player A has more better performance than player B then he's more consistent? Boy silly me but, I thought that mean player A is the "better" player. You can't even separate the definition of being a "better" player than being a "consistent" players. No wonder you are giving your BS on stats.

 

I agree. I think Yao's distribution has a "little sag" in the middle? Maybe two, one being smaller. Double check on that. So that was one thing that in retrospect, I should have been more careful of. Nevertheless, what is done is done. And I really don't have a clue what kind if there is a distribution curve that maps out this sag. However, I think for most practical purposes, the SD between the two won't be hugely different.