The one thing Kavitha Davidson gets right

Normally, I find Bloomberg's top sports writer pretty awful.  Kavitha doesn't dwell on the actual games, or the stories inside them that focus on the bright side of sports.  No, she only pontificates on how misogynist the players are, how unfair the leagues treat the unions, or whatever other progressive agenda needs to be shown the limelight to Bloomberg's readers.  However, I do think she takes the right stance on Qatar's bid for the 2022 World Cup to be re-opened in the wake of the FIFA bribery arrests.  

Many agree that if FIFA is serious about transparency and reform, its next president must take a stand against a country that jails journalists reporting on World Cup construction abuses and its kafala system of labor, which amounts to modern-day slavery. Too bad that many of the front-runners to succeed Blatter were just as supportive of Qatar's bid.

I also agree with her that its likely too late to do anything about the Russian bid, even if they find some serious stuff there.  The logistics just won't allow it, without even taking into regard the geo-political ramifications of a US lead investigation removing a symbolic games from the Russians.  Qatar poses its own issues, but with the years to be able to build the case, and the overall issues with safety, weather, and the whole slave labor issue the case should easily be made to revoke their hosting.

NBA Finals Charts, and Winners

So we have reached the end of the road here for the NBA season.  The Cavs were able to overcome their slow start and other issues of melding a team together to surge past a banged up Eastern Conference favorite Hawks.  Can they get past the now battle tested Warriors, who have made all the right adjustments in their series to win?  The Program has a resounding no, giving the Cavs under 20% chance to win the series.  I can't neccessairliy disagree.  The Warriors will play the best defense the Cavs have seen, and are far deeper.  They also have the star power to counteract Lebron having his way. 

Golden State vs Cleveland

Warriors Chance to win at Home: 71.8%

Cavs Chance to win at Home: 41.6%

Warriors win series 82.3% of the time

Most commonly in 5 games

Team	EFG%	Tov%	FT Rate	OReb	DEFG%	DTov%	D-FT Rate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3

NBA Conference Charts and Predictions

The semifinals for each conference provided some pretty entertaining basketball.  The Warriors and Grizzlies played a truly gritty series, but the Griz didnt have the talent to counter one of the best coaching moves we've seen in the last 15 years from an NBA coach.  The Cavs were able to advance despite some vintage Derrick Rose moments, and did so in part because Lebron showed why a lot of coaches don't really matter in the modern NBA.  The Hawks looked DOA, but have continued to roll on (if John Wall and Beasley are healthy this series probably goes 7, and the Hawks might have been headed home).

For the program, it correctly picked three of the four series.  And it did also have the Clips and Rockets with the most competitive series.  On a game to game basis the program struggles a bit in the playoffs, just because it uses seasonal data.  I'm wondering if there needs to be a real weighting for the previous round/ games in this series to improve it.

Atlanta Hawks vs Cleveland Cavaliers

Hawks Win Chance at home: 57.7%

Cavaliers Win Chance at home: 56.8%

Cavaliers win 50.7% of the time

Most commonly in 7 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	DTOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Atlanta Hawks	52.7	13.5	20.1	21.4	49.2	14.9	18.5	73.4	108.9	103.1	93.9
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3

Golden State Warriors vs Houston Rockets

Warriors Win Chance at home: 74.9%

Rockets Win Chance at home: 38.2%

Warriors win 83.7% of the time

Most commonly in 5 games

 

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	DTOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3
Houston Rockets	51.2	15	22.3	26.8	48.6	14.6	20.8	72.9	107	103.4	96.5

In summation, it looks like we will be seeing the Warriors in the finals, but its basically a complete toss up with the Cavs and Hawks.  If Kyrie Irving cant go, I think its definitely the Hawks stepping forward.

Los Links May 7th

Is there anybody out there

Dreamliners problems remain a nightmare

1690s problems

NBA Regular Season Ratings Charts

I always love playing around with stuff in R, especially the plotting.  I'm currently working on a way to use R Charts and incorporate some interactivity in the future, but for now here's how each team stacked up in terms of ratings during the season.

Its amazing how far ahead the Warriors were all season long.  They started out at the top and just held on there all season long.  You can also see the Mavs, and Raptors downward trend all season long.  The team I'm going to watch really closely this off season is the Jazz.  Their trend all season was just progressively getting better, and they're a team with a good young core.

NBA 2nd Round Charts and Series Predictions

Well, the NBA playoffs march on, with only a few real surprises in the first round.  The Raptors again have had a disappointing exit from the post season, and there will certainly be some questions after the utter meltdown by Kyle Lowry in their sweep at the hands of the Wizards.  Lowry shot at less than 30% in the series as the Raptors struggled to get into an offensive rhythm, and allowed the Wizards to eat up the Raptors defense.

The program's biggest whiff was the Blazers in their series.  Some elements of that team were a little nicked up, but for the most part the Blazers looked completely incompetent against the Grizzlies.  Aaron Afflalo, a favorite of mine from his days in a Nuggets uniform was plain awful in his limited action, while the rest of the offense just couldn't find its stroke.

The rest went to chalk, with most of the west being pretty competitive (including the Warriors and Pelicans being better than expected), and the East being sweeps.  So, onto the 2nd Round.

Atlanta vs Washington

 Hawks Win Chance at Home: 68.7%

Wizards Win Chance at Home: 44.5%

Hawks win: 73.4% of the time
Most Commonly in 6 Games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Atlanta Hawks	52.7	13.5	20.1	21.4	49.2	14.9	18.5	73.4	108.9	103.1	93.9
Washington Wizards	49.9	14	19.2	24.9	48.1	12.9	21	77.3	103.7	103	93.7

Chicago vs Cleveland

Bulls Win Chance at Home: 51.6%

Cavs Win Chance at Home: 60.4%

Cavs Win series:58% of the time
Most Commonly in 6 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Chicago Bulls	48.9	12.9	23.8	27	47.3	11.3	18.2	74.4	107.5	104.3	92.8
Cleveland Cavaliers	52	13.4	21.6	26.8	50.2	12.6	17.7	74.7	111.1	106.3	92.3

Los Angeles vs Houston

 Clippers Win Chance at Home: 64.7%

Rockets Win Chance at Home: 49.3%

Clippers Win series: 68.5% of the time
Most Commonly in 7 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Los Angeles Clippers	53.3	11.6	21.5	22.8	49.3	13.2	23.1	75.7	112.4	105.5	94.7
Houston Rockets	51.2	15	22.3	26.8	48.6	14.6	20.8	72.9	107	103.4	96.5

Golden State vs Memphis

 Warriors Win Chance at Home: 73.4%

Pelicans Win Chance at Home: 38.7%

Warriors Win series: 82.5% of the time
Most Commonly in 5 games

Team	EFG%	TOV%	FTRate	OReb	DEFG%	D TOV%	D FTRate	DReb	ORtg	DRtg	Pace
Golden State Warriors	54	13.1	18.4	24.1	47	14.3	21.7	74.5	111.6	101.4	98.3
Memphis Grizzlies	48.9	12.6	21.4	24.7	49.2	14.5	18.3	75.3	105.7	102.2	92

To recap, The Warriors should be able to move through their series without much issue (especially if Andrew Bogut continues to play well).  The Clippers should advance, but watch Chris Paul's health heading forward.  I'm not certain I like the Hawks prediction so much, they looked just average against the Nets, and the Wizards played very well against Toronto.

NFL Combine: Running backs edition

Its draft season in the NFL, and everyone here in less than a week will be gathered in Chicago to see the next crop of potential stars.  Two of the top players hoping to hear their names called on Thursday will be Melvin Gordon and Todd Gurley.  Both players dominated their competition throughout their collegiate careers.  However, this competition was different for each player, as were the offensive schemes they played in.  One of the most level tools draft evaluators have is the NFL combine.  The question most folks have though is how valuable is combine data for projecting future success.

In 2008 FootballOutsiders published their work on running back statistics and the NFL combine.  Their original findings indicated that a back's 40 time was the most likely indicator for success.  This lead to the development of their Speed Score Metric, which accounts for a player's size in relation to their 40 time.  Speed Score has had some success in unearthing later and mid round players, it only accounts for about 20% of the variability of running back statistics. 

I decided to re-run the correlations for all the players that have attended the combine from 2008-2013, see if there was any update.  What I ended up with is in the tables (in the read further section to keep this clean).  The comparison ran twice, once pairwise and once list wise.  Excluding options pairwise gives a result that I think is a little too limited, since may combine participants will not do every test, and that can skew some of the results (Players like Anthony Alridge, who was never going to be a running back in the traditional mold for example).  So, with a list wise exclusion we end up with some new results.  First, Speed Score continues to be a decent indicator for being able to identify potential large contributors in the draft.  Its correlation score of .3 was the highest amongst the other metrics for average rushing yards per season.  It also shared a .342 score for total offensive touches.  Pure 40 times were no longer as solid of an indicator of rushing yards, trailing the 3 cone drill and being in line with the broad jump (one an indicator of good agility, the other pure lower body power).  The three cone was also the second highest score for total offensive touches, with the 40 showing third there.

What does it all mean?  Basically the NFL combine is what most people think it is: not a great indicator of potential success.  But, it is pretty useful in identifying players that have the athletic ability to make it in the NFL.  Of the players that scored at least 100 on their speed score, 80% went on to have more than a single NFL touch.  Players that failed to had only 60% contribute at some point.