Jump to content
North Side Baseball

Re: 2010-2011 NBA Thread

soccer10k

By soccer10k,
in Other Sports

 Share
shnsajax Iowa Cubs

shnsajax

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
I'm not even that big of a Longoria fan, but off that picture, downgrade.

 

I don't think he was planning on exchanging them, just adding to the collection.

 

But if you like boobs, Longoria is really not the girl for you.

She has them don't she?

 

I just had to pull up some pictures. I guess she has more than I was giving her credit for.

  • Replies 1.8k
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Top Posters In This Topic

tfarks ACL Cubs

tfarks

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

Hollinger has Pacers making the playoffs, Thunder not so much:

 

http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=hollinger_john&page=PERDiem-101119&action=login&appRedirect=http%3a%2f%2finsider.espn.go.com%2fnba%2finsider%2fcolumns%2fstory%3fcolumnist%3dhollinger_john%26page%3dPERDiem-101119

 

If you could pick only one of them, which do you think is more likely to make the playoffs: Indiana or Oklahoma City?

 

Seems obvious, doesn't it? The Pacers are a fairly uninteresting collection of B-list talent and haven't made the postseason since the last time Tony Parker was single, while the Thunder entered the season as the darlings of the league and boast two All-Star-caliber perimeter players in Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant. At 7-4 against the Pacers' 5-5, Oklahoma City also has a better record. The Thunder, it seems, are the obvious choice.

 

Not so fast.

 

Play out the season based on the results of games to date, adjust for the massive disparity in strength between the two conferences, and you reach a surprising conclusion: Indy's odds of qualifying for the playoffs appear to be significantly better than the Thunder's.

 

That's the result of our simulation of the rest of the season using the Playoff Odds tool, which launches for 2010-11 today. The method, if you'll recall, is that we play out the rest of the season 5,000 times and tabulate the results, using the current Power Rankings as our base to set the odds of any individual game.

 

We also allow for home-court advantage, and this early in the season we use a "regression to the mean" component; that way we tend to avoid overrating a team based on a particularly hot or cold start. (If we didn't do this, we'd find ourselves saying things like, "Based on its 10-0 start, Team X appears likely to win 75 games.")

 

Of course, there will always be factors for which the computerized method can't compensate. Portland, for instance, projects to have a 70.5 percent chance of making the postseason, but that's based on a Power Ranking largely built with Brandon Roy in the lineup. If he can't participate in their final 69 games, one presumes the Blazers' odds diminish substantially.

 

Here's another common occurrence that throws people when they look at the playoff odds: Often, a conference will have more than eight teams -- or fewer than eight teams -- with better than a 50 percent chance of making the playoffs. This is perfectly logical mathematically -- in fact, you could have all 15 teams in the conference with better than 50 percent odds, since if the games were completely random, each team's odds would be 53.3 percent. As long as the percentages add up to 800 in each conference and no single team has more than 100, any split of the odds among the 15 teams is kosher.

 

Thus, the current situation we have in the East, where only seven teams project as likely to make the playoffs. This doesn't mean that the East will have only seven playoff teams (although I'd heartily support such a resolution), but rather that the probability of attaining the last spot is split nearly evenly among several fairly awful teams.

 

As for the Pacers and Thunder? Here's how the Playoff Odds see it: Thanks to the Pacers' easier schedule in the Eastern Conference, the Pacers and Thunder project to finish the season with identical 41-41 records. And since the projected playoff cut-line is at 37 wins in the East but 44 wins in the West, that translates into much better postseason odds for the Pacers.

 

Indy qualified for the postseason in 67.4 percent of our simulations, with the No. 7 seed its most likely landing spot. Oklahoma City? The Thunder made it only 43.2 percent of the time, with ninth place their most frequent endpoint. Even if a team projected to finish ahead of them (such as Portland) falls off the pace, the Thunder have to hold off three other challengers in Houston, Memphis and Golden State, all of whom project to win at least 38 games.

 

In contrast, the three teams projected to share No. 9 in the East -- Toronto, Detroit and New York -- average only 34 wins in our simulations. So the Pacers have a great deal more wiggle room than the Thunder.

 

We see this happen every season in the two conferences, when Western Conference teams enter the lottery and not the playoffs because they have the bad luck to play in the West instead of the East. This doesn't mean Indiana is a better team. Although the current Power Rankings would make Indiana a slight favorite on a neutral court, that's unlikely to hold up all season. But the Pacers don't need to be better; in fact, they can be substantially worse, because they're in a much easier neighborhood.

 

So, as strange as it sounds, the Pacers are in a much better position to make the playoffs than the more celebrated Thunder squad, based on how they've played to date.

 

Guest

Guest

Guests
Posted
Posted

The award for the most surprising halftime line of the night goes to Darko.

 

12 pts, 11 reb, 6 blk

SpongeWorthy Iowa Cubs

SpongeWorthy

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
I believe Westbrook is experiencing some of the difficulties Rose faces where has to do absolutely everything for his team to get a good bucket against a good D like Boston.
Flames24Rulz All-Star

Flames24Rulz

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
OKC doesn't make a basket in the final 9:28 and wins. How? By Boston not making one in the final 10:35. The 2 teams combined for 3 made baskets in the 4th quarter.

 

holy [expletive]

Guest

Guest

Guests
Posted
Posted
OKC's free throw shooting is just off the charts.

 

Just looked it up and wow. They're impressive this year. 87.9 percent as a team leads the NBA (Lakers are second at 81.4) with Durant and Westbrook combining to make 16.4 of 17.7 (92 percent) per game.

TruffleShuffle Cooperstown

TruffleShuffle

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
OKC doesn't make a basket in the final 9:28 and wins. How? By Boston not making one in the final 10:35. The 2 teams combined for 3 made baskets in the 4th quarter.

 

sounds like a big ten game

illiniguy Knoxville Smokies

illiniguy

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
After tonight's 25 and 10 performance, Michael Beasley is close to averaging 23 and 6 on the season. Not bad.

I'd rather have him at his rookie pay than Chris Bosh. There I said it.

imb MVP

imb

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
Best dunk ever?

 

 

Sorry for the crappy quality it just happened tonight.

 

so many good memories of the glory year of OU basketball.

SpongeWorthy Iowa Cubs

SpongeWorthy

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted

He had like 6 other outrageous plays in the game that were highlight worthy. Too bad the Clips got Del Negroed.

 

I fear for someone's life, or Griffin's knees, the way he attacks the rim. It's ridiculous.

imb MVP

imb

Old-Timey Member
Posted
Posted
He had like 6 other outrageous plays in the game that were highlight worthy. Too bad the Clips got Del Negroed.

 

I fear for someone's life, or Griffin's knees, the way he attacks the rim. It's ridiculous.

 

the spin/smash on gallo might have been even better. i can't believe he got more athletic after college. some of the stuff he did then, i just thought he was at his peak

Guest

Guest

Guests
Posted
Posted
He had like 6 other outrageous plays in the game that were highlight worthy. Too bad the Clips got Del Negroed.

 

I fear for someone's life, or Griffin's knees, the way he attacks the rim. It's ridiculous.

 

the spin/smash on gallo might have been even better. i can't believe he got more athletic after college. some of the stuff he did then, i just thought he was at his peak

 

I liked the spin more. The elevation he got off that was ridiculous. I knew it was going to be a dunk when they were showing the highlight, but I didn't know it would be that impressive.

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
 Share
Go to topic listing
The North Side Baseball Caretaker Fund
The North Side Baseball Caretaker Fund

You all care about this site. The next step is caring for it. We’re asking you to caretake this site so it can remain the premier Cubs community on the internet. Included with caretaking is ad-free browsing of North Side Baseball.

Become a Caretaker

  • Member Statistics

    6,793
    Total Members
    13,056
    Most Online
    Kevin OBrien
    Newest Member
    Kevin OBrien
    Joined
×
×
  • Create New...