John Hollinger is an Idiotface

I NEVER like sharing bad news, and I NEVER insult people behind their back. Which makes my writing of this blog entry so damned difficult. I'm sure he's a real nice guy, probably fun to have a few beers and laughs with, but the fact (or, more accurately, my opinion) remains:

John Hollinger is an idiotface.

Or at least his perception of the game of basketball is consistent with that of idiotfaces. Allow me to explain.

One of the many meaningless things ESPN does in order to satisfy the ravenous hunger of sports fans like me who just CAN’T get enough vacuous sports talk is a daily ranking of NBA teams based on statistics. The man behind this ranking is -- you guessed it -- John Hollinger. And my issue is that, before their 10-point win over the Clippers last night, my Dallas Mavericks were ranked 15th out of 30 teams, just behind the Miami Heat. (You knew I was going there, didn’t you?)

I might remind you that the Mavs are SECOND in the Western Conference, which is utterly LOADED with the greatest talent not named LeBron James in the best basketball league in the world. Especially given their recent trade which DRAMATICALLY improves their chances of winning in a postseason environment, these guys aren’t just good, they’re almost the best of the best. And yet, as Mike Fisher of DallasBasketball.com pointedly quips in a recent blog, “John has dropped the Mavs to just behind the UConn [women’s college basketball team].”

So why the discrepancy? As it turns out, at +1.89 points per game, Dallas’s average point differential is very mediocre. They’ve lost by over 20 points a handful of times this season, and have won by more than 10 surpisingly few times. At least fewer than a team with the 4th-best record in the league “should” have. Their home court dominance has been less than stellar (almost losing to the possibly worst-ever New Jersey Nets a couple of weeks ago). All strikes against them.

Fine. Statistics say that they just ain’t so great. As long as you don’t draw any unfair conclusions about the art of winning basketball games -- which the Mavs are clearly good at doing, having done it 47 (and counting) times this year -- based on numbers.

...except that’s exactly what John Hollinger did a couple of weeks ago. In a defense of his indefensible system, he explains why almost ALL of the teams ranked ahead of Dallas would emerge victorious if they locked horns in a seven-game series, including lowly Milwaukee and Portland. I’ll leave it to the aforementioned Mike Fisher to tear his analysis to miniscule shreds, because I have another more interesting (and less contentious...I feel like I’ve done enough of that) point to make.

A minute ago, I touched on the inability of logic and numbers to adequately describe something that could be considered an art form. The game of basketball is far too complex and abstract to do so, and no formula could definitively predict a game’s outcome. Would you predict the success of a Picasso based on a mathematical formula? Even with what seems like sound statistical reasoning, this just isn't possible.

That’s not to say that there isn’t some value to these statistical trends. I’m just saying it’s too much of a leap to say that numbers have any sort of definitive predictive value. In my opinion, John Hollinger makes this leap.

A frequent quote from another ESPN personality whom I hold in far higher regard sums it up SO well. I believe it is Chris Berman who says, every Sunday during the NFL season, “THAT'S why they play the game.”