Re: Celtics just lucky?

[Kestas <kkv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:46 PM 3/26/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> First, this didn't raise my hackles over showing our warts, because I'm 
> good with stats and data analysis and can come up with a bunch of worse 
> ones if I wanted. I can make those suckers dance and sing and play the 
> ukelele. But c'mon Egg --- his article about his own 'brilliant' deduction 
> that the Cs are just lucky derives from one of those superficially 
> enticing assumptions for idiots misleading points - if you win you score 
> more points, therefore average points scored should be better than average 
> points given up or the winner is just lucky.
I wasn't going to join in this bashfest, but what the heck, with 6 straight 
losses, I'm not feeling very charitable - alhough I probably should, as 
this might increase the odds of the ownership's making some changes in the 
offseason.  Anyway...
Yeah, the guy has stumbled into some simple probability concepts by wildly 
stabbing around in the dark, but he has no idea he has just rediscovered 
the wheel. Don't say - things that are unlikely....don't happen very 
often?!! Things that ARE very likely happen more often than those that 
aren't?! Wow!  You're a few hundred years behind, buddy, but what the heck, 
most sportswriters can't even do that. Nominate him for a Fields Medal for 
these major "discoveries" in probability theory! Give him some funding! He 
might discover next that scoring more points in a game than the other team 
is perfectly correlated with your winning percentage.
Kestas